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Problem with, Sound delay, Machina and Cineform XENA LHi
Hello
I have now tested my new XENA LHi card some more in CS4 Premiere Pro 4.1 and this is my report of what’s working and not working. I know CS4
Premiere Pro 4.1 is very unstable so I can’t blame AJA for everything and frankly let’s hope the upcoming v4.2 of Premiere is finally making the CS4
stable, now to the issues that I have with AJA.
1.When I play my clips in the timeline (new AJA SEQ 720p 25frame) the audio is out of sync compare to the picture, it can drift as much as 2-3 second
but it could also play nicely in perfect sync for a while, now this is very random and unexpected. For the most of time it’s out of sync and this is when I
use AJA ASIO driver in the sound hardware setup inside premiere?
I also would like to claim that this AJA ASIO driver is very poor written, it’s not stable and won’t even turn up in my sound manager or for that matter in
my music DAW. I have never ever seen an ASIO driver that not has appeared in my music DAW system like Steinberg Nuendo/Cubase (and I have
been using ASIO since the Stone Age). In every ASIO driver I used I’ve been given the option to have control of the latency (buffer) but AJA has not
even given me these option, please tell me why?
I have also tried my other card “Decklink Intensity Pro” and it has no problem of playing the same files in perfect sync (sound and video).
2.The “Machina” is acting very strange, when I play a 720p 25frame AVI file I get no picture in the Machina window (just the AJA logo) but I get a
SDI-out picture and HDMI picture? The software panel “Machina” is actually freezing when I maximize the window, and the only way to close the
program is to use the task manager and end the program there?
3.I have the CineForm “Prospect HD” and it’s suppose to work with AJA and it sort of does. I select a new AJA sequence AJA HD 1280 x 720 aspect
ratio to Square Pixels (1.0) and bring in the clips on the timeline (1280 x 720 25p AVI) and I get the red line above the clips? Isn’t it suppose to work
right away without these redline, I can’t even render these files or put some effects on it and then try to render again without success?
I can play these files from timeline thought, but as stated above with big sound delay?4.When I try to make a custom project and click on the “AJA setup button” premiere crash, but if I instead skip that part and make these changes later
it’s all fine to press this AJA setup button without any crash?
5.Why does AJA only support (or show) Nvidia graphic card, the new AMD Radeon 5870 is lightning fast?
My computer spec:
(I have a compared this setup to what AJA has on their site and I think this is by far a faster computer setup, Decklink has no problem to play 4 track or
more Simultaneously of full 4.2.2 1920 x 1080p):
AJA XENA LHi with 4.1.3 software
CineForm Prospect HD v4.10
Processor: Intel i7 920
Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 with the latest BIOS 06.04
RAM: Corsair 12GB at speed 1600 (tested with Memtest 86+ in 8 passes)
Raid Card: Adaptec 3085 with 8 x 320Gb in a raid 5
System (C:): SSD Intel X25-M G2 80GB
Graphic Card: AMD/ATI 5870
Operating System: Windows Vista64 Ultimate with all the latest updates (SP2) (this is a clean installation).
NLE: Adobe CS4 with all the latest updatesBest Regards
Mikael Bergstrom
Sweden -
21 Replies
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I can’t confess to know the solution to all your problems but I had HUGE problems with the AJA 4.1.3 drivers and Premiere CS4.
The “AJA setup button” problem was a known issue and is now fixed in the newly released 4.1.4 AJA drivers.
I suggest you update to these immediately and see how your other problems pan out.
The Machina problem you suggest, where you have no picture in Machina check this:
When in the “Play” tab, check your “Display Options”. There should be a setting to “Display To Desktop”. You should have 4 options there. It sounds like maybe you’ve got this setting set to “off”.Machina freezing when you maximise could be 2 things.
Firstly, I’d try updating to the 4.1.4 AJA software and see if that fixes it.
Secondly, check your graphics card drivers, and see if they are a supported version on the AJA site.
https://www.aja.com/support/xena/xena-graphics-cards.phpHope this helps.
I don’t know anything about ASIO but thought I’d chime in on the stuff I do have an idea about.Bram
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I have an identical problem with my Xena LS card and Premiere Pro CS4, with the AJA 4.1.4 drivers.
When playing video from the timeline and the Program panel, video and audio are out of sync.
Also, the AJA Playback Setting panel does not open-up, either in Sequence or in the Program panel (only the Adobe Playback Settings panel opens up).
Do you have that problem, too?
When I play clips in Machina or in the Source panel, everything is OK.
I have an NVidia Quadro FX 3800 graphics card, so the graphics card is not the problem. -
I certainly don’t have that problem with 4.1.4 AJA and my Xena 2k card. (i.e. AJA Playback settings panel not opening up)
re: Sync
What audio monitoring are you using?
If mine is set to Windows audio, the audio is in sync with what’s in my preview window on my computer monitor in Premiere, but not my broadcast monitor.
If I set it to AJA audio hardware, it’s in sync with my broadcast monitor (as my monitor uses the embedded audio from the HD-SDI stream)Your graphics card may not be a problem but your graphics card drivers may be. Check compatability on the AJA website.
Not saying this is the problem, just have been screwed by the wrong Nvidia driver version in the past, not just with this system but with other higher end grading and compositing systems. -
Thanks for all the answers 🙂
Yes, it is exact the same for me about the playback setting???
The sound quality is super good but it is completely out of sync also tends to repeat itself.
If someone says “hi my name is Michael” it sound like “hey hey my name is is name Michael“.
The manual says you can’t use other soundcard when you use AJA, Hmm but we can’t use AJA either. So it’s erea 51 isn’t it?
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Do you have Sync going to your AJA card? Like genlock sync?
Or are your playback settings set to “free run”?
I guess if you can’t get to your playback settings then you may not be able to answer that.
I’d check that you’ve uninstalled 4.1.3 AJA drivers properly before you installed the 4.1.4 drivers. You did UNINSTALL 4.1.3 BEFORE you installed 4.1.4 right? With a reboot of the system after every step?
Sorry if that’s a silly question, but it just sounds like the issues that AJA reported in the 4.1.3 drivers are still lingering in your system.
Might pay to try uninstalling the AJA stuff and trying again.
Or even go back to the 4.1.1 drivers. I didn’t have any problems with that one either.
4.1.3 however didn’t last longer than 10 minutes on my set up. -
“If mine is set to Windows audio, the audio is in sync with what’s in my preview window on my computer monitor in Premiere, but not my broadcast monitor.
If I set it to AJA audio hardware, it’s in sync with my broadcast monitor (as my monitor uses the embedded audio from the HD-SDI stream)”Strange with my old card “Decklink Intensity Pro” it was in sync in both “preview/program window on my computer monitors in Premiere” and in the “HDMI out and analog out”?
Strange??
I have not an Nvidia card I have the new AMD Radeon 5870 card (super fast), do you think this is the problem?
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Yeah maybe with your old card it did that, but with my AJA Xena 2k card it’s been like that even with CS3. Not a problem for us as we always monitor the embedded SDI audio anyway. Works out for us.
If we’re using DV or anything that’s not related to our AJA card, we simply change the audio hardware to windows audio.As for your graphics card, I have no idea if that’s a problem. I’d contact AJA support about that one.
They only list Nvidia drivers on their site, but that’s not to say other cards won’t work, just that maybe they haven’t tested with others. -
Okay thanks Bram Tulloch for all the help 🙂
Just curious, what kind of computer do you have? Are there any of them listed under “supported” on the AJA website (the spec)?
Regards
MikaelMikael
Grammofonbolaget -
I do always uninstall my drivers before I install new ones. It’s OK to ask that question, because you always have to start with the basics.
My problems started the minute I went from 4.1.1 to 4.1.3. I had normal playback before.
I went back to 4.1.1 and the problems remained. Now I’m in 4.1.4 and the same problems persist.
What’s surprising is that the drivers date on the new version still shows 5/19/09. Maybe AJA doesn’t change that date when they release a new version.I’m using an external Roland audio interface, but in Preferences, I use the AJA ASIO.
Audio itself shouldn’t be the problem.
The fact that it works well in Source but not in Program is strange. And the AJA Playback panel not opening up shouldn’t be related to audio.
Also, I get no output to my external component monitor when in program (I don’t have SDI inputs on that monitor). But it works from Source.Mikael, the audio delay I get is different from the one you are experiencing. In my case, it’s just off-sync with the video.
In your case, if you get stuttering, it sounds like a buffer setting. But I don’t know that you can control this in Premiere.I have all the latest drivers in every component (checked over and over). My workstation is a Dell T7500 Quad-Core so it’s in the AJA requirements.
I’m going to redo an AJA 4.1.4 uninstall and reinstall to see if it makes any difference. -
Vista 64-bit Business Service Pack 2
HP xw6600
Dual quad core Xeon CPU @ 2.50GHz
8GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX1700
Adobe Production Premium CS4
Media Vault 4120 FC array.The xw6600 isn’t an AJA listed solution but it’s so close to the xw8600 as to not be a problem.
I did intensive testing before committing to this machine. We have A lot in our building so it also kept costs down.
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