Audio problem when saving movie to DV tape

[Guest]

I create a movie with music and save it to the computer. It plays back fine. When I save it to my camera I have an audio problem. I start to lose audio every so many seconds for a second or two and then it resumes again. Any one have any idea how to fix this problem?

 

[PapaJohn]

That's usually a symptom of a hard drive needing a tune-up.... free up space
and defrag.

It also might help to copy the saved DV-AVI file to your camcorder using the
WinDV utility.... see the Digital Camcorders > Intro page for a link.
--
PapaJohn
Movie Maker 2: www.papajohn.org
PhotoStory 2: www.photostory.papajohn.org
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"Audio dropouts when saving to tape" <Audio dropouts when saving to
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message

I create a movie with music and save it to the computer. It plays back

fine. When I save it to my camera I have an audio problem. I start to lose
audio every so many seconds for a second or two and then it resumes again.
Any one have any idea how to fix this problem?

 

[John Kelly]

Hello there,

It sounds as though an event is being triggered that is robbing your save to
camera operation of processor time or worse. Theoretically a data stream is a
data stream etc and so it should not happen....you need to discover what it is
that occurs with such regularity as you describe. It may be for example that
you have one of those memory programs that attempts to optimize your memories
performance. I have not yet come across one that can do that in such a way as
every programs temporary data is not lost...the kind of temporary data stored
in a buffer waiting to be sent somewhere, like your camera. Prior to finally
going out and buying a 1.5GB upgrade of DDR RAM for each machine, I used memory
optimizers on my 512MB of RAM. It works well with most other types of program
but it managed to crash Movie Maker several times and MovieDV used to lock up
on me.

There are loads of other things that can cause problems like this. If you check
on my website you will find some remarks about speed that others have found
useful. Basically what you have to do is remove any process that will grab too
much of your CPU's time, sounds simple but not always.

Whilst defragmenting your hard drive is always a useful task prior to video
capture it serves no useful purpose at all when compiling the final video. It
is not a time critical function but is access time dependent, so if the hard
drive was fragmented to an almost impossible degree all that would happen is
that Movie Maker simply sits there waiting for the next command to process a
bit more data. A hard drive would have to yet again be fragmented to an all but
impossible degree for the seek time of the heads to adversely affect the
straight transfer of data to the buffer waiting to be sent to the camera at a
fixed rate of approx 13GB per hour which is equal to 291KB a second, if your
hard drive is set at DMA Mode 5 (Most common speed nowadays) it is capable of
transferring up to 100MB a second .....so even if there was some moderately
heavy fragmentation it would still not be all that great an issue and it
certainly would not be an issue such that it occurred at regular intervals.

You will find a useful dialog on my website with some pointers on how to make
sure your hard drive(s) are working as expected in the FAQ section

 

[Guest]

I have been having the same problem lately after a few weeks of successful
transfers... I also have the issue of the movie on my camera moving in slow
motion at times. I have been trying to figure it out for weeks. Tried
everything from changing tape brands to replacing cables. No luck but maybe
someone can help.

 

[Guest]

My movie is saved to tape and even as it is being saved I can hear the
stutters on the audio. I first thought it was only where stills were added
in but it happens at seemingly irregular times throughout the movie though I
think it is always as a clip is ending/beginning. All audio is aved to media
player library then imported to collection. I have saved the same movie to
PC and in media player the sound is spot on. I have captued movie both by
letting the wizard switch on my camera that gave terrible pixellation and
following advice from this forum then captured after setting the camera
going. That seemed to be a different format - the icon was different? That
gave great visual clarity but the audio still stutters during saving to tape
and on playback through tv.
I have now edited the movie 3 times which is great experience that I could
have done without.
Thanks in advance.

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Try copying the saved DV-AVI file from your hard drive to your tape using
the WinDV utility.... there's a link to it on the Digital Camcorders > Intro
page of my website. The utility uses a larger buffer which helps the process
go smoothly.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org

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