Audio Gaps

craftech wrote on 5/20/2003, 4:24 PM
I never had this problem with VV3 on the same machine with the same configuration.
I have just finished a musical and it is full of audio dropouts (flatline areas of .01 seconds or more).
It is the first project I have completed since upgrading to VV4. It is 2Hrs and 11 Minutes which is a typical project length for me. I usually edit Act 1 and Act 2 seperately, then join them into a single Veg file for creating a DV master which will feed a VHS rack. I was going to try DVDA to create a DVD of each act but I haven't gotten that far.
I upgraded from 4.0 to 4.0c while I was working on this project and didn't notice any problems until I played it back. I recaptured and tried it again and the same thing happened. None of the gaps are in the camera footage.
I have rebuilt peaks but the problem just recurs.
I searched past posts, but did not find a solution suggested except the usual stuff blaming the computer configuration, or IRQ's, or "Did you defrag?"

No changes have been made on my computer except that I have installed VV4 and DVDA and applied the most recent updates. I did not have this problem using VV3.

I am running W98SE same as before when I was using VV3. The troubleshooting section of Vegas Help suggested Rendering to a New Track. I have never done that, but it seems that it will only copy the gaps over to the new track. They are visible in at least 10 places on the timeline.

Anyone have any ideas.

Thanks,
John

Comments

craftech wrote on 5/20/2003, 6:59 PM
Anyone had this problem lately?

John
jetdv wrote on 5/20/2003, 7:02 PM
Go to Options - Preferences to the Editing Tab. Change the "Quick Fade Length for Audio Events" to ONE (it won't go to zero). Otherwise, every time you split, you will get a brief sound dropout.
craftech wrote on 5/20/2003, 7:29 PM
It's not at the splits. It's here and there with no particular pattern. I wonder if I should have uninstalled VV3 first although I understand it wasn't necessary and I didn't uninstall VV2 before I installed VV3.

craftech wrote on 5/21/2003, 5:08 AM
If no one has an answer, does anyone know how to fill in a bunch of gaps in the music?(sounds impossible)
John
mcgeedo wrote on 5/21/2003, 7:39 AM
Are the gaps in the rendered AVI, before you print to DV tape? If so, then I can't help. But if the rendered AVI has NO gaps, and the gaps appear on your printed DV tape, then I have had the same problem. In my case, it was that the hard disk and CPU are just barely keeping up with the firewire print, and sometimes miss. On a long print-to-tape, I always defrag first, to make it easier for the hard disk to keep up. I know that "defrag" is a very common answer, but in this case it really is important, at least if you have a non-rocket computer like me.
mikkie wrote on 5/21/2003, 1:26 PM
"I have never done that, but it seems that it will only copy the gaps over to the new track. They are visible in at least 10 places on the timeline."

If the gaps are there on the timeline, then you might want to render the audio track to a wav file and check it in an audio app like sound forge. As you said, the gaps should still be there, and would point to a prob with the capture process.

FWIW, I don't think Vegas really alters anything on your audio track until you render, & the peaks are just a representation of what's there -> Vegas just hangs onto them to prevent stuff like the redraw delays used to get in Prem & MSP. As far as I know, most all of the audio editing in SOFO products is non-destructive, won't actually do anything permanent until you render/overwrite.
craftech wrote on 5/21/2003, 5:19 PM
It's happening in the capture process as far as I can tell. They are audible in Media Player as well. They are not audible in the original footage although A FEW of them occur where there are very minor video glitches (which I never remember affecting the captured footage in the past). The rest are random. Very frustrating.

John
GaryStebbins wrote on 5/21/2003, 5:29 PM
I've encountered the same problem during capture. I figured I had some system incompatibility with VidCap. So I've been capturing with Pinnacle Studio 8, because I don't have any audio dropouts when capturing using that application. I've considered buying Scenalyzer just to get around the audio dropout problem. Maybe it's VidCap in VV4 that has the problem...

Gary
XOG wrote on 5/21/2003, 7:35 PM
craftech,

I've got a project currently, an hours duration, with probably 20 brief (less than a second) audio dropouts.

The project has two separate audio tracks, so I've been able to compensate.

I haven't gone back to the original video to see if the dropout is there.

BTW, I'm using firewire drives, in external housings.

XOG

mikkie wrote on 5/21/2003, 9:05 PM
Just a couple of guesses, as I've seen the basics regarding capture prob. discussed quite a bit, & nothing I could likely add there...

1st thing I'd try, just to make 100% sure, would be to capture the audio, digital &/or analog input, during the timeframe where you have one of these drop outs. Then check your recording - I've seen stuff on disc I swore wasn't there on the tape and been proven wrong. If it is there on the orig. tape, then beating yourself up trying to fix a capture prob won't get it.

2nd thing, assuming everything else stayed the same before your update/install of VV4c & DVDA, I'd remove and reinstall both after a reboot in case they missed something on install.

3rd, kind of iffy depending on how comfortable you are working with the registry, and if the automatic windows registry backup is still there from before your update... Back up or save the SOFO keys under current user\software & local machine\software, restore the registry to an earlier date, then merge the new SOFO stuff back in. In theory at least, if they messed with something else in your windows install, this would put everything back.

luck
mike