If scene is totally dark, audio is choppy, repeatable issue

[suemccartin]

I've had roxio 10 for awhile. I don't remember this problem occuring until recently (i.e. the last year). I have tried installing the package on two different computers and the same problem occurs on each system. I have also tried four or five different movies and the problem occurs on each and every burn. The puzzling part is that when the dvd is previewed, the sections with the choppy audio play perfectly, but when burned, the audio is choppy on ANY totally black scene in the movie (and yes I've tried the same disc on several players...all the same).

 

I have several movies to burn that have black backgrounds with white text and music playing in the background, those beginning parts of each movie always have choppy audio, once the actual movie begins (i.e. background is not black anymore) then the problem goes away until the next black background in the course of the movie. This is annoying and I don't remember this issue until recently.

 

Both systems are AMD machines, two different brands of motherboard, one is AM2+ and the other now has an AM3 phenom dual core cpu in it. Both machines have 4 gig of ram and plenty of hard drive space (and I did try purging the cache several times). Both systems have in common a soundblaster audigy sound card (yeah it's old but it works and sounds great so I'm not ditching them if I don't have to).

 

Each system has different video cards. My desktop has sli dual video (Nvidia), Roxio has never been able to hardware render on that machine, only software (why?). The other system started out with another Nvidia card but I recently upgraded to a Saphire ATI radeon 7770(?) video card with 1 meg ram and it can now hardware render (card is crossfire ready but that system has only one pcie x16 slot). I've tried defragging the hard disk on both machines.

 

As I said, both systems have the same issue. I'm sort of thinking maybe the sound cards may have something to do with this issue since they are similar models.

 

OS=XP 64 bit professional (based on server 2003), predecessor to vista (yuck)

AMD processors

Gigabyte motherboard and foxconn made motherboard

AM2+ and AM3 phenom x2 processor

Nvidia 9200 video cards, ATI Radeon 7770, video card

Soundblaster Live

 

Any ideas?

 

 

 

[suemccartin]

I popped the new soundblaster xtreme pcie (yeah the cheapest one) in the system (needed the old pci slot for another card anyway so no loss really). I also shut off adaware and the antivirus (Avast...which is common on both systems as well..hmm should I try a different antivirus or rip this one off entirely?)....no change, same result, perhaps the skipping audio issue is a little less than before but not much. I'm starting to wonder if this could be some sort of codec issue. I saw a couple of posts online about issues with netframework...supposedly now resolved. I like roxio but this is just nuts about to go back to nero in desperation, I don't think I've ever seen this go on with that package (but the last version was such a mess, every update screwed it up not updated it). I have BS player (free) installed on the machine to play all the wildest file formats, it downloads ffdshow and a couple of other sound codecs..........beginning to wonder if the audio codecs installed might be some of the issue.......... Is anyone else that isn't having the skipping issue running ffdshow or have bs player installed (which presumably would have downloaded ffdshow at some point). Where can i find a list of audio codecs installed....tell me I'll list them here for comparison reasons.

[sknis]

suemccartin

 

Thank you for the complete trouble shooting that you did and the description of your computers. It gives us a lot to think about.

 

I just noticed that you have an NVidia 9200 video card on one of the computers. This is grasping at straws but several people have complained about displays of primarily slide show with that card. You may want to search these forums. If I remember , the solution was to roll back the video drivers to an earlier version. I'm not sure how the video card would affect the audio except that if it was having a problem with encoding the dark areas that it may grab all the CPU time and slow down the audio also but not by the same amount.

 

Have you encoded the movie to an ISO file and then loaded that ISO to a virtual drive so it can be played on your computer? Do you see the hesitations? If you see the hesitations, then it may be what you think it is. If you don't, perhaps there is a communication problem with your burner.

 

Oh, and what brand of discs are you using? Memorex and store brands are not very good. Verbatim and JVC (Taiyo Yuden) are considered very good. Quality of others may vary depending on the pack and origin.

 

Since you have two separate computers and have the same problem on both, that makes it difficult to diagnose. I'll ask some friends.

[sknis]

Did you try what was suggested in post 5 of this thread (simple test).

[Jim_Hardin]

I tried a fairly simple one like this:

 

 

I could not get any interruption in audio anything!

 

Both internal text as well as overlay text was tried and I used both Software as well as Hardware render… Nothing???

 

Without some project details from suemccartin, testing is at a dead end.

[suemccartin]

More information, I was hoping that upgrading to Roxio Creator Pro 2010 would help with the choppy audio issue, in some ways it actually seems to be worse! Both computers run XP64 bit OS. The 2nd machine has been upgraded with a Phenom XII 3.0 gig cpu but is otherwise the same machine that creator 10 was running on. Before the beginning of the movie was the only place the choppy audio was occuring, now it's happening anywhere in the movie where there is white text on a black background. I believe that something microsoft upgraded at some point since the release of creator 10 is creating this issue. Xp 64 is not the most widely used Operating system but if roxio is going to claim support for that OS they need to fix this issue.

[suemccartin]

I tried a fairly simple one like this:

 

 

I could not get any interruption in audio anything!

 

Both internal text as well as overlay text was tried and I used both Software as well as Hardware render… Nothing???

 

Without some project details from suemccartin, testing is at a dead end.

 

Ok, what we're trying to burn is a bitorrent Terminator movie (yes of questionable legality) with no copy guard on it. It already has a sound track on it. The problem occuring is audio that cuts out during dark scenes when the movie is played on a standalone player, and before anyone suggests that the player has insufficient buffers, it does this on a fairly expensive and not too old panasonic jukebox player (with scandoubling tech) and a brand new vhs/dvd unit that was just bought at walmart in the last month. The file does not have the skipping audio issue when the files are played on the computer. I've tried playing the burned dvd's on a computer and they skip there too.

 

I have tried burning normally, and creating an iso file and burning from that, the iso file actually seems a bit worse. There are a number of tv shows from the same source that work fine....We've made this movie with standard tv square box and 16:9 letterbox. I've read some things about changing audio setup in roxio but for for whatever reason all of that is grayed out...i.e. I have no choice of audio settings in roxio. I'm starting to wonder if the installation of BS player may have loaded up some incompatible codecs or somesuch, I have seen a few posts on the net about roxio having issues with some audio codecs. BS player installs ffdshow and a couple of other common codecs, on my second primarily burning machine I did get a message from ffdshow about roxio was not whitelisted with their codec controller. Would like to fix this (and no we aren't planning to be pirates or anything in case anyone is thinking that, this for our own non-commercial use).

[Jim_Hardin]

Ok, what we're trying to burn is a bitorrent Terminator movie (yes of questionable legality) with no copy guard on it...

 

No question – It is illegal!

 

and with that the topic is locked…

 

Glad to answer or work with any legitimate problem, but this is not one.

 

[sknis]

Are your audio and audio drivers up to date on both machines?

Are you doing anythng else during the long encoding process?

Have you defragged your hard drives lately?

What kind of audio files (format)? If they are other than wav files, convert them to wav files before you add them to Video Wave.

Do you have the audio file on the same drive as the program?

Are you adding the text to the internal track or the main text track?

 

I'm sorry but I cannot reproduce your issue with Creator 2010 on my Vista Ultimate 64 computer.

 

Perhaps if you can tell us how you are creating the drak panel and adding the text, we can try to reproduce the issue.

[suemccartin]

Are your audio and audio drivers up to date on both machines?

Are you doing anythng else during the long encoding process?

Have you defragged your hard drives lately?

What kind of audio files (format)? If they are other than wav files, convert them to wav files before you add them to Video Wave.

Do you have the audio file on the same drive as the program?

Are you adding the text to the internal track or the main text track?

 

I'm sorry but I cannot reproduce your issue with Creator 2010 on my Vista Ultimate 64 computer.

 

Perhaps if you can tell us how you are creating the drak panel and adding the text, we can try to reproduce the issue.

 

1. Yes, all audio and video drivers are up to date on both systems, as well as all windows updates.

2. On the main desktop I might check my email or surf a little during a burn but nothing more intensive than that. The second machine was built specifically to run roxio and burn dvd's so I can use my main box for gaming etc. I think bitorrent may be running on that Burning Box but I have tried shutting that down..... Someone in here suggested perhaps antivirus causing issue, shut that down, I've also got "adaware" running (free one on second machine, paid one on desktop) and have tried shutting that down as well--no change.

3. I'm not mixing separate audio and video, these are home movies taken off a camcorder or other wise movies that already have audio tracks on them. Not adding any text other than the menu, maybe I should try burning a dvd with no menu to see what happens? I have two somewhat new standalone DVD players, one is an off-brand region hacked machine and the second one is a nice (somewhat expensive) Panasonic jukebox player with the scan doubler function for playing standard dvds on a newer flat panel (and for the life of me I can't remember what they call that function). The Panasonic is also pretty new, have no problems playing commercial dvd's at all. I might buy what someone said about the player not having the buffers to have the information except that a lot of the older movies (with similar fps, audio formats etc.) I've burned play perfectly, just not new stuff on the same players!

 

Well the fact that you don't have this on vista 64 is reassuring because xp64 is the younger cousin of your os. The 2010 Roxio takes advantage of some functions in the ATI card that improve rendering speed, I've tried turning that on and off also...no change.

 

I just ordered another sound card, it's about the only thing other than the OS that both systems have in common. I think I may try putting roxio on my last machine still running xp 32 bit to see if it occurs there too. That machine is using the built in sound on a socket 939 motherboard. I'm also in the process of rebuilding an ancient socket 754 system but that one is also on xp64, but not AM2 or 3 which are really quite similar in many ways even if the one is a phenom. I'm hoping the different sound card may be the issue, guess I could also pop out the soundblaster on one box and turn on the onboard sound...just grasping at straws here now but this mess ruins my movies and if I want to sell anything this problem must get cured because no one will buy work with issues like this.

 

It's very weird, doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason. I've tried looking at the stats of the problem files don't see any obvious differences in the fps or the size of the frame or the audio version or any such thing as that.....i.e. they're all over the place, I don't see anything consistent in the movies that are a problem vs. the ones that aren't.

 

Personally, I think microsoft broke something since it didn't happen till about year ago and now it does. Aggh keep swapping and experimenting. My friend has a AM3 with xp32 on it for compatibility with software reasons, I didn't think about trying a burn on his machine when I was up there, may take that file along on a thumb drive and see if it happens on his box too.

 

Lastly, I'm not creating the dark panel, it's part of the movie, i.e. the camera already put in the fades or it was already otherwise in the movie. This is a complete movie I'm having issues with, not something I created or edited myself.

 

One last thing, I tried shutting off indexing on the drive(s) just in case maybe that had anything to do with it; no change.

[bimicher]

...

I have several movies to burn that have black backgrounds with white text and music playing in the background, those beginning parts of each movie always have choppy audio, once the actual movie begins (i.e. background is not black anymore) then the problem goes away until the next black background in the course of the movie. This is annoying and I don't remember this issue until recently.

 

Any ideas?

 

Simple test. Create a small project, insert a few black panels, add some text to panels as well as audio. Burn to DVD (use RW for tests) and see if the problem also occurs. This is to check if somehow the movie you are adding is causing the problems.

 

Another test is to burn to an iso file and load that into a virtual drive and play that.