[Bill Mcfadden]

Thanks for responding Aaron!

My responses to your questions in bold below….

Do you have the same hardware as the original posters?

I would say most likely not, since there are so many machines & so many possible hardware configurations. My machine is as follows:

Windows 10 Pro, Intel Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40Ghz, 16 GB RAM, 64-bit OS, ASUS Motherboard – E6849_P8Z68-V_GEN3 – with Realtek High Definition Audio built-in.

Software Versions: Sony Vegas Pro 13.0 (build 453) 64-bit, Sony Forge Audio Studio 10 (build 252), Sony DVD Architect 6.0 (build 237).

As I previously stated, this has happened on three versions of SVP (10, 11, & now 13), and they happened on different machines. The first occurrence was on a WinXP Pro Dual Core Intel machine with 8 GB RAM. Each with different hardware installed, though the first DID have a SB Audio card.

If you remove your custom audio hardware and drivers from your machine, and use the stock onboard sound card. Do you still have the same issue?

As stated above, I am already using the stock Realtek audio built into the motherboard.

A long while back, I had a top of the line SB Platinum Pro device that had wonderful sound. But SB stopped supporting the device and old drivers were creating a stability issue with editing in SVP. When I removed that device, my editing stability improved greatly.

No applicable here, but my audio drivers ARE up to date (I liked the SB audio too!)

Have the posters in this thread tried Sony .W64 format or FLAC instead of mp3. Those would at least be uncompressed audio.

I know that I have not used those audio formats, but in my case, I have no issues with MP3 audio. In fact, if I convert all my audio (including that which is part of the video), I have zero problems with audio… AND… if I don’t introduce any MP3 audio into a project I STILL have problems with the WAV audio there, whether or not there are any other WAV files imported into the project (like music tracks, etc.). One other note, the corruption doesn’t happen right away from the very beginning of a project… not typically anyway… it occurs AFTER I have had more than one editing session.

INTERESTING NOTE: I noticed last night that after hearing corrupted audio on an ongoing wedding project I am working on, I closed SVP 13 in frustration, as I had done several editing sessions with a mix of WAV and MP3 music. Later in the evening, I reopened the project thinking I was going to have to convert all the WAV audio to MP3 to go forward, and would have to do so to all the additional WAV audio going forward as well. Interestingly, once I reopened SVP 13, the audio played just fine. Odd right? I did some more work, and again closed SVP for the night. I just opened it again, as I write this, to test it once more, and the audio is again fine at this point. So, perhaps just closing SVP and reopening it will work to get around the problem in the future, but time will tell.

I should also note that I had tried this in the past on different versions of Vegas, and it never got any better once the audio was playing back corrupted, it just stayed that way until I converted the audio… which is why I had not tried closing the program and reopening it previously.

I believe pro audio hardware relies heavily on ASIO vs stock sound cards. Is it possible that something has been installed recently that has jacked the ASIO on the machine? Old drivers on new OS or something like that? Googling ASIO tester, there seems to be a utility by centrance, that measures the Audio latency performance. If this runs well, it might be a good thing to check.

While this doesn’t seem to apply to my STOCK built-in audio, still may be interesting to try it.

You might also check the DPC latency on the machine. There could be another device driver that is causing the issue.

You got me there Aaron! I have no idea what that is, or how to check it! 🙂

[Bill Mcfadden]

I too have had this problem with WAV files, since version SVP 10, and I’ve had several builds of 10, 11 and now 13. Version 9, which I had used extensively, never had these audio issues. My problems are exactly as described in the original, and subsequent, posts, and it’s a HUGE time waster to have to convert all your audio before you feel confident it will work properly. I convert my WAV audio to MP3 as well, and that works perfectly, but again, big pain in the ass and very time consuming to do.

I would like to add that it does not matter if the WAV file is part of the original video soundtrack, OR, if it is an imported WAV music track. AND, once the problem starts happening, always during an edit (either video or audio) it will even mix random bits of audio from both WAV and MP3 files. Very frustrating, and once corrupted, it stays that way until I do something to fix it! The fix, for me, is reloading a copy of each audio clip into Sony Sound Forge, converting it to MP3, then reloading the new file into SVP, inserting a new audio track next to the existing one, and placing the new MP3 track on the new audio track so it lines up with the original. When I have an existing audio volume envelope on the corrupted track, the method I just described works well, as I can then cut the corrupted audio (not the track) and then drag the MP3 into place, thus preserving my volume envelope’s points, adjustments, etc. Not an elegant or efficient solution, but at least it works…

It’s interesting to note that some people don’t have this issue going on at all. Makes you wonder what the difference is on hardware perhaps?

[Bill Mcfadden]

I too have the Canon Vixia G30 Paul… and only found out today that when I transfer my files from the camera to my computer there is ZERO audio. I spent over two hours on the phone with tech support, and they could not find out why this is happening on my Win 7 Pro editing station. In fact, the computer never does SEE the camera to import the files. I had to transfer from the SDXC cards.

Now, ironically, my old Toshiba laptop was a different story. When connected to THAT computer via USB, it SEES my camera immediately, and I was able to “import” the files using Windows Movie Maker. However, when I try to copy and paste the files in Windows Explorer, the files get to my hard drive, but ZERO audio again.

What The Heck? I have two Canon XA10s, with no such problems, and two other Sony cams. Have never had any problems of this type, and apparently even Canon Tech Support is mystified. They finally said it must have something to do with my computer hardware, or my anti-virus software is blocking something.

Funny, it never blocked any video/audio before on 4 other cameras of different types. So I asked him, from a troubleshooting point of view, why would this time be any different?

Anyone figures it out, please email me and let me know what you found! BikeRidinBill@gmail.com

Thanks!

[Bill Mcfadden]

When you ask, “are you cropping the project aspect”, do you mean the outputted render size? For example, my video is 1920×1080, my images (resized) are now 1920×1440 (or close to that… I had to rotate some of them slightly to straighten them, and then re-crop to the final saved image).

I am then rendering to more than one size for different applications. For You Tube, I’m rendering to Sony Tablet 720p and Sony Tablet 1080p (still trying to decide which one I want to use). For my web banner, I have a cell that is 832 pixels wide to place the rendered video in. I have tried a height of 288 and 304, but they don’t look right to me. I used multiples of 16, but am relatively new to this stuff, so not sure what to use yet.

[Bill Mcfadden]

John,

I just noticed I am getting some of that shimmering effect on the white window pane frames in some of the animated images too, but not on all of them.

Is there some way to post a small piece of the rendered video so you and others can see what is happening here? May be helpful in some way perhaps.

Thanks!

[Bill Mcfadden]

Hi John,

Yes, I am adding some very slight motion to the still images to add interest.

When I resized the images, as you suggested earlier, they resized from 4000×3000 to 1920×1440. So, when I import them into Sony Vegas Pro 11.0 & drop them on the timeline and select Widescreen, I see a portion of the image selected in the Preview window. Of course, what I see there is only a part of the image, vertically speaking. But, I like to add more than a simple up and down movement to the image, so I resize the image a little bit smaller in my starting keyframe, and move the image up and to the right, or some variation thereof, in my last keyframe. Total time for the image is approximately 4-5 seconds, with a 1 second crossfade to the next image.

There ARE some fine lines in the image, which are usually the edges of roof tiles or shingles, etc., as I explained to Russ in the previous post. This is where I see the weird shimmering effect the most. It also appears on metallic objects, like the edges of window screens, or screen doors, and sometimes on the blades grass in the lawn, or on the edges of glass in an opening door, etc. (I sometimes have a shot of a door opening door, though that is a video image and not a still).

I will give the vertical blur a try, but will that cause my images to lose the sharpness of image I am craving? 🙂

Thanks again for your help on this. It is much appreciated!!!

[Bill Mcfadden]

Hi Russ,

I don’t think so… but am not absolutely certain. There doesn’t appear to be any weirdness to the actual still image. However, I have noticed that the edges of roof tiles, shingles, or edges of screens, or metallic items, etc., is where I see this occurring most.

[Bill Mcfadden]

Hey John,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate the help, and obviously need it.

However, I’m a little bit confused still. I resized a few images, and am getting ready to pull them into Vegas and re-render to see what happens. But, I took a look at some of the file data on those images, before and after re-sizing them, and this is what I found there.

As I mentioned previously, the image resolution (by default) is 4000×3000. My image editor reports these images as 180 dpi, not the 300 dpi, I thought they were, and shows them to be 24 bit depth. As such, before resizing, the images are 2.94 MB, and Windows Explorer reports them as 3,017 KB. After resize, they are shown to be 1920×1440 at 300 dpi (the editor is saving them as this dpi), still 24 bit depth and 633 KB in size.

I loaded up a few frames of stills and video, using the newly resized images, and I’m still getting some of that shimmer effect, but not as much, it seems. Still not quite what I’m hoping to get out of it, but definitely improved.

This time, I rendered in Sony Tablet 720p, which works well for viewing on tablets and cell phones, which is one of the goals I am trying to accomplish.

I also rendered to my other target file, a video header for a web page banner, using the same template, but adding a custom size of 832×304. The shimmering rooftops were more present than ever before, while the still from inside the home looked just fine.

Very frustrating, but still hoping for a solution that works in both cases.

Thank you John, and if you notice anything else I’m missing, please do share!