AVI Video/Sound Jumping

[Guest]

I have imported DV as AVI file, edited movie and now time to save back as an AVI file so I can convert it to a DVD MPEG so I can burn it to DVD. My problem is whenever I save movie files as AVI files, at certain points in the video, the video/audio "jerks", "hiccups", "stutters" etc. I have even saved them multiple times and they always jump in the same exact place. But whenever I save it in any WMV format, it plays back just fine. Any ideas what is going on?...I'm running Home XP, and have a brand new AMD Athlon 3 GHz with 768 MB RAM and a 200GB HD, so I don't think my pc is to blame. Any help is appreciated!

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

Sorry you seem to have been skipped over.

Your problem seems to indicate that there is a data flow problem. That's
because the flow of data from an AVI file can be many times greater than the
data flow from almost any other format but in particular the WMV format.

There are a number of things you can try so here are some ideas.

1) You should not have any other program running that is none essential.

2) You should disconnect from the Internet (If on Broadband)

3) You should disable your Anti-Virus Software and your firewall

4) You should ensure that the DMA mode for your hard drive is at least 4
preferably 5

5) The hard drive you save to should not be the C drive if at all possible

6) The hard drive that you are saving to should be defragmented first.
(Please take note that the defragment for XP leaves files scattered all over
the disk...for your purposes this is not helpful.

7) You need a fair bit of RAM when running XP, and its unfortunate but true
that the more you add the more XP grabs for its own exclusive use. In order
to have enough RAM for XP and AVI creation you should look towards at least
512MB, but the more the merrier.

8) The computer itself should be at the minimum a P3 or equivalent. If it is
a P3 or equivalent then it needs to be quite fast and have good RAM (as in
speed)

If after trying this, you still have problems, or if you do not
understand anything above, please ask and I will be happy to explain.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly

I have imported DV as AVI file, edited movie and now time to save back as

an AVI file so I can convert it to a DVD MPEG so I can burn it to DVD. My
problem is whenever I save movie files as AVI files, at certain points in
the video, the video/audio "jerks", "hiccups", "stutters" etc. I have even
saved them multiple times and they always jump in the same exact place. But
whenever I save it in any WMV format, it plays back just fine. Any ideas
what is going on?...I'm running Home XP, and have a brand new AMD Athlon 3
GHz with 768 MB RAM and a 200GB HD, so I don't think my pc is to blame. Any
help is appreciated!

 

[CW]

Ron -
I was having just the same problems and I too have a
pretty powerful system. John Kelly gave me the same very
helpful suggestions and it was the disk DMA mode and
transfer speed that were to blame. I adjusted those and
never looked back - the thing flies now. I would check
that area first.
CW

-----Original Message-----
I have imported DV as AVI file, edited movie and now

time to save back as an AVI file so I can convert it to a
DVD MPEG so I can burn it to DVD. My problem is whenever
I save movie files as AVI files, at certain points in the
video, the video/audio "jerks", "hiccups", "stutters"
etc. I have even saved them multiple times and they
always jump in the same exact place. But whenever I save
it in any WMV format, it plays back just fine. Any ideas
what is going on?...I'm running Home XP, and have a brand
new AMD Athlon 3 GHz with 768 MB RAM and a 200GB HD, so I
don't think my pc is to blame. Any help is appreciated!

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the help guys!...I will try John's suggestions when I get home this evening and let you know how it works out

Thanks again!

 

[John Kelly]

Hi CW,

That's very kind of you...Thank you very much...I hope it works for Ron
now....)

Best Wishes.....John Kelly

 

[Guest]

John

I tried most all of your suggestions..

#1 Brought up Task Manager and shut down all non-essential program

#2 Shut my pc completely down and removed my ethernet cabl

#3 Disabled Norton Antivirus '0

#4 My Primary IDE Channel is Ultra DMA Mode 5, my Secondary IDE Channel is Ultra DMA Mode 2. I have no idea how to change these numbers, or how they got this way to begin with :

#5 I installed a brand spankin' new Western Digital 120GB HD yesterday and am saving my AVI's to i

#6, 7, 8...I run Home XP, have 768 MB RAM and a Athlon 3GHz 3000+ processor to wrap things up, so I don't think the problem is there.

After fixing/utilizing all your suggestions, I am still having the same problems, with the audio always skipping in the same areas of the video. I played around with my files tonight, (removing audio/video clips and importing different clips in place of them) and what I have noticed is that the hiccup of the audio ALWAYS occurs at the same time as a new video transition or a new video clip appears on the timeline; almost as if the pc is tripping over the new clip or transition. I created a AVI with one long clip and one segment of music and it worked just fine. I then added a second clip and the audio skipped when it hit that second clip. Any other thoughts or ideas?...I have multiple movies that I have spent a lot of time on, and will be quite upset if I have to start over with a new editing program

Thanks for all your help
Ron

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Ron,

The Problem Solving > Audio Issues page of my www.papajohn.org website has a
number of things relating to such issues, but it's still an unfolding story,
so you might not find the solution there.

One thing I've noted lately is that a number of people have resolved the
audio glitches in DV-AVI files by adding a special effect to each of the
clips... it doesn't make any difference which effect.

I'm not yet sure what it means overall, but you might want to try it.

PapaJohn

John,

I tried most all of your suggestions...

#1 Brought up Task Manager and shut down all non-essential programs

#2 Shut my pc completely down and removed my ethernet cable

#3 Disabled Norton Antivirus '04

#4 My Primary IDE Channel is Ultra DMA Mode 5, my Secondary IDE Channel

is Ultra DMA Mode 2. I have no idea how to change these numbers, or how
they got this way to begin with

#5 I installed a brand spankin' new Western Digital 120GB HD yesterday and am saving my AVI's to it

#6, 7, 8...I run Home XP, have 768 MB RAM and a Athlon 3GHz 3000+

processor to wrap things up, so I don't think the problem is there.

After fixing/utilizing all your suggestions, I am still having the same

problems, with the audio always skipping in the same areas of the video. I
played around with my files tonight, (removing audio/video clips and
importing different clips in place of them) and what I have noticed is that
the hiccup of the audio ALWAYS occurs at the same time as a new video
transition or a new video clip appears on the timeline; almost as if the pc
is tripping over the new clip or transition. I created a AVI with one long
clip and one segment of music and it worked just fine. I then added a
second clip and the audio skipped when it hit that second clip. Any other
thoughts or ideas?...I have multiple movies that I have spent a lot of time
on, and will be quite upset if I have to start over with a new editing
program

 

[John Kelly]

Hello there,

DMA Mode 2 means you have big problem...that drive is running as thought it
were connected to a computer of maybe 7 - 8 years old......No good at all

To save re typing I have copied the entire message that sorted things out
for CW and will paste it below my signature.

Whatever you do, please don't go around adding effects to all of your clips,
I know why that can work, its fairly obvious, its also quite silly, its
almost like saying all dogs have four legs, this chair has four legs
therefore its a dog!! Some of the ideas are beginning to get extremely
stupid.

The fact that these problems always occur at the exact same spot indicates a
bottle-neck being caused by software and or hardware. DMA mode 2 is still a
high contender here....so what we must do is the same as all Medical Doctors
in the initial stages...treat what we can see is wrong (The Symptoms) and
when we have removed the clutter take a look a what's left (if anything)

Anyway, have a read of the stuff below my signature...its all basic
need-to-know stuff that any youngster can now tell us all about.....they are
getting too smart nowadays

Best Wishes.....John Kelly

Hi there,

Could not pick up yr response, John, so had to do this new
post. Thanks a lot for all your suggestions, really
appreciate all that food for thought. Some of the
possibilities can be eliminated however. Here's the
situation:
I took the plunge last night and moved my files off the
secondary FAT32 drive and re-formatted it to NTFS with 4kb
chunks.

For storage of large files you must format with 64Kb "chunks" It means
more
efficient data transfer and less wasted hard drive space.

I re-captured the footage and in high hopes, ran the clips
but alas no improvement whatever. So now we know it is not
a FAT32/filesize issue.

If your system is already under strain because of its capabilities, saving
to
4Kb chunks will cause data transfer rate problems resulting (worst case) in
the
drives "write behind" failing.

I could try again with the quality set to "best for
computer playback" rather than DV-AVI which I have used on
the two previous attempts - any point in this?

Well yes. If it comes out the way you would want it you will have
immediately
identified the issue. That issue will be a bottle neck in the data stream
caused by one or more of slow cpu or slow mother board or slow hard drive.

FYI I have approx 30 collections and 20 edited projects.
Except for two (this and one previous one) they have all
been absolutely fine. They were about equally split, some
on C: (NTFS), some on D: was FAT32. This is the first
wobble MM2 has ever given me. The only other bad capture
was of a similar size (30+ mins) and also saved to D.

Its beginningto sound as though the D drive is the issue.

To answer yr specific queries:
No, I was not using a file size manager prog.
Rather than scrambled I should better have said seriously
jerky. It is absolutely great on playback in the camera
(Sony TRV-30) so I'm pretty happy that the original
footage is good.
Used Firewire as in all previous captures. Only use USB
for uploading stills from camera.
Defrag doesn't seem an issue as I still have the prob now,
after re-formatting. (Full, not just Quick).
CPU = Intel 2.8, RAM = 1 GB DDR. OS = XP Pro SP1.
Re HDD mode, in Primary IDE Channel Properties device 0
Transfer Mode is "DMA if available" and Current Mode
is "Ultra DMA Mode 2". Device 1 is "DMA if available" but
Current Mode is PIO. ***Is this my problem?***** How do I

BINGO ! DMA mode 2 is real slow and PIO, well we still had steam engines
then
Actually we still do here.

Anyway....If you have a hard drive sharing a Bus port with a slower device,
the
hard drive will always run at the slower speed. My solution is this....

Drive C & D share a cable on the primary port (Mode 5)
Drive E has its own plug in EIDE card (Mode 6)
Drive F (DVD re-writer) and Drive D (CD-Re-Writer) use the same cable to the
mother boards secondary port

force DMA on device 1, drive D:, the baddie?
Re "Data Write Behind" available and enabled, you've got
me there...dunno...how to check, plse?

Start > Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Disk Drives and then right
click each of the drives and select Drive Policies and then ensure that
Write
Caching is selected. Write Caching is another way of saying Write Behind.

Re needing 32 bit data tfr mode...likewise...where to set?

Its in the properties for the hard drive ....

Re-Boot your computer and using whichever key (Del on mine) enter the System
Bios Editor. Quite often the part you will be looking for will be on the top
right of the screen and it will have a title similar to "Basic System
Configuration" What you will probably find in there is the options for drive
C
and D will be set to Auto...DO NOT CHANGE THAT if that's what it is set
at....however, select the word auto and press enter...Assuming it was set to
auto you will now see a screen with almost everything disabled...you wont be
able to edit it...but you should have access to one option DATA TRANSFER
MODE
and dependent on the wording in your BIOS you will need to ensure that it
uses
the best possible and unless you have a 64bit machine you need to set it at
32bit (or if you are really flash and have a 64bit machine.....set it to 64)

Re other progs running, no, I always keep the sys
absolutely clear, no 'net connection, usually reboot
before capture too, just to flush out. And I even bar the
Mrs from Freecell.

Love it!!! I really must give my wife a password one of these
days.........Nahhhh forget it

John, really admire the attitude and help that you and
PapaJohn put into all our MM2 issues. And of course, hope
this one gets resolved. MANY thanks.

Your welcome from all of us!!

 

[Guest]

John
Sorry about all the confusion, but how exactly do I change DMA modes on my second drive? I read through your notes, but couldn't quite pick it up
Thanks
Ron

 

[John Kelly]

Hi Ron,

John,
Sorry about all the confusion, but how exactly do I change DMA modes on my

second drive? I read through your notes, but couldn't quite pick it up.

Click on My Computer > Manage > Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI
Controllers. You will now see the disposition of your IDE channels. Each
channel can have 2 Hard Drives connected to it.

Double clicking one of these will reveal what each of the devices
connected to that channel are doing. The part you are interested in is the
Advanced Settings. Can I say at this point please be careful, in particular
with the Driver and Resources Tab's......Do not change anything or even
click on an item in there unless you really know what you are doing....I
never touch those settings because of the problems that can result.

Anyway, under Advanced you will see....

Device Type
=========
That should preferably be set to Auto Detect. the other option is
none...The only time you would change this to None is if you want to isolate
a hard drive and render it unusable by Windows.

Transfer Mode
==========
This should always be set at "DMA if available" with Video PIO mode is
not an option (Its to accommodate old drives...backwards compatibility)

Current Transfer Mode
================
This is greyed out. It tells you what speed the data flow is by
referring to one of the internationally agreed ratings. Yours should say
Ultra DMA Mode 5

So, All modern non-scsi hard drives should be running at mode 4 or
higher, 5 is more usual today. What you should not do is have a hard drive
on the same Channel (Primary or Secondary) as a CD or DVD ROM drive. Does
not matter what the make or model is...its a no no. The reason is...if a
mode 5 is sharing with a mode 2 and both of them are accessed together, the
mode 5 will slow down to mode 2. This is because of the gate that the data
has to flow through...the gate opens and shuts at the speed of the slower
device.

The solution to this is obvious...you put your slow devices on to the
Secondary IDE channel and your fast devices on to the primary. If as in my
case you have more than two hard drives, you purchase a second controller
(plugs into PCI slot) so that you can always be sure that no device is
slowed down by another.

If you find that a hard drive shows itself as anything other than 4, 5
or 6 then you need to discover whether there is either a fault on the drive
(back to shop) or whether the CMOS is correctly set....and if you have a
second IDE card that can be a problem....anyway here are the instructions I
gave earlier on how to check the CMOS.

Re-Boot your computer and using whichever key (Del on mine) enter the System
Bios Editor. Quite often the part you will be looking for will be on the top
of the screen and it will have a title similar to "Basic System
Configuration" What you will probably find in there is the options for drive
C and D will be set to Auto...DO NOT CHANGE THAT if that's what it is set
at....however, select the word auto and press enter...Assuming it was set to
auto you will now see a screen with almost everything disabled...you wont be
able to edit it...but you should have access to one option DATA TRANSFER
MODE and dependent on the wording in your BIOS you will need to ensure that
it uses the best possible and unless you have a 64bit machine you need to
set it at 32bit (or if you are really flash and have a 64bit machine.....set
it to 64)

I'm afraid those instructions are generalised....there are so many
variations on what is actually displayed because the various manufactures
all have their own agenda.

Anyway, the last episode of Stagate is about to start...so I'm away. I
hope the above helps solve your data flow problem...If it does not, please
say so and we will have another think about it.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly

 

[Guest]

John
Hope you enjoyed the Stargate episode :

My system is now configured so that both HDD's are Ultra DMA Mode 5. And my AVI files still skip...Grrrrrr...Reading over Papa John's website, I tried converting the mp3's (which is a high quality file) to WMA file's and that didn't make any difference either. I did try adding video effects to each clip, and while that works, it's high annoying to the viewer, not to mention the selection of effects is none too many; reallly would prefer not to add effects to each clip. Any other ideas or suggestions?...I was so excited to get my videos up and running, and now it's frustrating to put so much work in and come this far. Thanks for all your help and communication, I really appreciate it

Ron

 

[Jake]

Hi Ron

This problem surfaces about once per week. It doesn't affect everybody (but
it does affect me) and nobody knows why so far. But I have a theory, which
I can't prove unfortunately, but it's still a theory anyway...

It's not possible to synchronise audio and video in MiniDV format, i.e.
there is no "anchor" to say which audio portion belongs to which video
frame. All they have in common is the DV timecode.

When you edit your clips in MM2, you're generally going to do things like
adjust the length of the clips that you've captured - after all, that's what
it's all about! However, here's where I think things start to get a little
jittery. I think that MM2 doesn't handle edits too well. It uses an
editing workspace that's 12.5 frames per second (PAL) or 15 frames per
second (NTSC) which is half the frame rate of the DV format that you're
working with. The trade off is that it allows you to view a real-time
preview of your project without having to re-render clips that you've added
effects and transitions to. My theory is that it also introduces the
possibility that the audio and video become unsynchronised (I don't know why
this should be) but it's a known phenomenon that when this happens to DV you
hear the characteristic pops, hiccups and stutters that you refer to.

It's an annoying problem, and although it only hiccups for a fraction of a
second it can ruin your work. I had to stop using MM2 as a result.

Jake

I have imported DV as AVI file, edited movie and now time to save back as

an AVI file so I can convert it to a DVD MPEG so I can burn it to DVD. My
problem is whenever I save movie files as AVI files, at certain points in
the video, the video/audio "jerks", "hiccups", "stutters" etc. I have even
saved them multiple times and they always jump in the same exact place. But
whenever I save it in any WMV format, it plays back just fine. Any ideas
what is going on?...I'm running Home XP, and have a brand new AMD Athlon 3
GHz with 768 MB RAM and a 200GB HD, so I don't think my pc is to blame. Any
help is appreciated!

 

[John Kelly]

Hi Ron,
Yes good episode....anyway,

You have got me stumped at the moment, there has to be a way forward but
its alluding me just now.

If you have to use an affect, then use one that you can nullify for
example +10 Contrast followed -10 Contrast. Its a very poor way of doing
thins because of the damage to the final result. I suggest the + and - above
because I don't think MM2 has the necessary where with all to see that they
cancel one another. You might want to experiment a little to see if this
creates artefact in the image.

I will continue to think on this one and I will let you know if I come
up with any more ideas.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly

 

[Lisa Campbell-Smith[MS]]

Hi Ron,
Is the audio on your video from the video or from an audio file you've
added to the timeline?

Thanks,
Lisa Campbell-Smith

I have imported DV as AVI file, edited movie and now time to save back as

an AVI file so I can convert it to a DVD MPEG so I can burn it to DVD. My
problem is whenever I save movie files as AVI files, at certain points in
the video, the video/audio "jerks", "hiccups", "stutters" etc. I have even
saved them multiple times and they always jump in the same exact place. But
whenever I save it in any WMV format, it plays back just fine. Any ideas
what is going on?...I'm running Home XP, and have a brand new AMD Athlon 3
GHz with 768 MB RAM and a 200GB HD, so I don't think my pc is to blame. Any
help is appreciated!