MM2 - Audio tracks skip / pop / click during transitions when saved to DV or AVI

[Nathan Kronert]

Greetings -

I'm having what would appear to be a well known problem
with MM2, where when I try to export to DV or DV-AVI I
get clicks, pops or even minor skipping of Additional
Audio tracks during transitions.

Having tried all of the current remedies, I'm wondering
is anyone has anything further to add to this issue...

What I have / Have tried -
Athlon 2500, 512 MB ram, WD 8MB cache 7200 rpm 80GB SATA
drive, ASUS a7n8x motherboard...

Have tried -
- Information found in MS KB article KB812610. This
includes many different bitrates of audio on MP3's, WMA's
and even WAV's.
- Tried exporting to DV-AVI first, then DV, to no
avail. (In fact, I never bothered to write to DV, as the
AVI still had pops during transition.)
- Made sure nothing else was open using CPU
- Checked windows update
- installed new DX 9 updates...

As most of my experimentation was unfortunately on a 58
minute movie, I thought I'd try a short clip. Even on a
clip that's only a few minutes long, the problem is still
evident.

I thought I would try outputing to "High Quality PAL".
From an audio perspective, this worked OK, but
unfortunately, the picture quality was less than
excellent. The subjects of my current videos do not
benefit from the compression blocking or artifacts and
recording that back to DVD will just look silly.
Interesting, though, that there were no aparent audio
problems.

Next, I tried PAL 2.1 MB/S (Local Playback) which
actually looked pretty good, though I still suffered with
some of the solid colors I have in the movie. Again, no
audio glitches at all.

Thus far, the best results with full uncompressed DV
quality output have been with 320kbs WMA's. It's close to
good, but unfortunately, with each transition,
particularly with transitions from video clip to video
clip, there is still a noticable pop.

Is there anything else I can do about this? It seems to
me that this is clearly a bug in the software that
requires attention. The KB article does NOT really
address the root cause of the problem at all and to say
that "Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem" is
just a kick in the teeth for me. The ONLY reason I bought
XP (and 2 copies at that!) was because we could get MM2
and make DV quality movies.

If this is an acknowledged problem, is there an
acknowledged fix, or some kind of fix underway, and is
there an ETA on when?

ANY help will be welcomed.

Nathan.

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

You don't mention whether you have looked at the website www.papajohn.org
and at the section acceleration and codecs.

 

[Nathan Kronert]

John -

Thanks for the reply...
Yes - I had looked at the codecs and acceleration on
papajohn's site. I looked pretty much over the whole
site. The codecs area seemed to be related to lockups
rather than these 'rendering' issues. After having looked
at it again, I checked the codecs. I have no codecs
listed in the offending area that are not the ones that
came with either XP or MM2.

After thinking this over, it seems aparent to me that the
audio codecs would have little to do with this directly,
as they work fine when rendering output types other than
DV quality. (ie: playback within MM2 or output to WMA in
2.1 MB/s PAL format).

Given that it also works great *without* the transitions,
I think that one could safely assume that this is a bug
in the MM2 product in the way it inserts it's
transitions. I have NO pops, clicks or other degredation
of audio quality without the transitions.

Are there any Microsoft support people that read these
posts? If yes, can you tell us/me if/when this will be
fixed? Is there a bug # associated with it? Is there a
way to track this bug #? Do you need help in recreating
the bug? If yes, please let me know and I'll provide some
real contact details so you can get in touch with me
directly.

For all the users of this group, Thanks! It is great to
see a community of people looking to help each other.

Unfortunately, whilst the solutions presented thus far
have been somewhat helpfull, the output is still
substandard. This is a bug that should be fixed.

People buy this product to get DV quality output, and
that includes sound, audio tracks and transitions, all at
the same time...

Does anyone one this group know how to log a bug
officially? Is there a way for a product such as MM2?

If anyone knows, please let me know!

Thanks!

Nathan.

-----Original Message-----
Hi there,

You don't mention whether you have looked at the

website www.papajohn.org

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Hi Nathan,

Microsoft personnel routinely browse/read these posts. I would expect that
KB812610 wouldn't be there without it being a documented issue.

I know from an occasional Microsoft post that they document bugs. What I
don't know is a list of currently open bugs or of the status of resolutions.

I'm in touch with Microsoft personnel daily, and can know they are aware of
all of the issues that I roll up on my website. In addition to the website,
I send specific reports whenever I add anything significant, and they
respond quickly and appropriately.... But I don't get schedules or forecasts
of changes being worked on - best that I don't, as I'm under a
non-disclosure agreement with them and wouldn't be able to pass along the
info if I got it.

Your posting helps. Thanks,

PapaJohn

 

[Michel]

Nathan,
I wonder if you would also have the problem if you save to NTSC dv-avi
instead of PAL dv-avi?
If you have ever made that test, please report the result. Thanks.
Michel

 

[Nathan Kronert]

Thanks PapaJohn.

In the interests of completeness, could you please make the
support folk aware that the KB article is incomplete.

It's great that they acknowledge that there is a problem
with low quality compressed files, but reading the article,
it's clear that they think they have a good workaround,
using WMA high quality etc. This is still not an acceptable
solution, and clearly indicates a bug. Worse yet, they fail
to recognise the issues with the high quality input...

Perhaps you could ask them to update the KB article to
increase the scope of the problem and indicate that in fact
there is a deficiency in the product outputting DV quality
when additional audio tracks and transitions are involved.

This will help to reduce the number of postings regarding
this question and may also help to prevent people like
myself from spending some 40 - 50 hours trying out the
suggested fixes that don't work... The KB article was the
first thing I read and if it was complete, I could have
saved significant amounts of time.

I look forward to seeing if there are any fixes on the way
and if indeed there will ever be a fix. If there is no
hope, I'll have to start looking for a different product.

Thanks again!

Nathan.

 

[PapaJohn]

Nathan,

I used that specific KB article in my report to them today, to illustrate
unresolved issues with DV-AVI files.

 

[Nathan Kronert]

Thanks very much!

Now, I'll just have to wait and see if we can get a Fix
for this issue.

Where is the best place for me to keep an eye on things?
Check the KB article from time to time, or are ther other
places I can look?

Thanks for your help on this.

At the moment, I'm having to output a whole run sans
music, then import the new movie, and output a second
time with the additional audio tracks... I'm trying one
right now...

Again, thanks for the help... Let's hope we get a good
result, as it's one of the few things I see that would
stop this product from being genuinely excellent...

Best regards,

Nathan.

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

If you go to my Problem Solving... Checklist page and go to the KB812610
paragraph (right now it's at the bottom of the page). It has a link to the
KB article so you can quickly see if it's been updated by Microsoft. And if
I learn anything more about it, I'll update the web page paragraph.

PapaJohn

 

[Nathan Kronert]

PapaJohn and all -

FYI, and for the archive, I spent quite a deal of time
working on this issue, and have thus far been unable to
come up with a satisfactory solution.

However, as an interum work around, I have determined
that if I :
- output to DV-AVI with Video Clips and Transitions only
- import the the new movie into a new project
- dragging the whole things into the timeline as one big
clip
- apply the audio tracks
- re-save to DV

This works and the output is the quality of audio I would
have expected from the first output with transitions and
audio together.

Clearly, this also demonstrates that the codecs, system
setup, etc are not a part of the problem we are seeing.

Again, it's worth noting that the output quality is very
close to being good with 320Kbps WMA's, but still not
perfect. (Actually, during the transitions, not even
close...)

So, at the expense of another 14GB of hard disk space and
an extra 4 - 5 hours, a quality output can be achieved.

Again. This is no soluton. It's an ugly work around for
something that I dearly hope can be fixed in the product.

Hope this helps others to both work around and understand
some of the issues we are seeing with the product at
present.

Best regards,
Nathan.

 

[Philip Winston]

If this is an acknowledged problem, is there an

acknowledged fix, or some kind of fix underway, and is
there an ETA on when?

This seems to be a bug with the transitions, but I haven't seen that
acknowledged anywhere. Note that it is not just an audio bug: MM2 is
dropping video also. I had a video of exactly 4 minutes with many
transitions (it was a slideshow). When I rendered this with a music
track there was the normal popping/skipping, but also I noticed it was
only 3 minutes 56 seconds. That's where the skipping comes from -- it
is dropping small pieces video and audio during the transition
periods.

Here is a workaround I have been doing -- don't blend in a music track
while it is computing transitions, instead do that in a second pass:

1) Remove the audio/music track
2) Save movie as DV-AVI (has audio from video clips only)
3) Restore completed movie project
4) Delete all video clips
5) Import movie saved in step 2 as one video clip
6) Save completed DV-AVI (has video and mixed audio)

This prevents the skipping/popping in the audio -- however since the
video shrinks slightly because of the bug, your audio will appear
shifted slightly. Not a problem for background music, but if your
music and video synch at hard points, you'll have to fix that after
step 5 above.

MM will be a lot easier to use once this bug is fixed. Not sure if I
will wait for that or give in and trade up to a commerical package.

-Philip

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

Your situation is caused by an acknowledged problem with either Codecs or
Acceleration in your graphics system. A series of solutions are available
to you. Have a look at Acceleration and Codecs in the Problem Solving
section of www.papajohn.org Many have used the suggestions there with great
success. Myself included

 

[Philip Winston]

Your situation is caused by an acknowledged problem with either Codecs

or Acceleration in your graphics system.

That's interesting, where can I read more about this from Microsoft?
I saw the KB article about skips with MPEG audio, suggesting using WMA
audio, but that's not this problem. Is there another KB #, or is it
written about somewhere else? I'd like to read what they've said.

A series of solutions are available to you. Have a look at Acceleration
and Codecs in the Problem Solving section of www.papajohn.org Many have
used the suggestions there with great success. Myself included

I looked at that, I didn't find a solution for my case. Disabling
hardware acceleration didn't help and I don't seem to have any
"problem codecs". Perhaps I have an undiscovered problem codec? How
can I tell which codec MM2 is actually using? Seems like that's
really important, does it display that somewhere? I'm rendering as
DV-AVI when I have the problems.

Seems like MM2 should install and use a codec that works, at least by
default for users that don't care about these details. Also it'd be
nice if it warned you that your rendering is not working by checking
if the output movie is the wrong length. I've been working around the
skips for a long time but only recently noticed the length problem.

-Philip

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

Maybe I was not complete with what I said. It is not a microsoft issue,
they do not write the codecs. The problem arises when software houses take
the standard command set for the standard codec and re-write it to suit
either the program or hardware they are selling.

Movie Maker 2 does not supply any codecs. To do so would almost certainly
incur a cost, this because Microsoft do not hold the copyright. To update
your codecs from a software house you have to pay. After all, why would
anyone expect these free? no one goes to work for free.

The program Movie Maker 2 facilitates the use of codecs in a package that's
has minimal controls and an extremely simple interface. It detects what
codecs are on your machine and using the standard command set attempts to
access them. If the codec has not been created using the standard command
set a problem exists...but not with Movie Maker 2.

You can access your standard codecs by clicking Start > Settings > Control
Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > Sound, Video and Game
Controllers. You will then be presented with a list of registered codecs
for Audio and Video. Using the options there you can temporarily and safely
disable any / all codecs in an attempt to discover which one is failing
you. You can also change the order that they are presented to program like
Movie Maker.

If you have any program like Intervideo DVD Player that was bundled with
any software you have purchased or that came with your computer then there
is a very high probability that the codecs that came with that program are
out of date (by a lot) Whilst you may argue that that's ok because it works
with my DVD playing software, it is not all right. If you go to the website
for that company you will almost certainly discover that there is a codec
update package for your machine....they generally cost between US $15 to
$20 per pack.

I am not certain, but in any case I would not expect a KB article on this,
its not a Microsoft issue.

 

[Philip Winston]

Movie Maker 2 does not supply any codecs. To do so would almost certainly

incur a cost, this because Microsoft do not hold the copyright. To update
your codecs from a software house you have to pay. After all, why would
anyone expect these free? no one goes to work for free.

Microsoft has spent a lot more money on Movie Maker itself than most
codecs cost to develop, and it gives that away for free. They could
certainly provide some simple free codecs, especially DV-AVI which is
recommended for editing.

However if they don't they will need to improve how MM uses and
manages codecs if they want users to have a pleasant and productive
experience. One thing that would be nice is to validate the codec
before use. Have MM create a test movie, if it has drop-outs then
report that to the user: "Your current codec XYZ is not working
correctly, please update it". This would not be hard, but would be
very helpful for people who have no idea where the audio skips are
coming from.

Using the options there you can temporarily and safely disable any / all
codecs in an attempt to discover which one is failing you. You can also
change the order that they are presented to program like Movie Maker.

Thanks for the tip, I will look at that. I already used the method
suggested on www.papajohn.org and saw none of my codecs have been
reported to be causing problems. The control panel approach sounds a
bit hit-or-miss, but I can try. So far I wasn't able to guess which
codec MM2 is using when I render as DV-AVI. Most of my codecs were
MPEG variants that shouldn't be a factor for DV-AVI. Does MM2 report
which codec it is actually using? This would be very easy for it to
do and really helpful.

I am not certain, but in any case I would not expect a KB article on this,
its not a Microsoft issue.

It is a Microsoft issue. If I buy a brand new Windows XP machine and
download Movie Maker 2 and it produces movies with skips and pops like
a 45 record -- I am not a happy customer and I feel disappointed with
Windows XP and its ability to edit movies. I'm sure they are working
on something for the next version, MM2 was such a big leap from MM1, I
imagine the next version will iron out problems like this.

-Philip

 

[Jake]

Hi there,

Maybe I was not complete with what I said. It is not a microsoft issue,
they do not write the codecs.

Hi John

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think MM2 on my machine is using the
Microsoft DV-AVI codec, complete with the famous transition glitches and
pops. I know that Premiere used to use this codec until I told it to use a
different one (Sony DV-AVI codec specifically for a Vaio/Premiere
combination).

I will try and remember to check tonight, but if it *is* using the Microsoft
codec, as I suspect, then the ball's 100% in Microsoft's court as it's their
software and their codec!

Regards

Jake

 

[John Kelly]

Hi there,

Well I don't know how much a programmer you are, but the modular approach
of developing as provided by the "Black Box" method in this case codecs, is
really quite easy. If Microsoft did create codecs that worked with their
software you would then be in the opposite position to the one you find
your self in, who would you blame and demand free codecs from then? After
all, no-one works for nothing.

The control panel approach is there specifically for this purpose, the
editing or removing or change of presentation order for each registered
codec on your system, it also displays the relevant separate codes for
compression and decompression. the panel gives the impression that they are
just one file where you see no mention of compression or decompression you
are dealing with a single "Black Box" that deals with both procedures.. You
do not have to make a guess with the control panel approach, simply turn
all off the codecs except the one you wish to test. When you find the one
that is "Faulty" you can then make a decision as to what to do. My first
response would be to make it the last one on the list. If it still causes
problems then the more drastic action of disabling or deleting may be
needed.

Other software that I use does make mention in the header of the resulting
file about which codec was used. I have just tried opening in word pad a
DV-AVI file..it was just to big so I scrapped it. If you manage to make a
small file give it a try...the information should be right near the
beginning, for obvious reasons.

Please do not fall in to the trap of using third party software to play
with your codecs. A package presently recommended gave me a whole load of
options to edit DivX codecs and some other codec...forget the name right
now. I don't have DivX on my machine, and have never had it either.

With regard to your last comment. I understand how you feel. I have other
software that used to play up for exactly the same reason. I bought the
latest version of the software that supplied the "bad" codec and all has
been great since.