Weird Audio Problem - Can anyone help?

bwind22

bwind22

Active member
I have a weird post production audio problem I just ran in to and I'm hoping someone here can help. Here's the scenario....

I shot a short last night with 2 cameras. The owner of the 2nd camera put all his footage on a DVD (as an .avi) and delivered it to me today. I watched the footage on Windows Media Player & all the video & audio was there. I uploaded the footage on to my editing program (Magix Movie Edit Pro 11) and the video showed up just fine, but there's something weid going on with the audio.

If I start before the scene, all the audio will play just fine all the way through. If I start anywhere in the middle of the scene or try to skip around during the scene, the audio is replaced with crackles and hisses. and I then need to go back to the very start before the first frame for it to start working again. Clearly this presents a problem when trying to edit because if I cut the first part of the scene, the audio becomes crackles and hisses. I can turn the 'feedback' all the way down to eliminate the crackling & hissing, but when I do that there is no audio at all, like the track is muted.

After trying to figure out what the heck is going on with it for the past 2.5 hours, I figured I'd try a post here to see if anyone has any idea. I have a feeling it's probably something simple, but I can't seem to figure it out. I know the audio is there, but why is it turning in to distortion if I skip around in the scene without letting it play all the way through?

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

B
 
I'm not familiar with Magix Movie Edit Pro, so I have no idea where the problem lies. But I can suggest a workaround.

Since the audio plays okay if started from the beginning, I would try exporting the whole thing to a new .AVI file. Then bring that file into the project and use it in place of the original. I wouldn't expect you'd have the same audio problems with the new file.

Try exporting just a minute or two of the footage, and see if you're able to jump around in that clip without the audio disappearing on you. If so, then a full export seems like a workable solution.

Good luck!
 
One other thing.....I assume when you say you uploaded the footage to Magix Movie Edit Pro, that you mean you copied it off the DVD to your data hard drive, right? If not, that would be the first step.
 
I copied to my hard drive, then put on MM. I recorded directly from DVD to MM. I saved to Windows Media Player, then moved the files to MM. All with the same result. Very frustrating.

I'll try exporting it from MM to my hard drive and then back again and see if that helps. Thanks for the tip.
 
Are you running Vista by any chance?

What format did the other guy's camera use? MiniDV? Or did it record straight to the DVD?

It sounds like a codec problem. Hopefully the export thing will work. If not, maybe posting your question on the forums at Magix's website would yield an answer.
 
Okay, I tried creating a new .avi file saving of one of the scenes, then loading it in to a new project. Thanks for the suggestion chapel, It was worth a shot, but the result was the same. Audio works if I start on the first frame and ceases to work if I jump around or try to start later in the scene. I don't know what the F is going on, but I'm getting too tired and irritated to keep trying to figure it out tonight. If chapel or anyone else has more ideas, feel free to throw any and all suggestions my way and I'll try everything until I get it firgured out tomorrow. Thanks.
 
Yes, I am running Vista. He shot on DV, as did I. I've had Vista & Magix for a while now and I have never had problems with the footage I've shot myself, but then again, I always just firewire it into my computer so I've never gone this .avi route before.
 
Okay, this isn't the best of all workarounds, but it should work...

I have connected my DVD player to my DVX100a using an S-video cable and the audio cables. Then I connected the DVX100a to my PC via firewire. Doing this, I was able to play the DVD and capture the video and audio via the firewire connection into Premiere.

You could do something similar. At least this would give you footage you could use.

Good luck!
 
That sounds like an option that could probably work. Unfortunately, I'm too tired to do all that work tonight, but thanks for the suggestion. I'll give that one a shot tomorrow.
 
Hi B,
The might be something wrong with the initial capture. I've seen that before. Have you gone into the properties of the AVI file, and looked at the audio portion. IE. 16 bit, 48k etc.
I've encountered footage captured through movie maker that had audio( bad) and the file's properties did not display audio. Anyway the work around was to re save it out through quicktime pro, I seem to remember. I suppose you could go back to the source tape and recapture it.
Jon
 
Thanks for all the help! I finally got it figured out. I ended up importing in to Magix as an avi, then exporting it back to my hard drive as a wav and then reimporting the wav file and it ended up working out. Thank you both for helping out!!! Greatly appreciated!
 
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