Preview stutters AC-3 audio

bcbarnes wrote on 2/19/2003, 11:23 AM
When I use the "preview", the audio for my movie, which is an AC-3 rendered by V4, is mostly silent, but sometimes you can here the random stutter, crackle, pop, or actual audio.

If I try to drag-and-drop this audio file onto V4, V4 gives a message saying that the format of the file is unknown and it can't be opened.

I went ahead and "prepared" a .vob image with DVDA, and then tried to play it with PowerDVD and it seemed to play just fine.

I've seen another post or two like this, but with no resolution. Anybody see this, and anybody fix it?

Oh - my sound card is a Creative Soundblaster Live Value.

I noticed that the only .AC3 render template in V4 is "Stereo DVD", but it produces 5.1 surround output. I also tried producing a 2 channel .AC3 (stereo) which DVDA recognized as stereo, and the stutter was less obvious, but still present. If I use a PCM Wave audio, also rendered out of V4, it plays back in the DVDA preview beautifully.

Thanks.

Comments

PAW wrote on 2/19/2003, 4:46 PM

Same problem, I have noticed my CPU is full on 100% so I was assuming the work needed to render the menus and play AC-3 was too much. 1.6GHz P4 with 512MB memory.

I am using the Audigy2 for 5.1 - wonder if using creative 5.1 may be the common thread here.
bcbarnes wrote on 2/19/2003, 7:29 PM
I think you must be right - it's a system horsepower issue. I brought up Task Manager, and also noticed that the CPU was 100% pegged and the audio was stuttering. I then lowered the resolution, and on the next notch down, I was getting 99% to 100%, and the stuttering was better, and on the lowest setting I was getting around 90%, and the audio played back just fine. I guess there's nothing to do except accept the limitations of my system and start thinking about an upgrade...Does anyone make an audio card with AC-3 decode built in?!?
PAW wrote on 2/20/2003, 12:05 PM

Which setting are you referring to for 90%

bcbarnes wrote on 2/20/2003, 12:37 PM
I was getting 90% CPU utilization using the lowest (one quarter size) resolution on the preview window. There's a drop-down list in the upper right of the preview window where you can set "Production Quality", "High Quality (Full Resolution)", "Medium Quality (half resolution)", or "Low Quality (one quarter resolution)".
PAW wrote on 2/20/2003, 2:02 PM

still 100% for on a 1.6 P4 - oh well I will just have to use the preview for the look of the menus

Thanks