Audio snaps, cracks, and pops during capture, minor video problems too

[Zytrex]

I have captured crom my Canon XL1s to Premier 6.02 on my P4 2.53 533 512DDR ATA133 WinXP SP1 many times before with no problems whatsoever. Just recently, after not capturing anything for a couple weeks, I tried to capture some stuff I just shot and the audio has random snapping, cracking, popping, and even statiky sounds, and two to three frames of every few seconds of video will have errors on it.

This video was on a tape that I had been using for the first time, so I switched to a tape of stuff I had viewed before with no problems and the problems were all there. I then switched my XL1s into video mode so that I was getting live video and audio through the firewire cable into Premiere. I hooked up a close range vocal mic to avoid feedback and began humming in it. As I did, my voice began snapping, cracking, and popping, and i've already gone through that stage in my life, so this proved that the problem was not with taped data. I also knew it wasn't an internal problem with the camera because if I hook it up to a TV there is no problem.

So, for some reason which I cannot figure out, when I send video and audio data through the firewire cable from my camera into Premiere, I have problems. Has anyone experienced this and/or know what I should do about it?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Zytrex]

Well, I have fixed my problem and found the source as well...you're gonna think I'm either making this up or am a complete idiot, but I'm gonna say this anyway.

I did indeed have a bad DV tape. I concluded earlier that the tape I used was fine because I switched to a different tape and had the same problems capturing. However, when I put the bad tape back in, the audio and video is messed up in the camera view. Whatever is wrong with the tape seems to temporarily corrupt/confuse the camera or computer or both. I know how dumb that sounds, but i've tested it several times and the results are always the same.

I figured this out when I decided to try Windows Movie Maker to see how it worked in there. I tried to capture from a tape and no audio was recorded at all. I tried both the bad tape (which I didn't know was bad at the time) and the good tape. Finally I tried capturing live video, and I did get audio with that. I then tried a tape again with no luck.

The way I fixed the problem was by accidentally doing certain things in a specific order. First, I take the bad tape out and put in a good one. Then I capture live video in Windows Movie Maker. Then I capture taped video in Windows Movie Maker, and I do get sound. At this point, everything starts working fine again. I can open up Premiere, go to capture, hit record and yell into the mic with no problems!

To test this solution, I put the bad tape back in and tried to capture from it...with bad results of course. I then put a good tape in and tried to capture...bad results. I tried to capture live...bad results. I tried to capture from the good tape in Windows Movie Maker...no audio. Finally, my solution again. I capture live video in Windows Movie Maker, then taped video, and everything is back to normal. Weird.

Thinking about it now, it might be enough to record live video in Windows Movie Maker, and then be able to go straight back to Premiere without first capturing taped video in Windows Movie Maker again. Either way, the solution works fine as long as that stupid bad tape isn't in the camera. I don't know...it's like this series of events flushes out the systems or something. Whatever...

In short: Take out bad tape, put in good tape, record live video in Windows Movie Maker, maybe record taped video from good tape in Windows Movie Maker as well (not sure if that last part is necessary), and it's all good from then on.

Anyone else ever experience any weirdo problems with insane solutions like that?

 

[hawkdc9]

I had almost the exact same thing happen. I tried different computers, different capture cards, different cables, and different players. It turns out that I have several bad dv tapes. It is really strange how hard this little problem was to figure out. I'm still not sure how a dv tape can go bad and cause audio drop out problems. I usually notice just a single frame of audio that is missing. The video is just fine. I would love to talk to others about this because it is really bothering me about how and why several dv tapes can be bad and others work fine.

 

[Zytrex]

Yeah, that is strange and very annoying. I got my tapes as a four pack of Sony sixty minute tapes, and one of them was just plane bad. Hmm, come to think of it, I'm not sure which tape is the bad one. The blue tape in the camera now is good, and the yellow is good, but was it the red or the green tape that was bad? Ugh...

 

[hawkdc9]

The think that really made this hard for me to figure out was the fact that I could play the bad tape in a couple of different sony players (dhr-1000 and vx-1000) and I could not hear any audio drop outs. When I captured to a computer via firewire the drop outs were in the capture. I don't understand it but somehow the player corrects the problem when playing out the analogue ports and the headphone jack. The only way I find the dropouts is by capturing via firewire to computer. Does anybody understand why this happens. The tape that caused all the problem was a sony 120min dv tape and then a sony DVC premium 60 min tape. After I changed tapes I haven't had the problem again.

 

[sully79]

Thank goodness I found this forum and you people. I was prepared to buy a different camera (GL2) or computer (AMD PC). I had all of the audio drop outs explained above and after reading your lines I realized I too had used Sony DVM60prl tapes. I have now shot and captured with less expensive JVC tapes instead and none of the audio crackle is happening. I'm glad to find a simple solution, but I'm aggravated as heck about the Sony tapes. It's cost me a couple of weeks of productivity.

 

[Zytrex]

Glad we could help!

 

[sully79]

By the way Zytrex. While struggling to find a cure for this problem I had my friend capture my bad audio tape onto his super high powered Apple and his Final Cut Pro. He had no problem with it. For some reason the Apple or the FCP were able to smooth out the problem. We then captured the bad tape to Video Vegas on his PC and it was once again ful of single frame audio dropouts.

It's good to find the tape problem, but I do wonder if Apple or FCP might not be improvements over PC and Adobe for handling "marginal" captures.

 

[Zytrex]

It isn't a Mac vs PC thing. If there were no problems on that one machine, it's likely that the software was a little better in that specific area, or even more likely that the IEEE 1394 (FireWire) controller was better. There are tons of different brands of FireWire cards, and just like any other computer component, there are good and bad. My FireWire controller is built onto my motherboard. I know little about its properties.

 

[hawkdc9]

Sully79. You said that you were able to capture this same tape that had the audio dropout into an Apple computer using Final Cut Pro. I don’t understand this. My audio dropout problem was one that showed missing audio (viewing the audio waveform) form usually just a single frame. At certain points on the tape the dropout would only affect one frame every several seconds. I found other points on the tape where there would be as many as several missing frames of audio in a single second. I didn’t find any problems with the video portion. I first noticed this problem capturing with Vegas Video 4 using a Sony DHR-1000. I captured with different combinations of players. That didn’t help. I tried different firewire cards with different chipsets. That didn’t help. I tried different pc computers. That didn’t help. The only alternative as far as capture software that I tried was the capture software that comes with windows xp. I still had the same problem. Changing tape was the only cure that I found, thus I must assume it was bad tape. Now you say that somehow Apple and Final Cut Pro “smooth out the problem”. I would love to know how this is possible. If you like to contact me directly I would like to send you one of my problem tapes and see if your friend could capture this without problems. Email me at Tim@xxxtimhawkins.com (take out the xxx). Maybe there are other capure programs that don’t have this problem. If software can fix this I would like to know.

Tim

 

[sully79]

Hey Tim- I can't say for sure if the Apple/FC Pro combination eliminated the single frame audio dropouts that you and I both experienced, but I do know it sounded perfect through the monitor. Since there was no popping and cracking, I did not have a reference point in the timeline to stop and magnify to see if there were indeed droputs. I could not find any on a brief scan. You mentioned Vegas. This same edit person who helped me at UNC-TV took my tape and my Canon GL2 and captured it to his PC with Vegas. Once again it came out just as snap, crackle and poppy as my home PC with Premiere.

I'm still baffled by the Apple's ability to capture and seemingly play the audio perfectly. I do know for sure that I used JVC tapes on an extensive shoot yesterday and had no problems. My past two shoots were a mess using Sony tapes.

If you want to send a "damaged audio" sample to me I'd be happy to have UNC-TV look at it. They're very much interested in what's going on with my problem and although we seem to have found the culprit (Sony tape), we still haven't figured out why it works in a high powered Apple (with FC Pro) and not on a PC.

ps- I tried to send this to your email address, but it bounced. I suspect the room monitor does not allow this. I'd be happy to help you get your tape to UNC-TV, but I'm not sure how to get my address to you without p[osting it to the whole world.

Room monitor are you reading this? Can you help Hawkdc9 reach me?