Audio Problem in Prem. Pro

[Jason Leonard]

Hey all,
i am having an audio problem that is turning my mind to poop.
It’s an obnoxious audio pop that sometimes goes channel to channel without any pattern. it's not a constant issue, just an occasional one, however it seems to have gotten worse and i cant find the cause.

here's the play by play:
-i capture my video and all is fine.
-i drop said video into the timeline and the file does it's conforming business.
-i play the clip and notice intermittent popping (actually more of a loud electronic noise that has become emotionally jarring).
-i open the file in windows media player to double check that its not bad production sound and everything is fine. no noise, no problem.

this seems to be happening more often now, although i haven’t done anything with my settings. i can't understand the issue.

the set up is a 64 bit intel 3.8 ghz processor, 1 gig of ram, an 80 gig drive for program files and a 320 gig external usb 2.0 hard drive for the video and project files.

looking for someone that can make sense of this problem....slowly loosing my mind over this and i need to know if i should start panicking now.

thanks in advance for all your help!

[Harm Millaard]

It may be your disk setup. A single USB drive may be the bottleneck. Better add an internal SATA disk.

[Jason Leonard]

but if its some kind of bottleneck problem than why would the video files be fine when played back on windows media player? and why would the problem seem to be getting worse? the footage that was captured to that drive earlier is working fine.
i ran a diagnostic test on both the external and internal hard drives and they both come up clean.
i am at a total stand still with this project right now and its driving me bat poop.

[Colin Pearce]

I had all sorts of intermittent pops & crackles in sound. My problem also was getting worse. It turned out that one of my hard drives was not connected properly and had very low data speed. You can download a program called HWiNFO32 off the internet, which will tell you all sorts of things about your system's performance (this made my problem crystal clear).

I suspect that Windows Media Player can play it better because it's a comparatively small program, which does not take up much resources.

What speed is the internal drive? What speed is the USB drive? What speed is the USB port - "full-speed" (which actually means 12Mbps) or "high-speed" (480Mbps)? Are there any other things hanging off your USB ports? An external USB drive is not an ideal solution for video editing.

Are you running out of RAM? Go into Task Manager and on the Performance tab you will see the Peak at the bottom left. This should be less that the Total Physical Memory, otherwise you need more RAM.

[Jon Jaschob]

Hi,
I would check the audio card drivers. Also, not much info on what your doing. I have had audio "glitches" in my time line, but I'm cutting HD and using cineform and there were problems with the audio. If your using a sound card onboard the motherboard, your just asking for problems. Also check to see what your audio settings are in PPro. I would suggest, like the others to use at least a firewire ex-hard drive, so next time you can afford it, do it.
Hope this is of some help.
Cheers,
Jon

[K.C. Luke]

Since you are using external usb 2.0 hard drive for the video and project files. Why not try loaded into the system with SATA driver if is and run internal HD drive. It may smooth playing. I just start off edit PP CS3 I don't found any problem. My system Dell 5150 32bit intel only with 2GB RAM.

[Jason Leonard]

hey all,
thanks for the helpful suggestions so far.
i havent run that diagnostic program that was suggested yet but i'm all over it when i get back to the computer tonight.

before i bought this hard drive i research(mostly on this board) firewire vs. usb and from what i had gathered i made the correct decision. it all seemed comparable and i felt pretty good about the decision.
i am just hoping that i dont have a bum drive here.

why would it work at one time but not now? i have used this setup for a few months and never experienced any other problems, why now?
and why will the source video play fine in other programs?

i dont have an integrated mobo or anything so i guess i can swap sound cards...i just dont get it.

oh, and i've checked all the connections and all seems to be fine.

anyone got anything else, or i am doomed to accept the responsibility of making a bonehead move and buying the wrong HD?
if anyone can think of anything that may fix this problem without costing money or doing anything destructive i would greatly appreciate it.
there is a big project at risk here.
thanks for your help in this, my darkest of hours.

[Harm Millaard]

Originally Posted by Jason Leonard

before i bought this hard drive i research(mostly on this board) firewire vs. usb and from what i had gathered i made the correct decision. it all seemed comparable and i felt pretty good about the decision.

You got the best price, but unfortunately also the worst performer. Fire wire is significantly faster and eSATA is just the best interface, performance wise. Fragmentation, fill rate and other USB components all play a major role in the performance, which is not too good to start with. First defragment the drive, then make sure the fill rate is below 60%, if not remove files till you meet that fill rate, defragment again and disconnect other USB devices, because they all share the available bandwidth.