Weird Digital Artifact

Has anyone ever encountered a noise like this in recording?
I recorded sound on a video shoot a few days ago. When we got back to the studio, all tracks had this weird, chirpy background noise in them. You can hear it below.
http://charlesflynt.com/chirpy_artifact.mp3
Also, here is the spectral display from Audition of the same clip.
You can see the artifact clearly. I have no idea what we did to produce this and I have not been able to reproduce it. My field recording equipment is: Azden MX 100 shotgun mic, feeding into an Azden FMX-42 field mixer, which is hooked up to a Tascam DR-40 digital recorder. I use all high quality XLR cables.
I used the Sound Remover effect in Audition to try and remove it. It did a decent job. But it left the voice recording sounding a bit strange. So I had to hide that with some background music.
Can anyone tell me what caused this and how to avoid it in the future?

David, I just had a graphics card issue, for me it looked more random like this:
If it is hardware trouble or other system wide trouble, then hotwheels should see the same broken menus when working from a different user account.
Did you test it? Is the problem independent of your account, Jon?
Then id look into all the secret hand shake startup and shut down voodoo like resetting PRM, SMC, fsck.
If it happens in the other account, then try David's suggestions:
Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
When to reset NVRAM or PRAM
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

Similar Messages

Digital Artifacts in animation

I am working on an animation project. I have talent that is chroma keyed in the animated background (animation in DV-NTSC mov. at highest setting in fcp).
When the DV tape plays with talent in fcp - no digital artifcats. When the animation is rendered in with/or without the chroma key digital artifacts appear at intermittent parts of the rendered piece. It appears on the viewer window in FCP and on an external monitor as well. It's green and pink blocks that show up as flashes on the screen.
Any ideas what to do?
Dual 2.5 GHZ power PC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)
Dual 2.5 GHZ power PC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Just in case you're doing this in a DV sequence, my first advice is: don't. I don't know if editing in say 8-bit uncompressed will help your specific woes with the animation, but it should keep away additional ones with the chroma key. The key will be very difficult already given the source is DV.
You'd have to say more about what the animation is, what it was produced with, whether it has seen any compression yet, and what your render settings are. Then of course there will be more questions.
Do set up for full level renders and do a render on the animation for assessment. Just because you see it and can play it back doesn't mean it's truly rendered.
Also: what are you monitoring on? External NTSC monitor?
And further: can you describe the artifacts? Lines or blocks? Something else?

Strange digital artifacts at the end of each song importing via iTunes

I've tried a few variations on archive searches and wasn't able to find an answer to this: In ripping some of my CD's into iTunes (either Apple Lossless or WAV) I've been getting some very odd, brief digital artifacts at the end of each songs on a CD. This sounds like two or three seconds of an audio tape on fast forward. It only seems to happen on new releases (I cannot think of any older CD's it's occurred on). I just got a copy of Mary Gauthier's new album (great CD by the way) and it happened on that one, for example. I tried ripping it multiple times in Apple Lossless, and WAV (always in iTunes) and each and every time it created files where this strange artifact existed at the end of every song. I play the CD I ripped the files from and the artifact is not there. I have several CD's, most of them recent releases over the past five years, that do the exact same thing. Otherwise everything else functions perfectly an the bulk of my 700+ CD library has imported without a hiccup. Is this some kind of anti-piracy technology...or do I simply have some setting off in my itunes preferences (Error-Correction is on, WAV or Apple Lossless is always set to Automatic, have experimented with importing to startup disk and external disk-same results). The artifacts seem to always sound the same too...they never vary, except that they sound different from song-to-song, but the same if say, the first cut is played over again. They are always 2 seconds plus or minus, and always at the end of a cut (the final 2 seconds or so). They do transfer verbatim to my iPod, and also play via iTunes through my stereo.
Anyone have any clues what this might be?

As a follow up, I went to the Genius Bar for a bowl of Mensa Stew, but only got some tepid broth. Here's what transpired:
The girl I was speaking with suggested that the artifact was the software misinterpreting information between the cuts. It was only a theory. She had not heard of any other incidents to relay. First she suggested I rip as MP3's. I explained that wasn't an option for me. She listened to a few cuts on a CD I'd brought with, or rather the ends of the cuts and confirmed there was a problem with the rip. She went through my settings, and asked if I'd tried it with Error Correction turned off. I explained I hadn't and that I preferred to use it. She suggested attempting to rip one of the cuts with it turned off just to see how it did. We did that and no artifact was there. So her 'solution' was to either leave error-correction turned off always, or turn it off for those problem CD's that produce the artifact (I'd estimate about 5% do on my laptop). This did not explain why it was doing it, nor why my g5 tower, which is running a carbon-copied system with all the same iTunes settings, does not produce the artifact with Error-Correction turned on.
I'd be interested to hear of anyone else who's been having problems importing hi-rez files in iTunes. I know of at least one other instance where the artifact produced (on a MacBook) is dis-similar to mine in that it takes the form of brief electronic beeps moving from channel to channel.
Anyone else?

Digital artifacts appears on image

Imac 3.1 GHZ intel core i5
12 GB 1333 Mhz DDR3
Mac OS X 10.7.2
Aperture 3.2.2
Everything was working fine then one day started to appear small digital artifacts i dont know if this was after an update, but this only works on Aperture .
Somtimes it disappear when i change from raw master to jpeg master, but then, when i work with the image starts appearing again.
HELP PLEASE!

They are always random artifacts. Hope this helps.
Thks

I am trying to draw a signature, my old one deleted how to do this? I am getting a weird digital signature.

I am trying to add my signature to a couple of forms. It is not allowing me to do it anymore, it is putting in a weird digital signature. How can I draw a new signature?

I still do not understand what you're trying to do. Which group on the "Sign"panel you are using: "I need to Sign", "Get Others to Sign"or "Work with Certificates"? Which selection you click on? Is it "Place Signature" in "I need to Sign"?
If it is and you get a dialog to draw a rectangle, it means that you previously selected in "Place Signature" the "Use a certificate" choice. This is a digital signature of the same type as in "Work with Certificates". If this is not what you want, click on the down arrow next to the "Place Signature" (looks like a triangle) and choose "Change Saved Signature". You will get a dialog that allows you to change the signature type. Select the one that you want to use and it will be used in the future every time when you click "Place Signature" until you choose "Change Saved Signature" again.

Weird tracking artifacts while dragging elements in InDesign

For the last two days, I've been getting this weird tracking artifact when dragging an element on top of a semi-transparant background.
I can't seem to figure out how to resolve this. I even de/re-installed InDesign, and then the entire Adobe Suite.
Im running Lion (10.7.2) on a MacBook Pro with a 250 GB SSD and 8 gigs of Ram.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Screenshot: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16762916/Slingshot/Pictures/Screen%20Shot%202012-02-03%20at%209.03 .12%20AM.png

These are user-to-user forums. I think once upon a time the links said that clearly, but it certainly is a bit less obvious now, though the "Learning" page description does say users share their knowledge. No harm done and you are not the only one who comes here thinking they are on a direct line to Adobe. Adobe employees, when they appear, have clearly labeled badges.
I'm really sorry you thought I was taking a tone with you. That was most definitiely not my intention. It's extremely difficult to judge meaning and inflection from a written post, as I'm guessing you must know if you also do support this way. The shortcoming in communication was not a blame situation -- I was trying to let you understand where the breakdown was -- I'm trained to understand some words in particuolar contexts here, and it isn't always correct, and I also apparently misunderstood from the beginning that your screen artifacts didn't get left behind, probably because I'm used to seeing ones that do (mostly in CS3) and I had the scroll bug in mind. These things happen, and we need to let each other know when we aren't communicating, and try to get it right as we move forward.
"Secondly. A brand new macbook pro should be more than capable of running a second display."
OK, this is another case of not quite communicating, I guess. Live Screen Drawing is a LOT more intense video usage than most applications have. It's kind of like trying to watch a movie full screen. That takes a lot more video power than just throwing static images onto two screens. By way of comparison, I have twice the video RAM that's on your system, and probably more processing power, too, and I drive only one monitor, and I STILL don't use Live Screen Drawing because it works so badly. It shouldn't be on by default because practically no computer in the wild can make it run smoothly, but it got set that way because it's a new feature in CS5 and they wanted people to "discover" it. You have no idea how often we have to suggest to users that they turn it off to regain control of their screens.

Updated: Firewire audio recording on brand new iMac makes weird digital noise

I am running Ableton Live 8 Suite on a 2011 Entry level iMac. i am using an Maudio Firewire 410 with a FireWire 400 to 800 cable. recently when i record audio (say from a guitar) the audio will cut out and be replaced by a wierd low freq digital noise. i uploaded a clip of it. its not just static. it will come in and out as i play.
http://cl.ly/3f3R2H2z3H3K3F3z1P3d
Things i have tried:
-different guitars
-Maudio FireWire Solo (different interface)
-uninstalled and reinstalled the driver
-Different firewire cable
-turned off Bluetooth on computer and Bluetooth devices
-turned off airport
when i restart the interface or computer it works for about 5-10mins then cuts out again...
but i still get normal audio through it (iTunes, internet, even Ableton)
it seems to be isolted to just audio input. i had multiple tracks playing in Live. my input was working fine but when it punched in to record it morphed to the weird digital noise.
i could record a single channel fine with nothing else playing but recording with multiple channels playing seems to "lock up" the audio though i am only using 25% CPU...
is this something with my iMac or Lion? i changed out interfaces, cables, and drivers....thats the only thing i can think of…
any thoughts from you smart people out there?

ok so i tried a differnet cable and the same thing happened...
i had multiple tracks playing in Live. my input was working fine but when it punched in to record it morphed to the weird digital noise.
is this something with my iMac or Lion? i changed out interfaces, cables, and drivers....thats the only thing i can think of...

Compressor adds digital artifacts on cross dissolves

Hi can anyone help me?
I have exported a sequence (10-Bit Unconpressed PAL, Upper) using the compressor preset DVD Best quality, 2 pass, VBR.
When i play the exported M2v, some of the cross dissolves seem to have some kind of digital artifacts in the middle of the dissolve taking place (which is not there on the source material on the timeline in FCP 5)
can anyone help me?
Cheers, Simon

Simon, I had the same problems. Export as quicktime self-contained, include DVDSP markers and DON'T check the recompress all frames box! Including the DVDSP markers makes sure the compression markers are exported as well. It makes sense to insert and name DVD chapter markers as well in FCP, as they will be included in the mv2 file you eventually import into DVDSP.
Then import the quicktime into compressor, and create a new preset that is 1-pass, NO VBR, 7.2 bitrate, motion estimator BEST. If you drag your movie into the preview window you can see all the compression markers that FCP automatically included, as well as the chapter markers (different color).
Submit the job. You can compress the audio to AC-3 the same time as you compress the video by adding the Dolby 2 function to your new 1-pass preset. All your audio must be 48K 16bit in FCP before you export, or it will go into the center channel on 5.1 sound systems.
Import the finished m2v and audio files into DVDSP. Notice how your chapter markers you inserted in FCP magically appear! Do your menus and buttons etc., then build the job. I don't use build/format as I have had better luck just dragging the master build folder that contains the VIDEO_TS folders into TOAST 6 and burning it at 1X DVD setting just to be safe.
All my previously artifacted movies, which are heavily effected with lots of transitions. NOW HAD NO ARTIFACTS WHATSOEVER! My thought of suicide or at least a Ben & Jerry's binge had passed!
All I did was a little tweaking, basically encoding using compressor's "lower quality" 1-pass setting, not the usual DVD 90-min. best setting, which the manual says to use for the best possible quality.
You can bypass Compressor stand-alone completely, because DVDSP uses Compressor to encode imported quicktimes as well, and you can change the settings to 1-pass 7.2 bitrate there as well. Compressor just has more advanced settings available.
FCP also uses Compressor when you "export using quicktime conversion." So it's hard to get away from using it unless you have a third party mpeg2 encoder. I'm thinking about BitVice, which markets its product as "Probably the best software MPEG2 encoder in the world"

Dvcprohd p2 digital artifacts

Hi,
just shot 14 hours yesterday to come back and find that all my p2 footage has small digital artifacts in the footage. it comes and goes - like it sprinkles in for a moment and goes away and comes back a few seconds later. All the clips! Anybody else stuck with this? Any solutions! Can't reshoot. All footage is off p2 cards and deleted and on external drive.
thanks, vscomm

Yes, it's on one frame, so I delete the bad frame and repeat the one next to it. It looks like any pixelization occurs on one frame every 5 to
15 seconds or so. It's shot on 720 24pn. Has a stutter anyway. This may work.
No, that won't really work at all. The "stutter" you see is the film cadence...take the odd frame out and it will look truly odd. Worse. I have seen digital mess on a couple shots, and am not sure what the cause was. So it isn't new. Like hits on tape or something. But not very common. Is this ALL over your footage, or on a couple shots?
Is there a way to attach a file on this forum? I made a still frame.
You need to post it to a server, then link to it with code like this : Emmy (except the "b" would be replaced by an "a"...I did this so that you could see the code)
it happens during the transfer.
are you sure about this? Do you have the camera and cards to check? copy the COntents folder back to the card and play it in the camera. Or even use the P2CMS reader and see if you can see it on the raw P2 files.
Shane

Display showing digital artifacts

Hi there,
I recently installed an ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics card and am starting to see digital artifacts at times. At the moment everything is fine but I'm sure it will come back. When it does, the system eventually hangs and I'm forced to shut down. Restarting does not alleviate any of the issues. Keeping the system shutdown for a lengthy period of time will restore things to normal for an unpredictable amount of time. I am using a 30' Apple Cinema display. Here are my specs:
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005D.B00
SMC Version: 1.7f10
Serial Number: G87***UQ2 <Edited by Host>
Running OSX 10.6.3
Before the ATI Radeon Card, I was running with an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT card. I had issues with this card which forced me to replace it with the ATI. Here is my original post regarding the issues I had with the NVIDIA since the problems I'm having now are similar:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10339329#10339329
After replacing the card, things were fine for a while [6 months or so]. But now I'm facing similar issues with this card. This is making me think that the problem is the display rather than the card. Is it possible that the display can fry the card?
Please advise.
Saki
Display is a 30' Cinema HD

This is making me think that the problem is the display rather than the card.
skaskas, about the above, you also said this:
... the system eventually hangs and I'm forced to shut down.
I don't see any way a failed display could cause a system hang, so I would really rule that out.
As you describe the problem, it sounds a lot like a thermal issue. Have you checked the fans inside your Mac recently, or also the one attached to the Radeon? Make sure they are spinning, especially the one on the video card.
Also, does the video card require and auxiliary power connection? Some video cards can't get enough power through the bus connector and require that one of the disk drive connectors be attached for additional power. Just asking.

Since I updated Flash my Photoshop is producing weird shearing artifacts in the edges of my digital paintings. Help?

Technical problem: So, I updated my Flash and since then Photoshop has been doing this awful shearing thing with all my edges. On the left is how the JPEG actually looks, whereas the right is what I'm seeing while I work.
I tried re-installing Flash and even system restoring to 24 hours ago, and nothing has worked.

Thanks for the suggestion, Trevor - I actually hadn't done that yet. Sadly, that did not resolve my issue - apparently my driver is up-to-date. :C
Product
Current
Installed Driver
Recommended
Update
GeForce GT 520
335.23
Your PC currently has the latest driver installed for your GPU. No driver update is necessary at this time.

Weird screen artifacts after QT update

Ran the QT 7.1.5 / iTunes update this morning on my 10.3.9 Power Mac G5 and now I'm getting strange video artifacts. For example: the toolbar area of Firefox is no longer white - it's a crosshatched gray, almost like I was running in lo-res, but the main browser window looks normal. Other programs exhibit the same type of artifact - but only in certain parts of their windows. Also, the "hand" cursor looks like it's made up of dots, like pointilism. Everything works fine, just looks weird.
I repaired permissions, reapplied the 10.3.9 combo update, and reapplied the QT 7.1.5 update. No change. I can go into the Display preferences and switch from millions of colors to 256 and back again - and then things look fine, until I quit and relaunch the program. Then the artifacts are back.
Anybody have any ideas? I hope I've explained this sufficiently. I have a screen shot of this but don't know how to post it.
Thanks!
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Doehni wrote:I'm using the radeon driver from xf86-video-ati.
In KDE there are also artefacts Downgrading xf86-video-ati works good for me...
I'm running KDE as well. Guess I should have mentioned that. I'll try to downgrade the "xf86-video-ati" to see if that helps.
Thanks!

Digital Artifacts with 7.2

I have been successfully running a setup in which other applications - Finale and Digital Performer - - play Logic's audio instruments through Interapplication MIDI using the IAC drivers. This has worked well with Logic 6.4.3, 7, 7.1 and 7.1.1. After updating the OS to 10.4.3 (and later 10.4.4 and 10.4.5) and Logic to 7.2 playback is now marred by clicks, pops and hiccups when either Finale or DP are the MIDI source. These artifacts occur most often when the score (in Finale) or graphic representation (in DP) scrolls to the next page). These noises do not appear to happen when Logic 7.2 alone is the playback medium - - although I have not yet tested it with a complex file.
Interestingly enough when, using Finale 2005 as the MIDI source (with Finale reading a saved playback file and scrolling turned off) I bounce to an audio file in Logic, the audio file does not appear to contain these artifacts. This suggests the possibility that the noises occur during DA conversion and are not present in the digital output.
I would very much prefer not to have to go back to OS 10.4.2 and Logic 7.1.1 if there is another solution. I would very much appreciate any insights or suggestions. Thanks.
PowerMac G5 dual 2.5 Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.5) 7GB RAM/MOTU 2408 mk3 audio interface

Did you try going to the help link on that page where it says Lion is incompatible?
I found a manual way to download the .zip file for Intel macs through this way.. it installed properly.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/403/kb403051.html

Screen sharing in Yosemite - lots of weird graphical artifacts

I have Yosemite installed on both my MBP 2013 Retina and a brand-new Mac Mini (headless). I control the Mini from the MBP with standard built-in screen sharing. It works, but visually it's really bad! Often the remote menu bar goes black, and only repaints (in sections) if I hover the mouse over it. Often the toolbars of various windows take on the color of the desktop and do not display any of their widgets - again until I hover over them. Dragging windows sometimes leaves permanent "trails" and other graphical residue.
The Mini is pretty much running on default settings (although I did set it up by cloning the backup of my previous Mini). In particular, I've not activated any Accessibility options, nor am I using the "dark menu bar" general option.
Is anyone else seeing this? Or can someone suggest some troubleshooting?
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013)
2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
10.10 (14A389)
Mac mini (Late 2014)
2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel Iris (null)
10.10 (14A389)

Yesterday, for the first time since before starting this thread, I restarted the Mac Mini. Suddenly, everything seems fine.
The reason I restarted the Mini was that I noticed (using Activity Monitor) that 6.5GB of my RAM was in use, and SystemUIServer itself was using 2GB. I've haven't been using the Mini for much of anything recently, so this made no sense. Restarting immediately brought back my menu bar (which had been black), and I don't see any artifacts using Screen Sharing.
*shrug* we'll see. If you have this problem and haven't restarted the remote machine, try that.

Weird screen artifacts replaying video recorded using Camtasia

I record a screencast using Camtasia using the default Techsmith Screen Codec 2 codec and it plays back in Windows Media Player just fine. I can also drag it into Sony Vegas and edit it just fine. When I drag it into Premiere Pro CC I can replay it, but it doesn't render right. There is a weird problem with things like dialog boxes where only parts of the dialog show at any given time and tend to be revealed as the mouse is moved around. Here's an image...
It looks like keyframe issue to me. Anyone know what's going on?

Certainly Camtasia can export .mp4 files, but I'm recording directly to .avi using my choice of codec. Rendering video out of Camtasia would add an additional (and very long) step to the process and would also reduce quality by compressing twice. I wouldn't think that Premiere Pro would need to necessarily "support" a codec. If a system has a codec and is capable of compressing and decompressing to and from it, then I would expect a program like Premiere to just work. The other video editing software packages work with it.

Weird Digital Artifact

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