A/V Sync Issue in Latest XDR/nano Firmware at DVinfo.net

Mike Schell · December 3rd, 2009, 10:35 AM

We just discovered an audio/video sync problem in which the audio slowly drifts out of sync over time and may actually get corrupted.

Therefore we are temporarily pulling the latest firmware for the nano (1.1.150) and XDR (1.1.148) from the website until this issue is resolved (hopefully tomorrow). If you have a critical shoot we recommend that you roll-back to the previous version of firmware.

We apologize for any problems this may have caused. We are modifying our test procedures to do a more comprehensive test of A/V sync in the future.

Best-

Aaron Newsome · December 3rd, 2009, 12:52 PM

Mike, I think I might be experiencing this problem. I noticed audio out of sync for the first time since I've owned the XDR. It wasn't over a long period of time though, this was on a 30 minute recording!

I'm still not sure of the cause. I am going to do some testing RIGHT NOW. I have an important shoot coming up and I can't have this issue to worry about.

Can I downgrade firmware?

Mike Schell · December 3rd, 2009, 01:00 PM

Hi Aaron-
Yes, you can downgrade the firmware, no problem. We think the problem is now corrected, but will spend today in test, just to confirm. Hopefully we can post new code tomorrow.

Sorry for the headaches.

Best-

Aaron Newsome · December 3rd, 2009, 02:16 PM

Ok Mike, I've tested it. This is a serious issue and it's much worse than a couple of frames out of sync. I pointed my camera at the TV and let it fill up 4 cards. I took the 4th card and measured the the audio drift.

It's 128 frames at the HEAD of the card. I'd say that's a little more than a small drift problem. You should be notifying every single one of your customers about this ASAP.

I'm going to downgrade my XDR right now. I can't express how disappointed I am about this. I'd be even more disappointed if I had been working for a client and discovered this after a shoot had wrapped.

Mike Schell · December 3rd, 2009, 02:26 PM

Hi Aaron-
Understood, it appears the firmware fix is working properly. Hope to release tomorrow. We are sending an e-mail this afternoon to all the nano/XDR users.

I apologize for the problem.

Best-

Aaron Newsome · December 3rd, 2009, 04:11 PM

With all the vocal people we have on this forum, I'm really surprised that I'm the only person who posted in this thread.

Daniel Symmes · December 3rd, 2009, 05:19 PM

Perhaps we should wait for them to get home from work first???

Aaron Newsome · December 3rd, 2009, 05:54 PM

I'm just glad no one ruined a shoot because of this issue.

I've rolled back my XDR firmware and tested with a 2 hour continuous record and everything looks and sounds A ok.

Lance Librandi · December 3rd, 2009, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aaron Newsome

With all the vocal people we have on this forum, I'm really surprised that I'm the only person who posted in this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lance Librandi

Hello Dan,
I just complete a recording of a few show in SD and the visual quality was fantastic. I have just ingested my vision from the compact flash cards to discover my audio is 6 seconds behind the vision. Well after a lot of thought and looking at the setup the only thing that I can see that may have caused this is the prerecord buffer. I remember when the buffer was activated in case I missed a cue that the time code on the NanoFlash advanced by 6 seconds prior to recording. When playing back SD clips on the NanoFlash the time code is not present."
s

Hello Aaron,
I posted my problem with the audio sync issue on the 29th November in the MPEG-2 Audio Sync thread. I also advised CD by email of my issue while it was a problem I was also recording to Dvcam tape as I had not proven the system works with my hardware setup. I was able to still complete my work although I would have preferred the image quality of the Nano.

Aaron Newsome · December 3rd, 2009, 06:17 PM

Whoa Lance. I see that you did. I need to pay better attention to the forums from now on.

I've got a 10 day shoot for a short starting on MONDAY. It's a really low budget short but I can't imagine explaining to the client that their scratch tracks are really just that, scratch. They'll have to sync up their audio manually. That would not be a fun conversation and I'd probably even offer them some money back.

Lance Librandi · December 3rd, 2009, 06:42 PM

Hello Aaron,
I have found that the audio drift was not as bad with the prerecord buffer turned off but because the audio in channel two was intermittent and drifting at a different rate to channel one it was a nightmare to try to resync so it was quicker to re ingest from tape.

Aaron Newsome · December 3rd, 2009, 06:56 PM

Yeah I ruined a recording the other night and I wasn't sure what the cause was. It was an ingest from tape via an AJA component to SDI. No prerecord buffer but the audio was totally messed up. I figured it was my AJA component to SDI causing the problem and it's a pain to drag all that stuff out and hook it back up to try and track down what was going wrong.

At least now I don't have to.

Mike Schell · December 3rd, 2009, 09:09 PM

We passed all the A/V sync tests today with the new XDR/nano firmware. We did a number of short and long term tests. The audio stayed in sync and was not corrupted.

We have a few more tests tomorrow morning. Assuming everything passes, we will post the new code on Friday afternoon.

I apologize for the mistake. However, you will be happy to hear that HDMI pull-down removal is now working. We also added the 2:3:3:2 pull-down cadence (previously we only supported 2:3:2:3). Hopefully, we can now detect the pull-down cadence on the JVC 700 camera.

Loop recording, hot-swap and 8-channel audio are planned in the next major release.

Best-

Mark Job · December 3rd, 2009, 10:52 PM

HI Mike:
I'm glad you folks at CD were on top of this as quickly as you were. I did the firmware upgrade to this the other day and focused my testing on the new Jam Sync feature and not the audio testing. Please be advised that the Jam Sync feature is also not working on the XDR with 24 F but works well at 59.94i. I hope you folks will resolve the Jam Sync issue with 24 F soon.

Respectfully,

Dan Keaton · December 4th, 2009, 07:34 AM

Dear Mark,

Thank you for the report.

We will test this today.

December 3rd, 2009, 10:35 AM	#1
Mike Schell Convergent Design Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado Springs, CO Posts: 869	A/V Sync Issue in Latest XDR/nano Firmware We just discovered an audio/video sync problem in which the audio slowly drifts out of sync over time and may actually get corrupted. Therefore we are temporarily pulling the latest firmware for the nano (1.1.150) and XDR (1.1.148) from the website until this issue is resolved (hopefully tomorrow). If you have a critical shoot we recommend that you roll-back to the previous version of firmware. We apologize for any problems this may have caused. We are modifying our test procedures to do a more comprehensive test of A/V sync in the future. Best- __________________ Mike Schell Convergent Design

December 3rd, 2009, 01:00 PM	#3
Mike Schell Convergent Design Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado Springs, CO Posts: 869	Hi Aaron- Yes, you can downgrade the firmware, no problem. We think the problem is now corrected, but will spend today in test, just to confirm. Hopefully we can post new code tomorrow. Sorry for the headaches. Best- __________________ Mike Schell Convergent Design

December 3rd, 2009, 02:26 PM	#5
Mike Schell Convergent Design Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado Springs, CO Posts: 869	Hi Aaron- Understood, it appears the firmware fix is working properly. Hope to release tomorrow. We are sending an e-mail this afternoon to all the nano/XDR users. I apologize for the problem. Best- __________________ Mike Schell Convergent Design

December 3rd, 2009, 05:19 PM	#7
Daniel Symmes Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Los Angeles, CA U.S.A. Posts: 146	Perhaps we should wait for them to get home from work first??? __________________ nanoFlash Dealer \ nanoFlash 3D, AJA Kona 3G, DeckLink HD Extreme 3D +, Nuke 3D film/video production since 1972

December 3rd, 2009, 09:09 PM	#13
Mike Schell Convergent Design Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado Springs, CO Posts: 869	A/V Sync Issue Resolved We passed all the A/V sync tests today with the new XDR/nano firmware. We did a number of short and long term tests. The audio stayed in sync and was not corrupted. We have a few more tests tomorrow morning. Assuming everything passes, we will post the new code on Friday afternoon. I apologize for the mistake. However, you will be happy to hear that HDMI pull-down removal is now working. We also added the 2:3:3:2 pull-down cadence (previously we only supported 2:3:2:3). Hopefully, we can now detect the pull-down cadence on the JVC 700 camera. Loop recording, hot-swap and 8-channel audio are planned in the next major release. Best- __________________ Mike Schell Convergent Design

December 3rd, 2009, 12:52 PM	#2
Aaron Newsome Major Player Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Posts: 590	Mike, I think I might be experiencing this problem. I noticed audio out of sync for the first time since I've owned the XDR. It wasn't over a long period of time though, this was on a 30 minute recording! I'm still not sure of the cause. I am going to do some testing RIGHT NOW. I have an important shoot coming up and I can't have this issue to worry about. Can I downgrade firmware?

December 3rd, 2009, 02:16 PM	#4
Aaron Newsome Major Player Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Posts: 590	Ok Mike, I've tested it. This is a serious issue and it's much worse than a couple of frames out of sync. I pointed my camera at the TV and let it fill up 4 cards. I took the 4th card and measured the the audio drift. It's 128 frames at the HEAD of the card. I'd say that's a little more than a small drift problem. You should be notifying every single one of your customers about this ASAP. I'm going to downgrade my XDR right now. I can't express how disappointed I am about this. I'd be even more disappointed if I had been working for a client and discovered this after a shoot had wrapped.

December 3rd, 2009, 04:11 PM	#6
Aaron Newsome Major Player Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Posts: 590	With all the vocal people we have on this forum, I'm really surprised that I'm the only person who posted in this thread.

December 3rd, 2009, 05:54 PM	#8
Aaron Newsome Major Player Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Posts: 590	I'm just glad no one ruined a shoot because of this issue. I've rolled back my XDR firmware and tested with a 2 hour continuous record and everything looks and sounds A ok.

December 3rd, 2009, 06:17 PM	#10
Aaron Newsome Major Player Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Posts: 590	Whoa Lance. I see that you did. I need to pay better attention to the forums from now on. I've got a 10 day shoot for a short starting on MONDAY. It's a really low budget short but I can't imagine explaining to the client that their scratch tracks are really just that, scratch. They'll have to sync up their audio manually. That would not be a fun conversation and I'd probably even offer them some money back.

December 3rd, 2009, 06:42 PM	#11
Lance Librandi Major Player Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: South Australia Posts: 374	Hello Aaron, I have found that the audio drift was not as bad with the prerecord buffer turned off but because the audio in channel two was intermittent and drifting at a different rate to channel one it was a nightmare to try to resync so it was quicker to re ingest from tape.

December 3rd, 2009, 06:56 PM	#12
Aaron Newsome Major Player Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Posts: 590	Yeah I ruined a recording the other night and I wasn't sure what the cause was. It was an ingest from tape via an AJA component to SDI. No prerecord buffer but the audio was totally messed up. I figured it was my AJA component to SDI causing the problem and it's a pain to drag all that stuff out and hook it back up to try and track down what was going wrong. At least now I don't have to.

December 3rd, 2009, 10:52 PM	#14
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	Glad CD Was On Top of This One HI Mike: I'm glad you folks at CD were on top of this as quickly as you were. I did the firmware upgrade to this the other day and focused my testing on the new Jam Sync feature and not the audio testing. Please be advised that the Jam Sync feature is also not working on the XDR with 24 F but works well at 59.94i. I hope you folks will resolve the Jam Sync issue with 24 F soon. Respectfully,

December 4th, 2009, 07:34 AM	#15
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Mark, Thank you for the report. We will test this today. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia Last edited by Dan Keaton; December 4th, 2009 at 10:07 AM.