Audio Stuttering


Product: Flyer

Platforms: 2000 3000 3000T 4000 4000T

Problem: Audio stuttering and glitches occur during project playback.

1) Audio clip is corrupt, or audio within a video clip is corrupt. Check clips to be certain there are no defects (dropouts, etc) in the audio. Please note that with either audio or video clips, if the audio level "clips" (exceeds allowable input levels as shown by the level meters on the Record panel), then the clip is corrupt, and must be redigitized.

2) Project is accessing directories which exceed the current limit of about 180 files. This can be on either the audio or the video drives, and will still produce both or either of video and audio stutters and glitches. The solution is to divide project materials into folders, with no more than about 150 files per folder.

3) Audio drive has corrupt files and directories. Copy any audio files that you are 100 percent certain are okay to one of the video drives, and reformat the audio drive. Then move the audio files back onto the drive.

4) Audio drive cannot maintain the number of stereo pairs required for the sequence. Some audio drives will only reliably play two stereo pairs. In sequences with a split edit, only one additional audio clip could be played from the audio drive, since the audio from the split needs to be copied to the audio drive, and plays from there.

Several solutions present themselves. The user can add a second audio drive, and play a second audio clip from there. Audio tracks can be premixed when recorded to the Flyer, or can be mixed in the Flyer, played out to and analog or digital audio recording device, and then redigitized, until all the additional layers of audio are mixed into a single clip.

Third-party product ProMix, from ProWave, allows the user to mix down and join a number of audio clips into a single stereo clip, and even to merge these into a video clip's audio tracks.

5) Audio drive has no more room for temp files. Flyer software up to at least 4.1D has a bug in the handling of temp files on the audio drive, such that they are never removed. Voidall is not effective in clearing these files, and they can build up progressively until the drive is full, even if it does not seem to be full given the number of audio clips recorded on the drive.

The temp files also show a tendency to corrupt the file system on the audio drive. Thus the project may not only glitch and stutter, but may play snippets of temp files from audio clips, of which the original source clip has been removed from the audio drive.

The only solution is to reformat the audio drive. If the file system shows any evidence of being corrupt, the user should not trust any of the files, but should re-record the audio clips after the reformat.

6) The sequence has exceeded the number of allowable audio tracks. Flyer can only handle up to 4 stereo pairs, and if this is exceeded then the sequence playback will be faulty. Check the sequence and remove any tracks over the Flyer's capacity. Be sure to check that the audio tracks from video clips are not causing the fault. Third party timeline utilities are often useful for quickly finding such problems.

7) The audio or video drives are operating at too hot a temperature, and are not performing up to specifications. Many end users have reported that improving the cooling of their audio and video drives has corrected stuttering and glitching in the audio.



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