Audio stuttering and pops on PPro Timeline

[Bill Engeler]

Hi -

I'm having with problem with audio on the timeline for PPro - AspectHD projects. I submited a ticket, but haven't heard anything yet. PPro CS3 3.2. The system is new, a Q9450 on an ASUS P5E motherboard, and 4GB memory. The video card is an 8800GT. The footage is PAL 50i from an XHA1.

The picture is ok, it's only an audio problem, and only on preview, as everything exports fine. I have no other problems using the SoundMax card that came with the MB. In HDV or DV projects I don't have this problem, only with Cineform projects. The first glitch usually occurs after about 10 seconds, then the sound stutters and/or pops once every 4 seconds or so afterwards. There is no problem with exported files. In a timeline without video, only audio, the problem is not present. Using the Windows task manager, I don't see any memory or cpu usage spikes when the problem happens.

I've reinstalled Premiere and Aspect, but the problem remains. I also tried putting the video files on a non-RAID disk, but this didn't make a difference. I tried another sound card, no difference. Does anybody have any insight on this?

[Richard Leadbetter]

I have this problem too. Audio stutters, pops or drops completely after around 10 seconds of play. I thought it was because I was running 1080p60 streams which are not officially supported by Prospect HD (I adapt the 1080p30 preset by changing the frame rate). But then I had a similar issue with 720p60 which had no audio playback at all and requires far less decoding effort.

In all cases, the export is absolutely fine, it's just playing on the timeline that is the issue.

System is:

ASUS P5E WS Pro
XP SP3
2GB RAM
3x500GB HDD in RAID-0 with 80GB system drive
ATI graphics card
CS3 with ProspectHD

[Bill Engeler]

Hmmmm -

I'm still waiting for a reply from Cineform, so I'm playing amateur detective here. You and have almost the same motherboard. I have a P5E. I updated the BIOS the other day, but it made no difference. I'm using Aspect HD - I don't know how similar they are under the hood.

Looking at other posts here and at Adobe, it think that the stuttering and the dropouts might be different issues, because the dropouts seem very common, while the sound stuttering and popping isn't. I installed everything on my older, Pentium 5 based PC as a test, and there was no stuttering.

I would be very interested in Cineform seeing if they can duplicate the problem, using a P5E board, PPro CS3 and XP SP3.

My system:

ASUS P5E Q9450
XP SP3
4GB RAM (same problem with 2GB)
Media drive: 2x500 in onboard RAID 0 (but I tested on non-raid drive and had same problem)
nVideo 8800GT
CS3, Aspect HD

[Tim Bucklin]

Hi Bill,

Where are your projects stored? Remember that when a file is imported into Premiere, the audio is conformed and those resulting files are stored where the PPro project file is located.

So, in your test of moving the source clips to a different drive, the resulting conformed audio files may not have moved at all.

Just a shot in the dark here; we're going to see if any of our machines have that mobo, but I don't think any do off the top of my head. I think ours all have Intel mobos.

Jake's working on your ticket I believe, but I thought I should chime in here too.

[Bill Engeler]

Hi Tim - Thanks for the reply. All my captured Video and Audio are on the RAID G:, and the Audio Previews (this is the conformed audio, no?) and media cache are on my E: drive, not RAID, but a new 500GB Samsung 7200rpm SATA disk, in the same folder as the project file.

When I tried not using the RAID, I created a whole new project, so any conformed files should have been freshly conformed. I could a try a new project on the C: drive just to see what happens. I'll let you know, but I'm doubtful it's a disk problem.

As long as I have your attention, there is another bug I've noticed - I don't know if it's related at all: When I lock an audio track on a timeline, performance takes a huge hit. Maybe this is just a Premiere bug, but since it involves the audio too, I thought I'd let you know.

Thanks again for all the help.

[Stuart Martindale]

Hi, did you find a resolution to this? I have exactly the same problem. Some sections of the timeline work better than others and I think it gets worse when combined with clips with effects applied (but not so much so that I would like to say for sure).

[Bill Engeler]

Hi Stuart,

I'm afraid my resolution to the problem has been to edit HDV, and forget about Cineform for now. Cineform support contacted me twice, but not since. I suggested they try to replicate the problem, but they said they didn't have a similar MB to mine. I would like to find a way to use Aspect.

Just curious - what motherboard and processor are you using? Mine is an Asus P5E and Q9450. My hunch is the problem is somewhere there, since I've tried changing most everything else; and my laptop doesn't do it, with almost all the same software.

Bill Engeler
wsfilm.be

[Stuart Martindale]

I'm using an (old now) asus a8n-sli. To be honest I reckon it's probably a system performance issue, HDV does tax my system (especially the 1080p50 projects I've been using) but it does seem strange that whilst video plays back fine the audio goes almost instantly I try to preview.

Cineform doesn't seem to provide much of a performance advantage to me over editing hdv (though I couldn't create 50p projects with that using my 50i deinterlaced footage too well sticking with mpeg, but then not being able to preview audio makes that pretty tricky for me too...)

Interestingly certain specific clip instances seems to have an effect (even if they are in a part of the time line away from the region being previewed) removing them can sometimes sort playback for the whole sequence.

[Stuart Martindale]

I think I have tied the problem down to rendering the timeline.

I have a project which would playback fine. There were a couple of clips with a effects which needed rendering (would just show a red cross on playback) but audio and video play fine all the way through the sequence. After rendering for those clips which need it the audio would stop after about 8 seconds. Starting preview at different point then provides various lengths of playback before the audio ends up sticking (like a stuck cd) but it always does after a pretty short time.

I deleted the preview files and dropped the project into a new one. Back to playing fine (with the clips needing rendering). Render the timeline, back to the same audio problems.

I've tried having the preview files on the same raid0 drive as the footage and on a seperate drive (and having the project in both places) doesn't seem to make any difference. Any idea what's going on? Can I just not render the timeline for preview playback?

[Herman Van Deventer]

Same problem solved ?

Started 2 years ago on Cineform on a rigg with Soundmax as integrated motherboard utility.

Had the same problems fixed with a dedicated Creative 5.1 soundcard.

80 % of my work evolves around producing music video's.

Never had any problems again.

[Stuart Martindale]

Hmm... my audio currently comes via an e-mu0404 and the motherboard audio is disabled. Could be an issue with the soundcard/drivers but I don't think so (the fact that rendering the time line changes the audio issue seems to suggest something else to me?)

[Stuart Martindale]

Further investigation reveals that the rendered preview files are actually longer than the original footage. They seem to have a duplicate frame a frame from the end.

If I take the preview files and drop them on the timeline, at the end of the rendered clip (which gets 4 preview files) the preview and original are 4 frames apart. I can see that why this might upset the sync of video and audio.

Is that normal behaviour? Is that likely to be the cause of the problems? If so is there anything I can do about it (other than never rendering anything on the timeline?)

[Herman Van Deventer]

Trying to help -

Adobe Help file -

interleave Specify how often audio information is inserted among the video frames in the exported file. See your capture-card documentation for the recommended setting. A value of 1 frame means that when a frame is played back, the audio for the duration of that frame is loaded into RAM so that it can play until the next frame appears. If the audio breaks up when playing, the interleave value may be causing the computer to process audio more frequently than it can handle. Increasing the value lets Adobe Premiere Pro store longer audio segments that need to be processed less often, but higher interleave values require more RAM. Most current hard disks operate best with a 1/2- to 1-second interleave value.

[Rich Perry]

I had a simular problem and never really got a fix from cineform although they gave great support, they could not pin the issue down.

I am now using another audio driver called ASIO4ALL - ASIO4ALL.
see: ASIO4ALL - Universal ASIO Driver

If you engage this driver. It overlays the original audio driver that is installed and stops the skipping, it was the only solution for me - hope that helps.

[Gary Brun]

I use the same driver as Rich and it works fine.