Audio drifting within Premiere

[Jan Janowski]

Do you have some of the footage you could post somewhere so that others could try it?
The pictures posted make it look like corrupted footage or timebase errors.

Looking for 1939 Indian Motocycle

[Rupert Howe]

Does this happen when you create a sequence from a clip – selecting the clip and right click and choose “New Sequence from clip” – if not, that would indicate some kind of problem with your sequence settings. Looking in the Sequence Settings window, you say they’re the same, so they show 1920×1080 29.97fps Progressive?

I wonder if it’s a problem with the Long GOP codec? We have seen some dropped frames and stuck frames and audio drift with Long GOP codecs in CS6, particularly when intercut with other types of video. (Seems like it might be better in CS7).

If you tick Show Dropped Frame Indicator in the Program Monitor’s flyout menu, it pops up a little green light, which turns yellow when you drop frames, and shows how many frames are dropped. If it’s dropping frames, that might account for your drifting.

One way we improve playback with Long GOP codecs when this happens is to create a new Transparent Video clip (File > New > Transparent Video) and stretch that transparent video clip over the top of your timeline on a top video layer. It seems to trick it into playing back better.

Another way of doing the same kind of thing it is to put an adjustment layer over the top with a small effect applied – like Timecode.

– – –
Rupert Howe
Production Workflow Lead
Support Partners (UK) Ltd at BBC Bristol Digital Village
https://support-partners.com/

[Dan Vickson]

If I export it to upload it to Youtube it will export with the audio drift, and the smallest file I have that exhibits the problem is 2gb.

[Dan Vickson]

Yes, it still happens when I create a sequence from a clip.

The inconsistency is really bugging me. Sometimes everything is perfectly fine, but other times this issue occurs. I can’t figure out what might be going wrong to cause the disparity, and I especially don’t understand why the effected clips play back fine in multiple media players.

I also tried stretching a transparent video clip over it. No luck there.

The dropped frame indicator is green the whole way through the video. I did suspect that I had some corrupted/dropped frames because of the occasional few frames of distortion as pictured in the screenshots in the OP, but I’m not so sure anymore. I would still question why the sync is fine when the file is played in WMP/VLC, but at least narrowing the problem down to dropped frames would be something.

Assuming that is the issue, my next step would be figuring out why frames are being dropped or distorted. My HDMI cables appear to be fine as I never see anything on the TV I record on. My laptop isn’t the issue because it meets the capture card’s requirements and I’ve never seen the CPU useage spike above 70% while recording. I also set the recording software’s priority to high. The HDD is in good shape. That leaves the USB cable that goes from the capture card to the laptop, the capture card itself, or my Wii U. I don’t think it’s the cable or the capture card because I never seem to have an issue when capturing footage from my 360, and I haven’t had any issues recording from a PS3 since I replaced my old defective one. I’ve observed this problem specifically when capturing from the Wii U. I don’t understand why this only manifests in the captured footage, but not the TV if the console is faulty in some way.

[Kuhnen Brown]

Something else to check. Audio bit depth. Is your source 16-bit audio, or 24-bit audio? The source and the output have to match. If not, audio drift happens.
Kuhnen.

Kuhnen Brown
InterMountain Digital
Oregon

[Kevin Monahan]

If the frame rate is 29.970, it will drift. It should be locked to a frame rate supported by the codec, namely 29.976 in your case. You may want to interpret the file to get a proper frame rate. If that doesn’t work, transcode it.

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS5ED78235-3D49-4ea0-97B0-61A0752D46B1.htm

Kevin Monahan
Social Support Lead
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
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[Dan Vickson]

How do I go about doing any of that? When I record from the capture card I don’t have any options about locking the frame rate, and I can’t control whether or not the FPS of what I’m capturing dips. I don’t know how to transcode either.

On top of this, I STILL can’t figure out why the file plays with perfect sync in media players, but the moment it’s imported into Premiere it becomes this big hassle.

[Mike Cohen]

Having a similar issue. Received F4V files recorded with Blackmagic Media Express at an unusual frame rate of 28.97. Playback on Windows through VLC sync is fine. Imported into Premiere, make a new sequence from the file, sync is off after about 5 seconds, and is about 1 min off by end of the file.

This seems to be a known issue with Intensity / Media Express:
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3928

Question now is how do you fix it? I tried converting to a 29.97 file but that didn’t help.

Mike Cohen