Audio Woes in 5.1

[Bytemaster34]

I'm using Adobe Premiere 5.1c and I'm having a terrible time with some audio problems. Premiere 6.0 or 6.5 might have fixed these problems but upgrading isn't an option right now.

The system is a Forefront DVP box, a couple of years old. A P3/700 I think. It's running Win98SE and has a Matrox RT2000 capture system.

Everything seems to work fine until I import video or audio that was NOT captured locally. Ie. the AVIs and WAVs brought in by the Matrox box work fine but when I bring in an AVI from a 3D program or download a sound loop (as WAV) off of the Internet, things go crazy. (Once added to timeline)

When I press play, the sound is accelerated. It plays at above normal speed for a couple of seconds, and then goes silent for a second (so as a result of this silent moment it doesn't race too far ahead of the video) This will repeat for the duration of the video.

The only fix I've found is to select all audio, drag it to another track (ie. down a track) and then back (ie. up a track). This will fix it until the next rendering. The moment the video is re-rendered, this procedure must be repeated.

I've been using this fix for some time now. My real problem now is that my current project uses all 3 audio tracks. So I can't drag them all down and back up. Because there's only 3 tracks. I don't know how to add a 4th audio track in version 5.1c. It's easy enough to do in 6.0 but I can't find the option in my version for adding another track.

Has anyone heard of this problem before? Is there a more permanent fix? If not, is there a way of adding a fourth audio track in 5.1?

Thanks

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Adding more tracks is a snap.

There is a control on yourt timeline that allows you to add as many audio or video tracks as you like -- to the limit of 99 (on Premiere 5.1c).

Go to

http://www.aluminumstudios.com/digitalvideo/software/premiere/premiere_basics.html

and page down to the section called
"Layers and multiple video tracks"

Click on the little highlighted triangle and select "Track Options..."

The rest you'll figure out fast.

As far as your actual problem with the audio, it could be a variety of problems.

One of the things I would try if this were me was opening the WAV file in a different application (such as GoldWave), and then saving it with different settings. A lot of times, when I encounter goofy things like this, the fault lies in a weird project setting, or a weird format in the source file.

So, definitely examine your Project Settings and see if everything's compatible. Try changing some of the audio settings and see if that helps.

Cheers,



Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[Bytemaster34]

Thank-you EdwardMartinIII !

I didn't know that option was even there. It's the exact same dialog as in version 6.X just a different way of getting to it.

For anybody who didn't follow that URL, just click on the little 'right-arrow' on the timeline and choose 'track options'. You can add audio and video tracks there just like in version 6 and above.

I believe that the sound problem has to do with the encoding of the WAV, as you said. Could be that it's mono where everything else is stereo, or visa versa, or a different sampling rate. The way I think I'll solve it is to play the sound on another PC and just patch its soundcard over to the capture box of my PC. So the specs will be exactly the same as everything else I've captured.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Well, re-recording the sound is certainly an option.

Another option is to use a sound editing program to convert the file into a different format. When you play a sound and re-record it, you convert digital to analog, then analog back to digital, whereas digitally editing it keeps it in the realm of the digital, with a concomitant lower chance of introducing analog artifacts.

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door