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AE CS5: Audio Randomly Out of Sync in RAM Preview and Rendered Output

New Here ,
Jun 18, 2010 Jun 18, 2010

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I'm relatively new to After Effects, and a day-old user of CS5. My RAM previews and rendered outputs are having similar (buggy?) behavior: RAM previews with audio sometimes work fine, playing audio + video or audio only as expected. Other times, the preview "forward from here" plays sound, but from the beginning of the timeline. If I repeatedly choose to play "forward from here", sometimes (after 3-5 tries) it'll start playing from the correct position, and sometimes I'll have to move the playhead around for a few minutes before it'll work.

Rendering the composition in the Render Queue produces a movie that plays fine for the first 10 or so seconds, then the audio track skips all over the place while the video plays just fine.

The piece is about five minutes long, and only involves an audio track and still images and some vector assets.

Attempted audio sources (used in composition):

- mp3, 160kb/sec, 32 bit stereo, 44.1kHz

- aif, 16 bit stereo, 44.1kHz

- aif, 16 bit stereo, 48kHz

Attempted output (renders):

- 1080x960, square pixels, 30fps

- full-res .mov, Animation + uncompressed audio (re-saved via Quicktime to H.264 to test playback)

- full-res H.264 .mp4 (using preset)

Machines:

- iMac (Intel dual-core) / Snow Leopard / 4GB memory / slowish 7200rpm hard drive that'll be replaced tomorrow

- MacBook Pro 15" / Snow Leopard / 4GB memory / stock hard drive

Everything happens consistently on both machines, which leads me to believe it's either user error or a bug -- but not necessarily hardware specific. If there's any more information I can add, please let me know!

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Jun 18, 2010 Jun 18, 2010

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New Here ,
Jun 18, 2010 Jun 18, 2010

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Filed.

Update: in case anyone with a similar problem stumbles on this thread, I accidentally found what appears to have fixed the RAM preview and "forward from here" audio preview...

Expand the audio layer to expose the waveforms in the timeline. That's it. I haven't tried re-rendering a movie yet, but my in-AE previews have been working flawlessly ever since I expanded the audio layer.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 18, 2010 Jun 18, 2010

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Just to confirm you're not the only one, I was experiencing the very same issue in AE CS5 on a 27" iMac yesterday.  All output renders were fine, it was purely a preview issue. I've never experienced it on my own gear, however.   I'll try your workaround if I experience it again.

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New Here ,
Jun 18, 2010 Jun 18, 2010

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Thanks, Andrew. My output renders are still having audio problems -- I'm now outputting the entire piece and will try to add the audio track in Premiere.

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New Here ,
Dec 23, 2017 Dec 23, 2017

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LATEST

dude this happened to me too

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New Here ,
Jun 21, 2010 Jun 21, 2010

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Same problem here. Opening up the waveform view does seem to solve the problem, at least for RAM previews. Haven't checked if this is an issue with renders as well.

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New Here ,
Jun 21, 2010 Jun 21, 2010

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I take that back. It was working at first, but now it's randomly not working at times.

I'm on a new Core i7 MacBook Pro OS 10.6.3

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New Here ,
Jun 21, 2010 Jun 21, 2010

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I'm experiencing the same audio issue with rendered output.  No issue with RAM Preview.  Solely rendered output.

Attempting different audio output settings and the problem is worse.

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New Here ,
Jun 21, 2010 Jun 21, 2010

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My rendered outputs are also consistently messed up, regardless of what audio settings I use. Even using Premiere (CS5) to combine rendered video with the audio track results in the same thing.

The only two workarounds I've had success with thus far:

  1. Combine audio and video in Final Cut.
  2. Render video in AE, then create a new AE project and combine the rendered video and the audio track. (Worked once so far.)

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New Here ,
Jun 21, 2010 Jun 21, 2010

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Well, I think I have solved my Ram preview sync problem. I converted the

aif audio file to wav and haven't had an issue for about an hour.

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Jun 21, 2010 Jun 21, 2010

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There's a known issue with AIFF files in After Effects CS5 and Premiere Pro CS5. For now, we're recommending what you've already done: conversion of audio to WAV format. We have a possible fix for the problem that is currently going through testing, and we're evaluating it for inclusion in a future update.

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Explorer ,
Aug 14, 2010 Aug 14, 2010

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Todd,

As someone who's lost *many* hours trying to sort this, as a "known issue" that you're working on a fix for, perhaps it would be worth stating that here:

Premiere Pro CS5 known issues

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/840/cpsid_84021.html

That's where I checked first- nothing. Still nothing now. I figured it would be a list of the known issues, seeing as it's called "known issues". From what you're stating, this audio problem is a known issue.

And if I seem like I'm being overly repetitive, then you've obviously never dealt with *posting* a support request to Adobe. It goes like this:

Me: "I believe this software has a bug. Here is a clear explanation of why, and under what circumstances. I'm on a Mac, and here's a file I've uploaded for you to replicate it."

Adobe: "Here is how to uninstall and reinstall CS5 under Windows."

Me: "Mac. File. Replicate."

Adobe: "Please run setup.exe".

Me: "Mac. File. Replicate."

Adobe: "Please upload a file so we can test it".


Me: "Sigh. Mac. File. Replicate."

(Repeat last 2 steps multiple times until technician calls and you can force it to be escalated to someone who reads.)

Sheesh.

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Aug 16, 2010 Aug 16, 2010

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mintyh,

Sorry about that. Sorry that your time was wasted, I mean.

Yeah, that document of know issues is a bit of a problem in that people (including some here) think that it's comprehensive.

I'll go in and edit it myself in the next day or so and add the things that we've discovered since we released the software.

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Explorer ,
Aug 31, 2010 Aug 31, 2010

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Hi Todd,

Thanks for updating it- perhaps that will save someone else many wasted hours.

You noted: "that document of known issues is a bit of a problem in that people (including some here) think that it's comprehensive."

Perhaps it would be more obvious and we'd all stop stupidly assuming that the page on "known issues" listed the known issues if you named it something more accurate. For instance "Known issues that we can be bothered listing" or "An incomplete list of known issues- there's some we're working on a fix for but still would like you to keep stumbling over."

I did wonder how you could release software that can't play one of the most common Mac audio formats in sync. Was sync considered overrated during testing? Did Adobe figure that it was an interesting style evolution?

On an interesting side note, I asked to get my 30 day Linda Video membership extended because I'd hardly been able to use it properly dealing with this. You can imagine how long I wasted explaining the situation to Adobe tech support, with them telling me "We can't, because the problem you're describing isn't a known issue- it must be a problem with what you're doing."

Sigh.

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Sep 03, 2010 Sep 03, 2010

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The After Effects CS5 (10.0.1) update is available:

http://bit.ly/9ex5Cf

This update should address the AIFF issue. After you've installed the update, please let us know whether it works for you.

If you have any problems with the update, or if you have bugs to report after you've installed the update, please let us know through the usual channels:

http://bit.ly/93d6NF

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LEGEND ,
Sep 27, 2011 Sep 27, 2011

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I read in your initial post that you also have mp3 audio in this project.  It should be converted to aiff or wav as well.  For as long as I can remember, Compressed audio files have given AE absolute fits and they should be converted to uncompressed files.

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New Here ,
Sep 10, 2010 Sep 10, 2010

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I had the same problem. The 10.0.1 update DID NOT fix the problem for me. What did, was closing the audio panel.

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 23, 2011 Jan 23, 2011

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I was having the same problem.. my audio was in one composition, visuals in another .. and for some reason my audio would randomly be out of sync not only in the RAM preview, but the rendered file also. Of course, this wasn't happening until I was about halfway through my project, so it was rather jarring when this started happening. I tried multiple export options.. Finally, what worked for me was rending my audio composition to a .WAV, and then dropping that file into my video composition. I rendered it as an .MP4 and it worked fine.

2.66 GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB RAM. AE CS5.

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New Here ,
Apr 30, 2011 Apr 30, 2011

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I've had some issues with Audio during ram preview as well. This seemed to have fixed the issue, I'm using a Mac so not sure if it applies to all setups..

Preferences > Previews: UP the Audio Preview Duration to the length of your main comp.

Preferences > Audio Hardware: Increase the Buffer Size (max if possible)

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New Here ,
Sep 26, 2011 Sep 26, 2011

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Thx see gootie. Longer audio preview and bigger audio buffer seems to have fixed it for me with an AIFF. Also on mac. OS 10.6.7.

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New Here ,
Aug 10, 2012 Aug 10, 2012

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I have solved the audio cut out or out of sync problem wich are part of the same BUG. And yes this is a bug.

You will see this problem whenever you try to Display on an external device. In the video preview panel Switch to Display to computer monitor only and problem solved.

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New Here ,
Mar 10, 2016 Mar 10, 2016

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It's because the frame rate of your composition is different to the framerate of your playback. Make sure it's the same and you'll be fine.

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