Web Audio Garbled

[System Administrator]

This may be off Group topic. Have one Windows XP SP3 machine that has
developed garbled audio while playing video clips from web sites using
IE7. Audio from an audio CD is OK (from each of several different
players, including WMP). Have uninstalled and re-installed Adobe
Flash and Shockwave players as well as Real Player as I don't know
which is being used by IE or the particular web site. Problem occurs
from both of two different web sites tested. Anyone have any ideas
where the problem lies? Thanks in advance.

 

[R. McCarty]

Test your Internet speed: http://www.speedtest.net/
If you are getting downloads at or near your rated class, then I'd look
to settings for Flash Player ( Cache size on Disk ). Also streaming data
is cached on your drive in the Temp folders. These should be cleaned
out on a regular schedule.

 

[Paul]

This may be off Group topic. Have one Windows XP SP3 machine that has
developed garbled audio while playing video clips from web sites using
IE7. Audio from an audio CD is OK (from each of several different
players, including WMP). Have uninstalled and re-installed Adobe
Flash and Shockwave players as well as Real Player as I don't know
which is being used by IE or the particular web site. Problem occurs
from both of two different web sites tested. Anyone have any ideas
where the problem lies? Thanks in advance.

Can you give links to the two sites with the problem ? Or pick
some other sites that also demonstrate the problem ? If you know
the tech used to play the sound, knowing the version of software
might help as well (in case there is a known problem that can be
found with a search engine).

If you look at CPU utilization in Task Manager, is the CPU pegged ?

Does the computer have echo suppression software installed ? Some
kinds of VOIP applieations, may add software that they leave running
all the time, even when you're not making a call.

If all else fails, take a second computer, and record a 20 second
sample of audio output from the garbling computer, then post that
on some web site. Then post a link to the garbled recording, and a
link to the originating site. You can use a program like Audacity,
to compare the waveforms, and come up with a theory as to the
type of garbling. Or someone out here can compare them.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I had a computer with "muddy" sound, and using Audacity, I could
see the sound driver was adding reverberation (echo) with a 30 millisecond
time constant. The provided control panel would not allow the reverb
to be turned off. So I had to buy a separate sound card, with a better
driver associated with it. No more echo. No more "muddy" music.

Paul

 

[System Administrator]

Thanks for your responses. I am only at this client on a weekly
basis, thus the late response.

To answer your questions:

1. Internet connection is a full T1 (1.54Mbps) and it is operating at
full speed
2. Flash cache size is set to the default 100KB
3. Which Temp folders contain the Flash streamed data and what might
their filenames look like?
4. All web sites seem to be affected. I have tried video clips from
YouTube, CNN, and FoxNews. All come through with lower than normal
level, garbled audio. However, none seem to be stuttering from
possible bit stream interruption.
5. The Adobe Flash installed is the latest available from the Adobe
web site (10.0.32.18)
6. CPU utilization during video clip playback is minimal - less than
25%
7. No echo suppression is enabled. Audio system driver is set to
default values.
8. There are no VOIP applications installed


The affected computer is a 3GHz P4 with 2GB RAM and plenty of free HDD
space. Its audio system is a Realtek AC97. As mentioned, there are
no issues with CD audio playback (normal level and no garble).
Further, Windows' system sounds are also unaffected. DVD playback has
not been tested.

FWIW, my workstation is a 1.6GHz P4 with 768MB RAM utilizing the same
shared Internet connection. It has the same audio system as the
affected workstation and has the same version of Adobe Flash
installed. My workstation does not have any issues playing back the
same video clips from the same web sites mentioned. It does, though,
stutter from time to time. But the audio is never garbled.

Also, as mentioned, the affected workstation has only recently (within
the last two months) developed this issue. It used to play back web
video clips just fine.

Any other suggestions as to what may be the problem?

Thanks!



On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:11:19 GMT,