the first test should be to capture forma DIFFERENT tape (maybe record the TV for a few hours, a music vid?), maybe a brand new tape?

then maybe a brand new tape in a different player (if you have one) exclude your hardware as a possible cause. Without doing this SoFo arent in a position to assist a lot IF this is a completely unique problem.

If this has ben reported by others, depending on how they resolved it, or what equipment they used or the process they used to diagnose it, again, its going to be up to you to remove those componants from the equation.

I capture from VHS on a analog card. I've noticed that I get minor problems when the tape isn't in SP mode (in SLP, EP, etc.) Audio/video it out of sync, etc. But, i've never really lost anything. Could it be possible no audio was dropped, but a pause in the recording? This would make the audio complete, but in the middle of a sound it would go blank for a second or so and then continue.

Begbie's idea of trying a different tape is a good idea.

What capture program are you using? Just vidcap? Try this one: iuVCR from www.iulabs.com. It reports the number of frames captured, dropped, framerate, size, etc. The demo works for 30 days. Maybe it's a bug in Vidcap. Maybe your audio drivers not able to keep up with your video?

There was definitely an audio dropout problem in the earlier version of 4.0. I had it on one of my Vegas-equipped computers, and Vegas acknowledged the problem. That problem did not occur during render; just during playback from the timeline.

That problem was fixed in 4.0d, but there are still problems.

Yesterday I was putting together a wedding tribute video. It has lots of MP3 audio files mixed together on three different audio tracks. During certain combinations of video and audio transitions, when playing back on the timeline with video quality set to Draft, the audio just stops completely. If I stop the video at that location by pressing Enter, and then restart it, the audio resumes playing. This appears to be a processing overload problem which Vegas is not handling as gracefully as it used to.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.
This isn't a new problem. It's just new since Vegas 4.0. I have upgraded first to 4.0c and then to 4.0d and the problem persists. It can happen in different places on different tapes and is inconsistent and definitely NOT on the tape/s. I have processed too many of them for that to be the problem. The glitches are not on the video portion. Only on the audio portion. I haven't made any changes in my system since Vegas 2.0d except to add more hard drives when I was using Vegas 3.0c and the problem didn't occur then. It occurred without any changes whatsoever except to upgrade to 4.0. I run a proprietary system for video editing only to avoid such problems and to be able to pinpoint errors more readily. When you stretch out the timeline you can see the audio flatline in the spot where you hear the glitch. Capture it again and it may or may not appear but if it does appear it will be in a different spot. The problem is in the software or how the software now addresses the hardware or the OS.

John

Craftech,
that's certainly would seem to absolve the recording / tapes as being an issue. If I understand what you're saying correctly you are able to recover the situation although it would be better if you didn't have to. I'd imagine also that its something that you could easily miss yourself without listening carefully to the entire capture, if it was happening to me I'd certainly be mighty unhappy.

I'd say your last sentence is correct. SoFo may have changed either the capture code or something else that is interacting differently with your hardware / OS to bring about this problem.

When these audio dropouts occur are they always of the same duration?
I'm way out of my depth here as I'm far from conversant with exactly how the data is recorded on either the tape or in an AVI file but I'm guessing your loosing a whole frame (or field) of audio. Even though the audio appears as something continuous on the timeline I assume its recorded muxed with each frame or field. Capture isn't reporting a dropped frame because it didn't drop a frame of video but somehow a frames woth of audio wasn't written to the disk.

You mentioned in the previous thread that you were running Win98SE, is that still the case? Win2K at least would seem a better choice. Also when you do recapture you say you don't get the dropouts or if you do they occur in a different place. When you recapture do you overwrite the old file? If not then the HDs are doing something slightly different second time around, maybe that's some clue as to what's going on.

I'd be curious to see if an alternative capture program like ScenalyzerLive suffered the same issue. It's a free download and though the trial version puts a watermark on random frames, the trial is fully functional.

Win98SE ?

Also, elimentry i know, but do you have anti virus or network connection or similar running?

Maybe you need to think about using an NT based system, even aside from this specific issue, win98se is not reknowned as a stable dev environment.

Are you using the task scheduler in 98 at all?

Windows 98SE was the OS before the problem started and was there when the problem started. I have been holding on to a full version of Windows XP Professional for well over a year, I won't install it because I see far more posts indicating problems encountered with Windows XP than I ever did with Windows 98SE. The problems began with Vegas 4.0. The audio dropouts are not dropped frames. They are areas where the audio gain momentarily drops to 0 on both channels while the corresponding video frame remains perfectly normal. If one stretches out the timeline one can see the flatline on the audio where it drops. It is not a dropout in the sense that a frame disappears. The frame is there and the flatline in the audio is in synch with the video. The duration may range from a fraction of a second to a second.

I do not have antivirus software installed on that computer, nor is the computer online when I capture or edit, nor are any tasks running except for Systray and Explorer. Even the mouseware is disabled. I use a firewall, but I disable it when I capture of edit or PTT.

It is not the OS itself unless perhaps SF has done something to make Vegas unfriendly to W98SE. If I had to guess, I would say that the problem could occur with any OS.

As far as working around it, that is only possible if I am editing a production which spans several nights. In this particular case it was only a single performance. I will just recapture until it either does not occur or until it occurs in a silent spot. If it interrupts a singer's voice (as was the case in the first capture attempt) it is unacceptable. It would be unacceptable for a JHS production, let alone a final production by students graduating from a BFA program in Musical Theatre.

Hi craftech,

I have the same problem (The audio drop is exactly one frame length, there is no video drop).
This occure very seldom, but i have this problem with all my capture program and OS (Premiere6 or Vegas3 or 4, Win98se and WinXP).
In many case, i solved this problem by selected « Real Time » in the Task Manager (in French : Gestionnaire des taches > Processus > définir la priorité > temps réel).
Hope this help you.

Ps : sorry for my poor english, i am french.

Craftech,
sorry I still don't have the magic bullet but why do keep recapturing the whole thing?

I'd keep the first capture even if its got the odd hole in it. Then just capture the bits with dropped audio. Ditch the video from those and patch the audio, just drop it into a second audio track and do a very quick xfade between them, I haven't tried this myslef but you should be able to edit the audio at the uSecond level so cut where the wavform crosses the zero point and you'll never hear it even if its in the middle of a song.

Just seems a quicker and far less frustrating way to go, recapturing the whole thing and again checking for dropouts... you're more patient than me!

I only offer here some ideas I would try - I don't know your system spec and haven't read your previous posts so please ignore anything that doesn't apply to you..

I take it you are capturing digitally and not through an analogue-digital capture card. I had problems in the past with a-d conversion with skipped audio and frames. Solved that by running the footage through a tbc - time based corrector unit.

Windows xp - For many reasons this is the way to go - updated CODECS, better file system and use of resources etc. The main advantage is to run NTFS instead of FAT32. This instantly lets you save files as large as you want on your hard drive as one file with no tricks - 100GB file anyone??
You mentioned capturing 50 minutes of footage.. That sounds dodgy to me - at least with FAT32 and windows 98... Most video programs handle this (if at all in some cases!) by saving the footage into multiple parts each under 2GB... not the most optimal way of handling things and MAY cause problems with dropouts on drives that are not defragmented fully.
Is your hardware up to running windows xp? Is it up to running win98? What I mean by this is.. Vegas 4 needs bigger resources than version 3 ever did - if win98 was ok with v3 it may not be anymore with v4 - it might just tip the balance leading to your dropouts.

Interrupts - are any IRQ's sharing? Try moving your pci cards around - sometimes especially on windows98 IRQ problems could lead to systems "freezing" for a few milliseconds to service interrupts - showing up as loss of signal when a program tries to capture...

Hardware..

Is your hard disk up to the capturing job - 7200 rpm or 5400 rpm?? Maybe the speed is just borderline or was borderline before and is now causing problems.. Defragging the drive may help also..
Are you sharing IDE cables with any cd rom devices?? This will slow down the hard disk quite considerably... Set drives as master on their own cable.
Can't do that due to the number of cdrom devices you have?? You need a PCI IDE disk controller card - around £30 where I live. Put all your hard drives on that as masters and your cdroms as masters on your motherboards IDE interfaces..

Overall, my main advice is to back everything up and if you are sure your hardware is up to it - scrub your system and put on a FRESH copy of windows xp running NTFS. Load back on vegas and do all windows updates that are available from the update site at Microsoft.
Vegas 4 is certainly aimed at (and more optimized for running on) Windows XP than older OS's such as w98se...
Bite the bullet - worth a try..

If your hardware is modern - you won't have any issues with Windows XP.
Your main problem may be running OLDER software designed for windows 98.
Upgrade and move on...

Hope this gives you an idea or two to try..

Best Of Luck - an annoying problem for sure.

Steve McDonald.

Cratech, The problem wasn't there in Win98SE, then later it was. Can you say nothing had changed in your system between it not being there and appearing ? Not new apps installed, Win updates, new hardware, drivers, etc ?

If your hardware is supported, there has NEVER been a reason to prefer 98SE over XP. Even from XP Day One. Have you applied the normal tweaks to Windows for real-time streaming applications; disabled AV, network, scheduling, screen-savers, unnecessary applets, etc ?

geoff

John:
I too was skeptical of XP Pro until I installed it in one of my computers.
It has performed flawlessly and more stable than Win2k pro which is in my
other three computers. Microsoft does not understand why people are using
Win2k for video and are forcing you to eventually switch to XP by installing
all new technology in XP only (hyperthreading and SATA). XP also has
the newest APCI control system which manages IRQ'S better than Win2k
and makes win98se look like a model "T" ford. Do not hesitate to install XP
as it will make you very happy.

JJK

I know this isn't the SF answer to your problem, but, in a pinch, couldn't you jot down the areas of the capture that have dropped audio, and just recapture (and resynchronize) those few sections? Since you indicate that the dropouts are not always in the same place, it is likely that a subsequent capture of just those areas will come thru fine. This way you don't have to keep doing a full tape capture over and over again.

Have you determined if the dropouts occur at even intervals? For example, a droput every 60 seconds, or 45 seconds, etc?

Or are they at random intervals?

If you can capture correctly with Vesion 3 of Vidcap, then use that to capture the media stand alone. Vidcap version 3 can coexit on the same system with Version 4.0.

Peter

Maybe I'll try that suggestion Peter.

Thanks for all the other suggestions guys. Perhaps I will try Windows XP Pro after I finish this video. Also some of you are right in suggesting I re-capture only the affected areas and then synch the clip to the footage.

The whole thing is just really annoying, that's all.

John

Time to resurrect this.

Has Vegas 5.0 solved this problem?

John