No audio when rendered

laz wrote on 4/6/2003, 4:42 AM
Hi, I can't get the audio now when I've rendered to avi PAL. I spent a lot of time troubleshooting; defragged drive 'd', rendered different files from same drive with same results, uninstalled vf, reinstalled + build 2.0c. Then I traced back that the VF files on 'd' were 'saved as' from drive 'h'. There's no probs with vf files on 'h', only the 'saved as' on 'd'.
I had the brilliant idea that as my beginnings and endings were the same, with only the content differing, (plus space getting tight) I'd do a master file and 'save as' for different videos onto another drive. But it seems there's a bit of corruption going on when saving 'as'. Mind you I did think it didn't take very long to 'save as' (considering the file's about 10gb). Usually when you're copying or 'saving as' via windows it takes a min or so.
So, is this not a viable way of doing things?

Comments

IanG wrote on 4/7/2003, 3:29 AM
Laz, sorry, but I'm losing the plot here. You've got a 10Gbyte vf file?

Ian G.
laz wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:22 AM
Thanks IanG - I lost it years ago, I think they're coming to get me soon...

No, when I 'save as' a project (which is about 30-45 mins) (which when rendered is about 10gb's) I edit it, then render - but the audio is not there.

I've run all the cabling, dvcam, usual checks etc.

It may be either be connected to the error message I get when opening VF 'No render found for source reader'? (to which you kindly pointed me in the right direction). It's a twain error message but I've now uninstalled my scanner (which is usually where twains errors refer), but still get it.

Or the other option is VF doesn't actually copy everything when 'saving as' (the coping of 'saving as' is too quick).

The other option is my hd is on it's way out or telling me to take a holiday.

I hope this makes sense.

Cheers.
Grazie wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:32 AM
Laz - Do you see an audio "waveform" under the video track?
laz wrote on 4/8/2003, 2:33 AM
Hi Grazie, yes the audio tracks are all there, 1 waveform track for voice, with music on another track. The video, with transitions etc, renders ok, but none of the sound. If I can't get it to work I think I may have to include sub-titles...
Grazie wrote on 4/8/2003, 6:32 AM
Errmmmm . . . .interesting. - If a tad frustrating.

Okay - Here's a thought. When you go to render, have a look see at the REnder Template. Do you see anything that relates to render the audio portion?

I've a typical "PAL DV" format, giving:

"Audio : 48 KHz, 16-bit, Stereo. PCM (uncompressed)"

Another thought - What template are you using? - Click on the "Advanced" option - click on it. You should then see a "Custom" button - Click on that too. Yeah? - Now you will have the "Custom Settings" menu. Look to the bottom and you SHOULD see 3 tabs - "Project"-"Video" and "Audio". Select the audio tab and you should see an "Include audio" check box MAKE SURE IT IS CHECKED! If it wasn't chances are that was the culprit.

Get back to us if it cured it or not - yeah?

Grazie
laz wrote on 4/8/2003, 10:44 AM
Thanks for that, Grazie. Yep, checked all those. Now, what's the best way to do sub-titles... I think I need to get away or pc might go on vacation out the window.
Grazie wrote on 4/8/2003, 2:53 PM
"Yep, checked all those. " . . . .. and . . . . what happened?!! - I like to help people - but I also like to know if I've helped. Helps me to know if I've "Barked-Up" the correct tree - or not.

Sub-titles as in foriegn movies, or titles that appear in the lower third of screen in your own language?

Grazie

laz wrote on 4/9/2003, 8:46 AM
Sorry, Grazie, I checked all that you'd advised and all settings were defaulted to the correct formats.

I've done a few more processes of elimination and found the sound doesn't render when I render from 'h' (external hd) to drive 'd' (and then ptt from there). The project renders ok when rendered to same hd as source. I thought it was a 'save as' prob, but it's actually a render prob. DMA is enabled on all my hd's, they're also scandisced and defragged and have lots of space. I think it'll require a bit more investigation. The only trouble is the process of elimination takes a lot of time.

I'm also assuming others can render from scource hd to another hd.

But at least I can 'save as' and just change the innerds each time ... (as long as I render to source hd).

BTW hows it going with you high-faluting VV'ers?
Cheers laz
Grazie wrote on 4/9/2003, 9:43 AM
"BTW hows it going with you high-faluting VV'ers?" - Good, yes. Get some cash together and Upgrade - really, it is a dream, honest!

Sorry about your troubles . . . hmmm... "when I render from 'h' (external hd) to drive 'd' (and then ptt from there). " . . . this is exactly what I do. I've got 2 ext hds. One gets the stuff together the second one I render to. From this second one I PTT - no problems. Tell me - can you open the 2nd hd file and see if the audio is with it? Could you open up this second file in a new instance of VF and play the video, hoipefully with the audio.

Grazie
laz wrote on 4/10/2003, 2:09 AM
The audio always plays fine in the projects, it just won't render with video from drive 'd'. I'll investigate when I've more time - it took 2 days of troubleshooting to reach a near-satisfactory conclusion.

Cheers.
IanG wrote on 4/10/2003, 2:28 AM
Laz, if you copy a rendered file (one that's known to be OK) to drive d, does it play OK? It should, of course, but....

Ian G.
laz wrote on 4/14/2003, 2:17 AM
Sorry, IanG, took me a while to get back. Yes, I copied a rendered avi to 'd' and played ok, albeit with a bit of pixalation due to the copying. I'm still mucking around to see if I can dfind out what went wrong.
Chienworks wrote on 4/14/2003, 3:17 AM
"Pixellation due to the copying" ??? A digital copy should be a perfect copy. I don't think this process could introduce pixellation unless you have terribly serious hardware problems or your windows installation is hosed.
laz wrote on 4/15/2003, 1:53 AM
Hi and thanks Chienworks. It was only minor pixellation in some of the frames, but you're probably right. I'm investigating to see if all these symptoms are connected. I'm assuming the only way to copy a rendered file is via explorer.
ms_asif wrote on 4/22/2003, 12:03 PM
Somebody please help me with this problem. I was able to get an excellent rendered video files the first titme around with my VF S/W/ when I had about 25 GB of free disk space. Now I have about 13GB (out of 40 GB) of disk space remaining on my hard drive.

PROBLEM CASE 1: When I render files (NTSC DV format), I get only video & not the audio. In my poject I have titles & background music apart from sound & video, & I made sure that include audio check box is checked. But still I have no audio.

PROBLEM CASE 2: At other times when I'm able to get the audio, I see that the rendered video pictures shakes a lot even when there is no shaking on the original. Is this due to lack of resources on my system (I'm using 256 MB RAM on a 500 MHZ P3 processor).

Please note that I don't have any problems when I render only about 20 secs od DV.
laz wrote on 4/23/2003, 9:35 AM
I've taken a while to arrive at the conclusion my 'd' hd is being naughty. All diagnostics tell me the hd integrity is ok. I've run every kind of test from hd diagnostics to scandisc (thoro & not auto fix) to Norton System Works (which r good tools). The only clue I'm getting that I'm being lied to is NSW disc doctor hangs for a very long time at the 'compressed disc' diagnostic stage. Now, I don't like doctors telling me everything's ok when it's not. I still get mild pixellation on duplication and no audio on render (only when I'm rendering to 'd'). So, a lying doctor and a naughty disc...

ms_as, all I can suggest at this stage is to defrag and scandisc. BTW do you have a 2nd hd or are you doing it all on 1?
ms_asif wrote on 4/23/2003, 11:25 AM
Thanks, Laz. I too suspect the problem might be due to lack of hard drive space. As you suggested, I had already performed disk fragmentation & scan disk, bit to no avail. When I rendered test video for the first couple of times, I had very good results since there was about 25GB of unused space on the HD. Now there's only 13GB. So I guess I should transfer about 10-12 Gb (data from second tape) to another location before I try to render the video.

I have a single 40 GB HD. My system has 256 MB RAM with 600 MHz Pentium III. This is another bottleneck. When I tried to render the video the last time, I noticed that the audion quality is good, however the video is extremely jittery. Hope freeing up HD space solves my problem.
laz wrote on 4/24/2003, 2:06 AM
It's best to have a 2nd hd with dv editing as the read speed can't cope properly using just 1. I'm not too tech on this process but I think it has to do with the cpu, rom and ram trying to cope with the prog processes at the same time as dealing with rendering etc. If the reading of all these comes from different sources (2 hd's) the cpu can cope better.
ms_asif wrote on 4/25/2003, 9:29 AM
Creating more space (by temporarily copying the files to another system) did the trick. I was able to create an AVI & two mpeg (PAL & NTSC DVDs) with satisfactory results. Hope this helps others facing similar problems.