Sound playback problems on 5.1 systems

Hi all
Does anyone know why after completing projects using iDVD 5, although the resulting DVD soundtrack plays back fine through the standard stereo outputs of a DVD player, (or Apple DVD player etc) there is always a sample rate problem when playing back through 5.1 sound systems? It's quite infuriating that you can't playback finishd iDVD projects in the same environment set up for commercially available DVD 5.1 viewing without grunging, clicking & pitch change problems.
Does iDVD resolve its DVDs with a different sample rate to commercially available DVD's?
Thanks in anticipation Richard

Thank you so much for opening this can of worms with me Hui !!
Given that our iDVD software produces soundfiles that the Dolby 5.1 system actually DOES play back at all, I have to confess to being confused as to why these 2 channels simply seem to be coming back at the wrong sample rate??
I'm actually a musician putting together a showreel of movie clips and so have a pretty good idea of what it sounds like when things go wrong if a piece of audio kit plays something back at the wrong sample rate in the studio. My simplistic view of what's going on is that our stereo sound files are being decoded back to analogue by the Dolby 5.1 system at the wrong sample rate .... it's the same sort of effect that you get if you are playing back a 48khz sound through a poor 44.1khz convertor .... so if we could somehow change the sample rate of the soundfiles that iDVD encodes to whatever the "usual commercial DVD movie sample rate" is ..... our DVDs would playback fine!
Of course this is probably naive nonsense .... there must be some technical reason why iDVD elected for a different sample rate but I wonder why??
Best wishes Richard

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Equium A110-276 DVD image and sound playback problems

A couple of months ago my Equium A110-276 stopped playing DVDs correctly.
The sound and images on the DVDs are slow, sometimes skip and are generally out of sync.
I downloaded the latest drivers however it didnt make any difference. If i stream a video from youtube for example the picture and sound are both fine.
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Thanks
Siobhan

Hi
If the video stream looks ok then everything seems to be ok with the graphic card.
I think either there is something wrong with the CD/DVD driver or with the software itself.
I have investigated a little bit in this forum and found this thread regarding a very similar issue:
http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=24736&messageID=92405
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Sound playback: no sound, abnormally high bitrate.

I've been reading up on using JMF for simple sound playback all day, and I've seen countless examples that do the same thing I'm doing, but in every instance, I get absolute silence. Additionally, it seems that the read bitrate is higher than it should be, according to the control panel's properties dialog (e.g., 480Kbps for a 192Kbps mp3).
The code always goes something simple like this:
    Player player = null;
    try {
      MediaLocator ml = new MediaLocator(new File("BGM.mp3").toURL());
      player = Manager.createPlayer(ml);
    catch (Exception e) { System.err.println("BGM messed up"); }
    if (player != null) {
      player.addControllerListener(p);
      player.start(); //this does realize and prefetch
    }I put some debug output statements in my controllerUpdate function, and it is indeed realizing, prefetching, and starting playback of the file. I have tried this with both wav's and mp3s (I have the mp3 plugin installed in addition to the JMF 2.1.1e itself), and have always gotten the same result - MediaTime progresses too fast, roughly 2.5 times faster than it should (5 seconds for every 2 real seconds), and I get no sound.
At this point, after having tried at least 2 examples found online in addition to my own code, I'm convinced there's something up with my Java runtime in itself, not just my code... anyone have any experience with this kind of problem?
System Info:
OS: Windows XP Pro SP1
Java Version: 1.5.0_02
JMF Version: 2.1.1e (zip version [no performance pack], with mp3plugin added)
Thanks in advance for any help.

Do you use it in an Applet ?
I'm also unable to play any sound with Java(TM) Plug-in 1.5.xx the
plugin to all browsers nowadays.
You mentioned you used it on Windows 98 SE.
The old IE browser used the build in javaVM. It worked - just look at
the java consol and you see a lot of warnings and errors -, but in the
end it played video and sound.
The only solution I found is to use Java(TM) Plug-in 1.4.xx. The
'automatic search for update' box must not be checked, otherwise it
will update to the newest Plugin and you face the same problem. If you
want to place an applet on your homepage, just use video only - until
now it works correctly on ALL PLATFORMS.
There was a Bug Report 6245070 where I was asked as well to give an
example a year ago, but this was all - no response at all. In this
applets I used
Content Type : video.quicktime
Video Encoding : h263
Audio Encoding : ULAW
not even mpg3!!
I tried to compile the whole JMF Version: 2.1.1e with J2SE 5.0 and
Standard Edition 6 Beta. At one version I changed all the
inconviences like the reserved words "enum" ..., and an other version
with old style, which is possible with Standard Edition 6 Beta.
It seem's the problem is not in the part you are able to compile. It
seems to me it is in the sound.jar api, but I really don't know - just
trail and error.
Conclusion only JRE lower and until version 1.4.xx will work.
It would be a pleasure to me if I'm wrong and there is a solution.

Sound capturing problem on Mac and Linux

Hi,
I've an applet that enables users to record (through microphone), play and save audio as a Wav file. The Wav file is saved in the user's home directory. This applet works well on Windows, but not quite on Linux and Mac. When I click Record and say something to the microphone, click Stop and click Play to listen to the recorded audio, nothing is heard. I'm not sure where the bug is, whether it's in the recording or capturing function. I'm quite new to JAVA and the applet was written based on the sample Sound Recorder applet. Really appreciate it if someone could help me out since I need to deliver the final product as soon as possible. Here is the code. Thanks a lot.
/* Starts here */
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.geom.Line2D;
import java.awt.font.*;
import java.applet.*;
import java.applet.AudioClip;
import netscape.javascript.JSObject;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
import javax.swing.border.*;
import javax.sound.sampled.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.text.DecimalFormat;
import java.text.NumberFormat;
import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.Vector;
import java.util.Enumeration;
import java.net.*;
import java.lang.*;
public class sound extends Applet {
     public String Fspr = System.getProperty("file.separator");
     public String AllPath;
     public String myOS;
     public int tmp1 = 1;
     AudioClip sound;
boolean debug;
protected boolean running;
     protected int setIntNo;
ByteArrayOutputStream out;
AudioInputStream ais;
AudioFormat format;
String audioFmt;
boolean signed;
boolean bigEndian;
int sampleRate;
int sampleSizeInBits;
int channels;
String formatStr;
TargetDataLine line;
SourceDataLine sourceLine;
boolean playPressed;
boolean stopPressed;
boolean recordPressed;
DecimalFormat df;
DecimalFormat df2;
long msecCurrent;
long msecElapsed;
int minElapsed;
Date date;
long msecStart;
     public void init(){
          // Get path to the audio file
          AllPath = getHomeDir();
debug = false;
signed = true;
bigEndian = true;
          myOS = System.getProperty("os.name");
          if (myOS.equals("Mac OS X")){
               sampleRate = 44100;
          } else {
               sampleRate = 22050; // 8000-11025-12000-16000-22050-24000-32000-44100-48000
sampleSizeInBits = 16; // 8-16
channels = 1; // 1 - Mono 2 - Stereo
formatStr = "WAV";
playPressed = false;
stopPressed = false;
recordPressed = false;
df = new DecimalFormat("00");
df2 = new DecimalFormat("00,000,000");
date = new Date();
     public void callJS(String jsFunc) {
          URL url = null;
          try {
               url = new URL(jsFunc);
          }catch (MalformedURLException me) {
               String mydd = "Bad javascript url: " + jsFunc;
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, mydd, "Alert", javax.swing.JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
          getAppletContext().showDocument(url);
     public void exitAudio(){
          System.exit(0);
     public void stopAudio(){
          running = false;
          stopPressed = true;
          playPressed = false;
          saveAudio();
     public void saveAudio(){
          try {
               byte abyte0[] = out.toByteArray();
               ByteArrayInputStream bytearrayinputstream = new ByteArrayInputStream(abyte0);
               AudioFormat audioformat = getFormat();
               try{
                    ais = new AudioInputStream(bytearrayinputstream, audioformat, abyte0.length / audioformat.getFrameSize());
               } catch(Exception exception) {
                    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Unknown Format");
                    return;
               String s = "myfile." + formatStr;
               createAudioFile(ais, s);
          } catch(NullPointerException e) {
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Saving audio file unsuccessful!!!");
     public void captureAudio(){
try{
format = getFormat();
javax.sound.sampled.DataLine.Info info = new javax.sound.sampled.DataLine.Info(javax.sound.sampled.TargetDataLine.class, format);
if(line != null)
line.close();
try {
line = (TargetDataLine)AudioSystem.getLine(info);
line.open(format);
line.start();
} catch(IllegalArgumentException illegalargumentexception) {
                    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Unknown Format.");
return;
date = new Date();
msecStart = date.getTime();
Runnable runnable = new Runnable() {
public void run(){
int i = 0;
out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
running = true;
try{
while(running){
int j = line.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
if(j > 0){
out.write(buffer, 0, j);
msecCurrent = (new Date()).getTime();
msecElapsed = msecCurrent - msecStart;
out.close();
                              playAudio();
                              return;
} catch(IOException ioexception) {
                              JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "I/O problems");
int bufferSize;
byte buffer[];
bufferSize = (int)format.getSampleRate() * format.getFrameSize();
buffer = new byte[bufferSize];
Thread thread = new Thread(runnable);
thread.start();
return;
}catch(LineUnavailableException lineunavailableexception){
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Line unavailable");
return;
     public void playAudio(){
try{
if(playPressed)
return;
playPressed = true;
byte abyte0[] = out.toByteArray();
ByteArrayInputStream bytearrayinputstream = new ByteArrayInputStream(abyte0);
final AudioFormat final_audioformat = getFormat();
try{
ais = new AudioInputStream(bytearrayinputstream, final_audioformat, abyte0.length / final_audioformat.getFrameSize());
} catch(Exception exception) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Unknown Format.");
return;
javax.sound.sampled.DataLine.Info info = new javax.sound.sampled.DataLine.Info(javax.sound.sampled.SourceDataLine.class, final_audioformat);
if(sourceLine != null)
sourceLine.close();
sourceLine = (SourceDataLine)AudioSystem.getLine(info);
sourceLine.open(final_audioformat);
sourceLine.start();
date = new Date();
msecStart = date.getTime();
Runnable runnable = new Runnable() {
public void run(){
int i = 0;
try{
int j;
while((j = ais.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length)) != -1) {
if(stopPressed){
stopPressed = false;
break;
if(j > 0){
sourceLine.write(buffer, 0, j);
msecCurrent = (new Date()).getTime();
msecElapsed = msecCurrent - msecStart;
sourceLine.drain();
sourceLine.close();
playPressed = false;
                              tmp1 = tmp1 + 1;
return;
} catch(IOException ioexception) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "I/O problems");
return;
int bufferSize;
byte buffer[];
bufferSize = (int)final_audioformat.getSampleRate() * final_audioformat.getFrameSize();
buffer = new byte[bufferSize];
Thread thread = new Thread(runnable);
thread.start();
return;
} catch(LineUnavailableException _ex) {
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Please close other audio device");
playPressed = false;
     private AudioFormat getFormat(){
return new AudioFormat(sampleRate, sampleSizeInBits, channels, signed, bigEndian);
     public String getHomeDir(){
String s = System.getProperty("user.home") + Fspr;
return s;
     public void createAudioFile(AudioInputStream audioinputstream, String s) {
StringTokenizer stringtokenizer = new StringTokenizer(s, ".");
stringtokenizer.nextToken();
String s1 = stringtokenizer.nextToken();
javax.sound.sampled.AudioFileFormat.Type type = null;
if(s1.equalsIgnoreCase("AU"))
type = javax.sound.sampled.AudioFileFormat.Type.AU;
else
if(s1.equalsIgnoreCase("WAV"))
type = javax.sound.sampled.AudioFileFormat.Type.WAVE;
else
if(s1.equalsIgnoreCase("AIFF"))
type = javax.sound.sampled.AudioFileFormat.Type.AIFF;
else
if(s1.equalsIgnoreCase("SND")){
type = javax.sound.sampled.AudioFileFormat.Type.SND;
} else {
return;
          try {
               String filename = AllPath+"UserAudio.wav";
               File file1 = new File(filename);
               if (file1.exists()) {
                    System.gc();
                    boolean success = file1.delete();
                    if (!success){
                         JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Delete Failed");
               AudioSystem.write(audioinputstream, type, new File(AllPath+"UserAudio.wav"));
               recordPressed = false;
               return;
} catch(Exception exception) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"I/O Problems: " + exception);
/* Ends here */

Hi,
are you sure that the systems can handle the samplerate given? Is the mic input selected in the systems audio setup (on mac?)
Just put some singnal (sine or noise) in your buffer to check if the problem is on playback or on recording.
Tomy

IOS Music Player MP3 Gapless Playback Problem

Hi,
I've been having this gapless playback issue on iOS now for the past few years, since at least iOS 6 if I can remember correctly. The number one reason I use an iPhone and iOS devices is for gapless playback in the iOS music player. For the last few years I've been experiencing a bug with the stock iOS music player on my iPhone 4S using iOS 6 and on my iPhone 5 using iOS 6 & 7, and currently on my new iPhone 6 running iOS 8.1.2. This only happens on my iPhones and using iOS, this bug is not found when I use my iPod classic or when playing the same albums through iTunes.
I thought it might have been spotted by other iOS users and fixed in iOS 7.1 or at least the current version of iOS 8, but instead it's gotten worse, albums that used to play smoothly between transitions now suddenly pause and jump for a split second when changing from track to track.
What's happening is, I listen to a lot of albums that are continuously DJ mixed and play straight through without any pauses between tracks, and I've been experiencing problems a lot now with random split second pauses between tracks and choppy transitions. These albums in question have been ripped from cd using the latest versions of iTunes.
For example,
I'd be listening to an album and it would play gapless and smooth for most of the album, but maybe one or two transitions on the album would have a split second pause between them, and the rest of the album would play perfectly with no pauses, skips or jumps at all.
This only happens on my iPhone, as I have a 160gb iPod classic and I've listened to all the same albums on it and never has a problem playing the album without any pauses, every album plays 100% smooth and gapless on it.
I mailed Apple about it through their feedback page on their site... https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
Hoping that they would take note of this and try and look into it and fix the issue. That was probably about a year ago now, never got fixed or got any confirmation back from them about this problem. Then last August, I'd had enough and contacted Apple support to notify them about this issue. They told me the usual story, "have you tried restoring the phone?", which I obliged and did. The problem was there on a freshly restored iPhone 5.
So they told me that they would put me in touch with someone higher in Apple to take the case further, "great" I thought.
I spoke with a senior care advisor and explained the problem and agreed to send detailed explanations of the issue and test files too so that they could hopefully hear what I was talking about. But after a few weeks of going back and forward, I finally got them to hear the issue with the random pauses, the first week they denied there was a problem and said the files played ok on their test iOS devices, so I myself tried the files on another iOS device and the same problem was there.
The last correspondence I had with the Apple care advisor was back in the end of August / start of September, and she told me that they spotted the issue and was told by the tech's that it would be fixed in a future update, I never got a when this would happen, I was just told to make sure my iOS device was up to date with the latest version of iOS. I couldn't speak to an actual technician, got no follow up support, just a vague "We'll look into it." Case Closed.
I got so sick of this problem that I sold my iPhone and iPad just after this last phone call with the Apple people, and switched over to Android. I'd being reading up on gapless playback music players and found out that there's a good few available for Android devices. I got myself a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, twice as powerful as the iPhone 6 and half the price. I was using that for the last few months, and playing my music through Neutron Music Player app which is a great music player which plays gapless 100%
But I couldn't really take to Android OS, seeing as I've been using Apple products for around 10 years now and iOS since the iPhone 3G. So I decided to contact Apple again and see if they'd fixed the music player issue in iOS yet.
I wrote a long email explaining the problem, how it wasn't really looked at properly, and how I was a long time Apple customer and had to resort to switching over to Android because the basic music player functions on iOS devices have bugs. I took a chance in mailing this to Tim Cook's offices, I knew he wouldn't reply personally, just thought that it might get read by someone in his offices with a bit more say in the matter.
Just before Xmas, I got a call from someone from executive relations from my local Apple offices about this. He seemed nice and was aware of the problem from reading back through my emails and previous case notes from August when I opened this case originally.
We had a talk and he said he would get one of the tech's to call me too about this so that I could explain the bugs to someone more knowledgeable about iOS.
A few days later I received a call from one of the tech's at Apple and was chatting to him, explaining the problem. His response was that he thinks Apple doesn't support gapless playback on current iOS devices. From looking at the gapless playback information page on the Apple support site below, it looks like it hasn't been updated to show any iPhone models after the iPhone 3GS... http://support.apple.com/en-ie/HT201644
I was trying to explain to him how ridiculous this sounded, why would Apple stop supporting basic functions on their music player on iOS devices? It makes no sense at all? You can see that the amount of hardware devices and software that supports gapless playback today... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback#Player_support
He couldn't explain either, he just said that because it's not listed there on the Apple support page.
Then the next day I got the follow up call from the Apple executive relations guy, he was stating that he was speaking to the tech guy that called me and it looks like Apple doesn't support gapless playback anymore, from looking at the documentation on site.
I told him how stupid this was, and how lots of music players have gapless playback as standard today. And if they don't support it now, then why does it play through some parts of the albums on iOS ok and then just randomly pause, or have jumpy / choppy transitions on the rest of the album. If it was the case, no albums would play gaplessly at all, it would be like when the first ever iPod's were released back in the day with no gapless playback and would pause for a split second between every transition.
He couldn't give me an answer and said that maybe down the line they would start supporting it again, and that I should request the feature to be added to future iOS versions via the iPhone feedback page... https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
He just kept on emphasising that it was "NOT A BUG OR ISSUE", trying to cover up the problem because the info on the site wasn't updated to show the current iOS devices. Which in itself is wrong, looking at the page it says "Supported iPod and iPhone models (make sure you have the latest iPod or iPhone software)"
iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS only go up to iOS 6, so that contradicts itself when the latest version is iOS 8.
The info is out of date and needs to be updated. So in August I was told, "we found the issue and will look into it" and a few months later, "it's not an issue", what's a cop out.
I was annoyed and taken back by this response, and really found it hard to believe that this was the case, Apple stopping supporting their music player on iOS devices. Seeing as iTunes plays everything smoothly and no gapless issues. I just went out and bought an iPhone 6 for €900 / $1060, and for that money you'd expect it's basic music player to work. It's total BS to think that a top computer software / hardware company would just decide to abandon basic functions in their devices, especially when we are talking about how much Apple takes pride in their products and how much more they charge for them over their competitors.
So this is my next step to try and get this problem seen and out in the open more. The more people who know about it and are aware of the issue, the better.
Hopefully more people can get the word around and get this noticed by Apple and finally fixed.
I've uploaded some test files below to show the problem. The files are mp3's and aac, and have been ripped from cd using the latest version of iTunes. The mp3's are the ones with the issue, but the aac play with no problem. If you listen to the transition at the end of track 2 (2-02 Colours (JH Re-Edit)) going into the start of track 3 (2-03 Your Body), you will notice the split second pause / jump. But listen to the aac version and compare it to the mp3 version and you will hear that it plays back fine, just as it's supposed to. Try them in iTunes too and both versions playback fine, no jumps or pauses.
You can download them here, all links have the same files, I just uploaded them to different hosts for other people's choosing...
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=86512332626247919914
https://www.mediafire.com/?w5wvi50er96b14s
http://www42.zippyshare.com/v/37047710/file.html
https://www.sendspace.com/file/lubcmc
More files can be provided if needed to show the problem happening on various other albums.
I really hope that people can spot this issue too and help get this fixed, I know this gapless playback feature might not be important to some people, but like I said at the start, it's an essential function for me in a music player and I use it on a daily basis when I listen to music.
Thanks for reading this long rant of mine, appreciate it.
Ger

I believe this issue occurs only between songs that iTunes has converted to a lower bitrate for you during transfer to your iOS device and songs that it has not done this for. Take this Between the Buried and Me album, for instance. I have marked all of the transitions that should have been gapless but probably aren't in red. I know for sure that most of these marked transitions are indeed broken and that the most of the transitions not marked in red work flawlessly... I honestly can't remember whether or not some of these transitions were gapless or not, but the many transitions I do remember working or not working match up exactly with whether or not the songs on either side of the transition were also on other sides of the 256kbps threshold, the threshold at which I enabled iTunes to convert tracks to 256kbps AAC.
I'm going to try re-sync'ing my library with that "feature" disabled and see if it fixes my gapless playback problem. Will post the results once I test it out.

External monitor causing playback problems?

Sorry if this has been covered before. I tried searching but it kind of comes down to what verbs people use to describe the problem.
I'm running FCP 5.1.4 on a Macbook Pro, and I just bought a Dell 2408 for an external monitor. A few times since I've hooked up the monitor, when I play in the timeline, the video skips and stutters and keeps looping back to the same section. If I switch to a different sequence, it plays fine. This only seems to happen when I have the cinema preview on. If I kill it, click on the canvas window and hit play, it usually plays fine.
So I've got some workarounds on this, but it's an annoying quirk. Has anyone else had this problem? It seems to be tied to the external monitor, but I don't know if I'm missing a step or something isn't setup quite right.
Any thoughts or help is greatly appreciated.

Go to your Audio / Video Settings >> A/V Devices tab and turn of "Mirror on desktop" for Playback ... this will reduce the load on your system as it will not be trying to decode the video for two separate (and different) playback streams simultaneously ie when using Digital Cinema Desktop Preview to display All Frames then you will not see playback in the Canvas window as well, just on the external preview monitor.
And/Or you could also try setting FCP's System Preferences >> Playback Control >> Gamma Correction to "Approximate" ... according to the manual this can offer a little performance boost (but to be honest I haven't ever tested this).
Choosing Real-Time Playback Gamma Correction Options
Whenever you watch your video on a computer display (such as video displayed in the Canvas, the Viewer, or via Digital Cinema Desktop Preview), Final Cut Pro applies gamma correction to the video to more closely approximate the way it would appear on a video monitor.
Note: Gamma correction is not applied to external video outputs such as DV or third-party interfaces because this correction is inherently applied by external video monitors.
If your computer’s graphics card supports gamma correction, Final Cut Pro automatically uses the card for accurate gamma correction. If your computer has an older graphics card that does not support gamma correction, you have two gamma correction options in the Playback Control tab of the System Settings window.
Accurate: High-quality gamma correction. This option is the most accurate but also requires the most processing power.
Approximate: Lower-quality gamma correction. This option leaves more processing power available for real-time effects but results in less accurate color and brightness rendition.
Tip: If your real-time performance is limited, try changing the gamma correction setting to Approximate (if available).
Hope it helps
Andy

Playback problem - video playback stops; any suggestions?

I have distributed about 20 copies of a DVD I made using iMovie and iDVD v4.x - and about 5 of the discs are reported to freeze during playback. Because not all of the 20 discs have been viewed, it's possible the percentage of discs with playback problems may be even higher. No two discs are freezing at the same spot, or even in the same movie (there are 3 short movies on the disc).
I got no errors during burning, but I did not 'verify' each disc after burning, either. I did play back my 'master' disc on my home DVD player to make sure it was OK before using it to create a disk image - which I used to burn all the other discs.
Some of the discs I burned from the disk image using Toast Titanium 6.1.1, until I discovered Apple's Disk Utility was actually a little faster. No way to tell now if the 'bad' discs are all from the same burn software. Though both Toast and DU gave me an option to burn faster than the rated speed, I used the rated burn speed of 8x, and I did not do anything else on the Mac while burning the discs.
My first thought was bad media. I used both Memorex and Sony DVD-R media (Taiwan) - there is no easy way to for me to find out if all the 'bad' disks are one brand or the other - but hopefully these brands do not have a 20% rate of defective discs.
My second thought was format-player incompatibilities (-R vs +R), but replacement discs, using the same media on my end, solved the problem for most people (one person's replacement disc froze, but at a different spot than the first one).
My final guess - I wonder if the playback problems might have something to do with the stick on labels I used? These are a Memorex brand product called "CD&DVD" labels, but the fine print on the back says: "Warning: Using a Standard or Full-Face label on DVDs may result in the disc becoming unreadable."
Any solutions?
Quicksilver G4, 867 Mhz Mac OS X (10.4) Pioneer DVR-108 (not OEM), firmware 1.20, PatchBurn profile

I just wanted to add my 2 cents. I haven't been on this forum for months. I've been happily making DVDs in batches of 10 -50 to distribute. I've been making them in my emac. Occassionally I'd get ones that wouldn't play in a client's player. The solution was to send a replacement. Usually that worked. Often I'd send a replacement that wouldn't play in one client's player but found that the disk would play in another client's player. The worst case was when the ist three DVDs I sent to one person wouldn't play, but the fourth did. But most of the time, the second one I'd send worked fine (All of these were made in the same batch from the same media (usually Fuji or Verbatim).
Recently I started getting lots more than usual complaints about problem DVDs. I checked out a bunch of them by actually playing them on both my computer, and a stand alone Cyberhome player. They were all made from a particular batch of Fuji media. Now I've previously burned hundreds of playable DVDs made from Fuji media, so I imagine it is just a fluke. (I hope) Some of them would play perfectly all the way to the last 5 minutes of an hour long presentation, and then start stuttering. Some begin stuttering in the middle. Several wouldn't even start up in my cyberhome player. Most of them would end up freezing at some point during the stuttering. The stuttering was never at the same exact place on any of the DVDs.
As an aside, I discovered something that I didn't know was possible. When a DVD froze in my cyberhome player at the menu stage, I'd push the eject button, remove the DVD, and the menu frame was still visible unchanged on the TV until I turned off the player or put another DVD in! I guess there must be some sort of cache in the player that stores the image. Very interesting. I've never seen that with a normally functioning DVD.
I also played each defective DVD in my computer to compare. One or two managed to play all of the way through on the computer, but most exhibited similar misbehavior on my emac. I'd say that, in general though, they all played a bit better on my computer.
Then it occured to me that there was another possible explanation. I was burning these from a disk image file that I had stored on an external HD. Whenever I needed a new batch of DVDs I would copy the disk image file back onto my emac from the external drive, and use disk utility to burn the disks. What if the disk image was corrupted? That might explain the problems.
Another thought that occured to me was the perhaps the process of burning a dozen or more DVDs in a row might cause a heat buildup in the burner and affect the burning in some way.
So I retrieved a good DVD made in an earlier batch of Fuji, made a new disk image of it, and left the image on the computer and didn't transfer it back to the external drive (on TDK media, because that's all I had sitting around), played the copy back on both my computer and Cyberhome player to make sure it worked perfectly. I then generated another dozen copies.
You may wonder how I had enough time to do all this. I'd just put a DVD in the player or my emac and listen to it while doing my ordinary office work. If I heard stuttering(it was my voice on the DVD) I'd instantly notice. I did this all day for a couple of days.
So anyway, I played 5 finished TDK disks all the way through today and they played perfectly. I guess the next test is to use the disk image of the same DVD from my external drive to see if i also get a good burn from it on the same TDK media and burner.
I did have time to do one other test though. I took a couple of DVDs that played well and put paper lables on them using the stomper system. They still played perfectly on both my computer and Cyberhome player. I'd speculate that paper lables are probably okay if they are applied perfectly, perfect centering, no air bubbles, good contact, and the disk stored in clean dry area. I've seen other peoples' CDs or DVDs with paper lables that had become wrinkled from exposure to high humidity and/or heat. I can imagine that they would tend to malfunction.
One client with a certain brand player actually took the "offending" DVD down to a AV store, and bought a replacement player that WOULD play it. I do think that it is interesting and useful to know that one brand player will play a particular particular DVD and another won't.
Since I make batches, I'm considering buying a couple more different brand DVD players, and then doing a bit of quality control - Trying out sample DVDs on all players before I mail out a batch to clients.
I hope that my observations might be useful for others.
emac 1ghz superdrive Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Encoding and playback problem HD files

Hi all,
Currently, I'm using a new HD camcorder and have no problem with importing and playing these files is premiere cs4 pro. However, when I'm using six video track at the same time I experience some playback problems. After rendering, the video's play, but not smooth, they skip frames and playing a few frames back. In other words, it seems that the video playback stutters. The problem still excists when I encode the project to any file (mpeg2-blu ray, avi, etc). When using two video tracks (with two HD video) this problem is not present, even when these video's are in slowmotion. Installing the new update (4.2) did not solve the problem.
Specs of my system:
Quad core Q6600 @3.0GHz (overclocked)
8gb RAM
>200gb free disk space
windows 7, 64-bit
Does anyone have some suggestions to solve this problem? Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Jeffrey

Harm,
Sorry for not responing for a few days, but I runned the benchmark you'll send me. The main results (dee details attached file):
53,6, secs Total Benchmark Time
6,4, secs AVI Encoding Time
14,2, secs MPEG Elapsed Time
33, secs Rendering Time
Since the potential problem is my hard disk, inaddition, I runned HDtune (hopefully it will help pinpionting the problem):
disk1: avarage transfer rate: 94MB/s, acces time 13.8ms, burst rate 185MB/s
disk2: avarage transfer rate: 85MB/s, acces time 14ms, burst rate 157MB/s
disk3: avarage transfer rate: 73MB/s, acces time 13.9ms, burst rate 183MB/s
Analyzing these results, could the current hard disk configuration cause the problem I have, or is my system to slow anyway to edit AVCHD material?
If the hard disk configuration is the problem, could it be solved by applying your suggestion by removing all partitions? Since, I'm not looking forward of removing all partions(re-installing windows (dual boot win7 and vista), shifting a huge amount of data, etc), but if it would help I will do it.
Thanks inadvance,
Jeffrey

Mplayer playback problems

Hello, Mplayer video output is rather jerky and not smooth. I believe its sound related because adding '-nosound' makes the playback smooth again. I've been trying to seacrh for the solution to this for hours; any suggestions? I use OSS by the way...
Heres xorg.conf
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder62) Thu Apr 30 16:22:42 PDT 2009
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder62) Thu Apr 30 16:21:56 PDT 2009
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection
Section "Files"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "HSD HW191D"
HorizSync 30.0 - 80.0
VertRefresh 49.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 8800 GT"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection
and mplayer-config
[default]
ao=oss
vo=x11
zoom=true
fs=no
framedrop=yes
ffactor = 1
cache=9000
Last edited by pharcyde (2009-05-16 04:40:13)

apaige wrote:Why the hell are you using vo=x11? That's insanely slow. Use vo=xv.
Oh - lol, I had that in there temporarily as I was troubleshooting. I'm aware.
skottish wrote:
apaige wrote:Why the hell are you using vo=x11? That's insanely slow. Use vo=xv.
Or, if the nVidia card is new enough (some 8400 and pretty much everything newer), use VDPAU. Otherwise, nVidia chips work better with the xvmc driver than even the xv driver.
pharcyde,
From your xorg.conf file, it looks like you have an 8800GT. VDPAU works great with that card. It will solve most of your video playback problems.
Will do.
Update: Using vdpau with '-vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau' I can play 720p HD with only ~7% cpu usage!
Last edited by pharcyde (2009-05-17 11:00:28)

Setup could not detect any Sound Blaster Audigy card on your system

Hi from Barcelona!
I've a Soun Blaster Audigy card (Model: SB0090)
I tried to install the Audigy software and drivers from the original product CD but Setup was unable to find Augigy hardware and halted the installation!
"Setup could not detect any Sound Blaster card on your system. Please ensure that your Sound Blaster hardware is properly installed before running this Setup program"
By the way. Manually the sound drivers can be installed working only front speakers of the 5. Creative system
I tried a clean installation of Windows XP and Windows 2000 PRO (reformatted the hard dri've) but Audigy install CD still could not find Audigy hardware.
I've changed the card to a different PCI slot with the same results!!! Damaged?
What is happening? I need a solution!! Many users have this problem to with other Sound Blaster cards and models...

ADSLNEW wrote:
It seems to be an important BUG of Creative Sound Blaster Audigy cards related with EEPROM!!!
Yes, indeed, that is my theory as well. After much ****hing and on-line research, it seems that this problem has been around since 2002. From Creative Labs point of view, it appears they view this as "pilot error" -- the user has installed the card in a system that is not fully compliant with the latest standards -- specifically Microsofts ACPI (configuration and power management). A wide variety of configurations and/or actions seem to cause the PCI subsystem ID in the Audigy EEPROM to be erroneously overwritten -- including certain older motherboards, certain older PCI cards, and perhaps other actions.
Once the subsystem ID in the EEPROM is overwritten and has garbage information, many or all of the Creative applications cease working and various sound problems can arise. Attempts to reinstall the driver or update to the latest driver consistently fail becuase of the dreaded "Setup could not detect any Sound Blaster Audigy card in your system..." error message.
There appear to be four fixes:
) Get a replacement Audigy card from Creative, but <EM>only</EM> after you perform their prescribed troubleshooting steps to prove that the card is indeed the source of the problem. Apparently, the steps include installing the card in another PC. Apparently, Creative in Europe is more willing to replace your card than Creative in the US. It's up to Creative Labs whether or not they issue you an RMA ("Return Material Authorization").
However, this fix will fail if the root causes of the EEPROM error are not corrected. Apparently, Creative Tech Support isn't always a foolproof source of guidance, so the burden is on you. The root cause MUST be corrected before the new card is installed, or the same problem will happen all over again. Eliminating the root cause may involve replacing your motherboard, replacing other PCI cards, or manual configuration (disabling ACPI).
2) Reprogramming the EEPROM. This is for advanced PC owners only, because it involves desoldering the EEPROM, programming it, and resoldering (and even lifting some pins to prevent reprogramming). There are instructions on how to do this posted in the German Creative Labs discussion board, by a Russian (!). I have links for those who are interested.
3) Removing the Creative drivers and software (using Clean Sweep procedures and third party utilities), updating again using Windows XP SP2, then physically moving the card to different PCI slots (multiple times if necessary), until ACPI Bios writes the proper information into the EEPROM. You can then reload the drivers.
Again, the root causes of the problem must be removed or your fix will only be temporary (a day or two). This solution also seems to be very dependent on the specifics of your system (motherboard, PCI cards, etc.).
4) Some people have had success in by-passing the step in the driver installation process where they check for the Audigy card subsystem ID, using a utility called CTZAPxx on the installation CD. Then then manually install each of the applications they need to use.
5) Use the open source driver from the kX Project (http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php). This driver (and associated utilities) does not depend on the detailed configuration of the card (i.e. they don't check subsystem ID) and appear to work fine even with cards with corrupted EEPROM.
This driver is aimed primarily at computer music applications, and opens up the on-card signal processing capabilities. The downside is that the Audigy 2 ZS does not have all of it's capabilities supported <EM>yet </EM>(e.g. Dolby Digital decoding, S/PIF passthrough, possibly some game sound features, THX, 24-bit recording, support for Hyperthreading CPUs, etc.). But scanning over the discussion boards, the user community seems to be MUCH happier with the performance and support associated with these drivers than with Creative's.
This is the direction I'm going. I'm not a big gamer and I don't really care about the latest in home theater audio performance. Basic 5. surround sound is all I care about, and I'm much more interested in computer music capabilities.
I have also lost faith in Creative Labs as a vendor to provide the support I want and need going forward. Just imagine if the Creative Labs were running the Space Shuttle program :smileysurprised:.

Sat 1710: sound device problems

I hope somebody can help me out with a problem i'm having with sound on my satellite 1710/windows ME nd I really don't know much about comuters!!
I have only had this machine for a few weeks (second hand)and the only sound I can get fromm the machine is the start up bleep, and I am not 100% positive that there ever has been sound. Checking the sound option in control panel actually shows no playback devices in the sound playback preferred devices. I have removed the sound driver from the device manager and after a reboot a crystal soundfusion(tm) cs4281 wdm audio driver was installed - but no luck with sound i'm afraid. I'm presuming that there must be asound card if startup generated the notbook to auto install the crystal software.

Hi,
yes there is a crystal audio device available and it is normally detected by ME like in your case!
Firstly you should enter the BIOS with ESC after starting the notebook and load default settings.
Did you get the Toshiba recovery CD when you bought the notebook second hand? If yes you should recover the notebook and unless the audio device doesn't work after that it might be a hardware failure!
Bob

Why am I having imbedded video playback problems in Lion?

Hello all,
I'm been having problems viewing web videos on my 2011 MBPro 13'' w/ OS X Lion. Any time of web video I have normal sound by the video frames get all jumpy, almost like its less than 1fps. The only web videos that do not have this problem is when I watch a youtube video on youtube.com. If I watch imbedded youtube videos, I have the same skittish video playback problem.
I have my adobe flash updated and I used Google Chrome as my web browser.
Anyone else have a similar problem? Fixes? Thanks!
-Sean

Two things to keep in mind
There is a forum for Lion, another for MBP owners, and this is not.
And yes you will find lots and lots of threads of same.... no one looks at those that were "Solved"
http://www.apple.com/support/lion

I'm having video playback problems in the timeline, Premiere Elements12

I'm having video playback problems in the timeline, Premiere Elements12.The clip keeps stuttering. The whole video is 45 minutes long, is HD and has added music tracks. Any ideas would be appreciated.

From the Premiere Elements Information FAQ http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1042180
•You MUST use an account with Administrator Privileges to run Premiere Elements
•(Doing Run as Administrator http://forums.adobe.com/thread/969395 [says Encore and also for "All" versions of Premiere] will sometimes fix "odd" errors)
•What version of Premiere Elements? Include the minor version number (e.g., Premiere Elements 12 with the 12.1 update)
•What operating system? This should include specific minor version numbers, like "Mac OSX v10.9.4"---not just "Mac"
•Has this ever worked before? If so, do you recall any changes you made to Premiere Elements, such as adding Plug-ins, brushes, etc.? Did you make any changes to your system, such as updating hardware, printers or drivers; or installing/uninstalling any programs?
•Have you installed any recent program or OS updates? (If not, you should. They fix a lot of problems.)
•What kind(s) of image file(s)? When talking about camera raw files, include the model of camera.
•If you are getting error message(s), what is the full text of the error message(s)?
•What were you doing when the problem occurred?
•What other software are you running?
•Tell us about your computer hardware. How much RAM is installed? How much free space is on your system (C:) drive?
•How many and what speed are your hard drive(s)... ie 5400rpm or 7200rpm or?
And some other questions...
•What are you editing, and does your video have an orange line over it BEFORE you do any work?
•Which version of Quicktime do you have installed?
•What is your exact brand/model graphics adapter (ATI or nVidia or ???)
•What is your exact graphics adapter driver version?
•Have you gone to the vendor web site to check for a newer driver?
•For Windows, do NOT rely on Windows Update to have current driver information
•-you need to go direct to the vendor web site and check updates for yourself
•nVidia Driver Downloads http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
•ATI Driver Autodetect http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/auto-detect-tool

Playback problems, skips & freezes

Only recently, a few songs on my playlist wouldn't play. I have to skip to the next song in order for ipod to play. It has also been slow, unresponsive and occassionally freezes when I press the key to skip to next song. I connected it to my computer via the FW port and for the 1st time I've noticed it immediately start checking the ipods hard disk. The diagnostic checked out okay. And the software update is also current at version 2.3. Does anyone have an idea what's happening and how I can fix the playback problem?

Go step by step and test.
1. System Preferences > Other/ Flash Player > Advanced > Delete All
     Press the "Delete All" button
     Install Adobe Flash Player.
    http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
    Follow the prompts.
    Quit Safari.
    Restart computer. Relaunch Safari.
2. Allow Plug-ins
    Safari > Preferences > Security
    Internet Plug-ins > "Allow plug-ins"
    Enable it.
    Press " Manage Website Settings" button for more options.

Sound playback problems on 5.1 systems

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