RT2000 and lip-synchronization

[JTA]

another question for the mob :

i've been testing my RT2000 for a week now, ans i'm still discovering some annoying problems.

as i've stated before, i am unable to re-play any MPEG-2 AVI-file created by Adobe Premiere 5.1, all the windows media-players I tried gave an error like 'missing codec', 'unknown format' or something like that. I tried Media Player, PowerDVD, Xing and DVDMovie. I can only play back the I-files inside a clip window of AP5. The IBP-files cannot be played back at all, not even by AP5, but they CAN be used by the DVD-It software to create a DVD file structure which can then be read by the DVDMovie player.

Well, I solved this one by installing Ulead's Media Studio Pro ! I can import both the audio & the video files created by the AP5 capture, and export them to any output file using any codec available and they can now be read by any media player (excluding DVDMovie). Even when I export them using the SAME CODEC they were captured by (Matrox MPEG2 I-frames) ! The only difference between AP5 and MSP is that MSP creates only ONE output-file with audio & video interleaved. AP5 creates 2 seperate output files, one for audio, one for video.

ADOBE PREMIERE SUXXS !

Now to my other problem : when playing back the newly created AVI-file, I notice that the sound is slightly behind the image. When I play back the captured files in AP5's monitor, I notice the same thing. More : I can even notice this delay during capture. I can easily shift the audio-bands foreward for a few frames, but it would be better if I could solve this problem right at the source.

any comments-remarks ?

[DrMordrid]

Most often this happens if one or more of the following conditions exist:

1. you have several PCI cards installed.

These new realtime editing cards hit the PCI bus REAL hard. So do many other PCI devices like non-Adaptec SCSI adapters, PCI Modems, LAN cards and PCI audio cards. The more devices there are using or polling the PCI bus the more likely you are to have a problem.

Fix: create a profile with all but the essential ones disabled as directed in Adobes Premiere FAQ. My editing profile disables all PCI cards but the Fasttrak66 and the RT-2000.

2. you have a Fasttrak33 RAID controller.

Sometimes these work with the RT-2000, sometimes not. It depends somewhat on the mobo and other hardware.

Fix: first try turning down the FT33's PCI utilization way down using Ultratune. If this doesn't work you may have to upgrade to a Fasttrak66. It doesn't have this problem due to improved hardware.

3. you're using an audio card that is a bus hog.

Many PCI cards, especially SBLives, will do this depending on the drivers and other factors. AudioPCI cards are also flaky.

Fix: use a good, stable ISA sound card like the AWE64 Gold.

Whatever card you use turn off the spatial, reverb and 3D audio effects. They hog resources. If you must use a PCI audio card turn off the ISA emulation as well.

4. your mobo is marginal in its PCI handling.

If it ain't on the compatability list, think real hard about upgrading.

As far as Adobe Premiere sucking....you sure got that right. I keep looking for an MSPro6 realtime plugin since the SDK is out, but I guess we'll have to wait....

BTW: have you noticed that there are now TWO AMD-K7 boards on the compatability list? The Gigabyte GA-71X and the Microstar P6-DBE.

Ones to avoid: ATTrend with a K6 and SuperMicro with a PIIISCD.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by DrMordrid (edited 06 April 2000).]

[JTA]

oh dear -
my pc is just full of PCI cards :
a modem
a netwerk card
a scsi controller
a soundblaster live .....

my mobo is an intel bx440.

I'll try to create a profile with most of these cards excluded, but I guess I'll be shifting the audio band for quite some time to come.

Interestingly, I've just made a little calculation : the audio is shifted by 4 frames. Knowing that I capture 25 frames a second, this gives me a time-shift of 0.16 seconds.

Now, since the audio signal is just an electrical signal which travels at 300.000 km per second, this means that the audio signal had to travel for 48000 kilometers for this time-shift to occur !

As for Adobe Premiere : I'd rather NOT use it, however, the RT2000-card seems to have a preferential relationship with it. If you want to use all the goodies like real-time editing & preview, you can't do it without AP5. It's just a damned nuisence that I have to reassemble the output file using MSP to create something that can be played outside of AP5.

[Stormlord]

Ahemm... audio no way near travels at 300000km/sec (neither does electricity for that matter), light does however. What you could also try is altering the PCI Latency (PnP & PCI options) - if it is possible in your motherboard's BIOS.