One reason why the preview can fail is if the audio engine fails to start up. This may be the cause as it seems you aren't getting audio playback in the media explorer either.

What audio hardware, drivers and OS are you running? DVD Architect uses the Microsoft Sound Mapper to playback audio. In your OS, go to the Control Panel and make sure the "Sounds and Audio Devices", (Audio) Tab has a default playback device.

Thanks

Thanks for responding.

Here is the error code... it's a small dialog box that says "Preview Failed" in the title bar, and then says "Error Code: 0x80040964" in the dialog area, and gives me a little "OK" button to click. It's the same error code each time.

I can preview clips from the explorer window, but there is no audio. I couldn't find anything in DVDA that lets you set up your audio ports. I have an RME Hammerfall card, but no audio is coming out of any of the outputs during the preview from the explorer window. I've got the system set up so that windows media player will play media using the SPDIF outputs on the Hammerfall card.

As far as the info it displays at the bottom of the screen when clicking on clips, it all looks just fine. I have a lot of mpg clips on my drive from old projects I did with VV3, as well as the new clip I just did with VV4. The information all shows up fine for everything. In the explorer window I can click on an audio file (wave file) and it will tell me it's previewing it, but I don't hear anything either.

Most all of my clips are in the following NTSC DVD format:
Video: 720x480x32, 29.970fps, {length of clip}, MPEG-2
Audio: 48,000 Hz, Stereo, {length of clip}, MPEG Layer 2

I have short clips and long clips, and it doesn't matter... any clips that I bring into DVDA will cause the Preview Failed error. It doesn't matter if I use the Preview button at the top of the screen or if I double click on a clip to bring up the editor and click on one of the play buttons there, I get the same error every time.

If you need to know the system specs:
Dual AMD MP 1800+
1 GB RAM
IWill Mobo
Matrox G450 16MB Dual Head Video Card
RME Hammerfall 9652 sound card
Universal Audio UAD-1 Powered Plug-in Card
Firewire card (don't remember which... cheap one)
Windows XP Professional with SP1 and optimized for audio via the Tascam guide

I also have been a long time Sonic Foundry supporter and user and own pretty much all your software: Sound Forge 5 and 6, Acid Pro 4, VV3 and VV4, Noise Reduction 2, Batch Processor 5, DVDA. No problems with any of the other software.

On this new system I have never installed easy CD Creator or DirectCD or any Pinnacle stuff.

Other software that is installed:
Wavelab 4, Cubase VST and SX, Record Now DX, Ulead DVD Workshop, Fruity Loops, lots of plug-ins and instruments, and some other stuff I'm probably forgetting (I'm on my office computer now).

If I'm leaving anything else out that you need to know, just ask me.

Thanks.

Stephen Sherrard

You posted your second message while I was typing up my first.

I'm using the RME Hammerfall 9652 with the newest 2.0.3.1 drivers for WinXP/2000.

In the audio tab for the sound/audio devices, the SPDIF input and output are set for the default record/playback devices, and I have the use only selected (or default?) devices box checked. As stated in my earlier post, windows media player works just fine, as well as every other application that uses audio (with either the ASIO drivers or the regular windows drivers).

The only thing that's a little weird is that on the first tab "volume" it says "No Audio Device"... but I think that's normal for the Hammerfall since it doesn't allow the standard windows volume control that you can use with SB type cards. But, as stated, every other piece of software works just fine (including Ulead DVD Workshop).

Thanks for looking into this!

Steve

Any other ideas?

I fixed the problem with burning DVDs, but I still can't do previews in DVDA, and there is no audio when previewing clips from the explorer (although it works fine in Vegas 4).

I did some research and asked around about your problem. Firstly, the RME is not a WDM based driver. So it is possible that your hardware isn't allowing us to connect to it because we ask for a fixed sample rate. i.e. we always preview back at 44.1 kHz. We don't allow you to set this, or the output port, as in Vegas.

So...if your hardware doesn't support 44.1 kHz (if it only supports 48kHz for instance), and you're not using a WDM driver, we won't be able to play back anything.

The reason media player (and other apps) may work is that they talk to the sound card through DirectSound.

So, with all that said. What are your audio settings in Vegas? Are you using the Microsoft Sound Mapper (Options>Preferences>Audio Device). If so, does it play back in Vegas fine? What are your project audio settings? File>Properties>Audio will tell you the sample rate, bit depth, etc.

We will try to look into this asap. Hopefully you can answer the questions above.

Thanks

Also, is DVDA the only application open? Try that as well, see if you get playback.

Thanks

Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate you looking into it.

The RME card will work at 44.1Khz, or 48Khz, or 88.1Khz, or 96Khz (and maybe a few lower ones also). As in most professional studios, I use an external word clock to slave all my digital devices together. I set it at either 44.1Khz or 48Khz depending on if I'm doing music projects or video projects. I had it set at 48Khz for the video stuff, figuring that's what everyone uses for digital video. I just ran down to my studio and tried DVDA with the sample rate set at 44.1Khz, and still got the same errors and no audio from the explorer previews. I then set the Hammerfall card to "Master" mode in which it sets its own clock source based on what the software tells it to work at. This didn't work either. It also didn't matter if DVDA was the only application open or not.

In Vegas 4, I'm using the ASIO drivers for the Hammerfall card, since they give MUCH better performance with extremely low latency. I can use the Hammerfall in Vegas just fine with the Hammerfall slaved to my house word clock system (making sure I have the project properties set to the same sample rate so that it plays the audio at the appropriate speed). It also works just fine with the Hammerfall in the "Master" mode (NOT slaved to word clock).

In Vegas Video 3 I was using the "Windows Classic Wave Driver", also without any problems, no matter how I had things set up.

So, to test things out, I went into both Vegas 4 and Vegas Video 3 and tried setting them to Microsoft Sound Mapper and tried to play audio clips. I got an error in all cases.

I guess I must be the only one using Vegas 4 in Windows XP with an RME sound card?? I know in the professional audio world, RME cards are generally considered to be the best out there, and Steinberg even sells the same exact cards under the "Nuendo" name for their customers. I would imagine that more of these pro audio people will be getting into video when you have great software like Vegas 4 available! I'm sure they will also be disappointed to learn that they can't use their RME cards with DVDA for previewing their work!

I guess all the other software I use doesn't use the Microsoft Sound Mapper (including the windows media player), because I've NEVER encountered this problem before, and every other piece of Sonic Foundry software that I own works just fine as well.

Is it going to be possible to add at least Classic Wave Drivers to DVDA? You've already got that figured out for all your other software, so how hard would it be?

I'm not going to ruin my audio optimized system by sticking in a soundblaster type card. My only other option is to make a Windows 98 partition and set up a dual boot and run DVDA from there since Windows 98 doesn't use WDM drivers. I'd rather not do this though!

Thanks again for your help and I hope you can find a way to resolve this as I know there are certainly other sound cards out there besides RME who don't have WDM support either.

I appreciate your time and efforts!

Stephen Sherrard
(long time very loyal Sonic Foundry customer)

For anyone else reading this thread: the issue has been resolved. You need to go into the properties of the sound card and uncheck the option to: "Do not map through this hardware".

Hello all,
I am having the exact same problem with a slight difference. At this very moment, everything works fine because I just reinstalled the card's drivers, however whenever I restart, the old "No Audio Device" is back and everything but WMP doesn't work ( by the way my only selection option at this point is "modem 0" even though I have no modem installed). I got so excited when I read that all I had to do was check "Do not map..." but that doesn't help.
Now, I realize this is a Windows issue and not Sony's but if you could please make another suggestion I'd be very grateful. I've tried 2 different sound cards and 3 drivers in case that matters. Another thing that may or may not be relevant is that I too did have a pro card (Delta 1010) installed, and it seems my problems started just after installing it in a newer machine. Since then I have used the Delta Uninstaller and deleted anything with the name Delta in it.
TIA,
Randy