Audio drags

[davidp60953449]

Audio in a project slows-down/drags at certain sections--particularly when there is a lot going on with animations at the same time. I lowered the resolution, and that seems to help a little, but not completely. I produced a more complicated project a while back with no dragging like this. The audio is a simple narration track. It was in there as a wav first, and I converted it to an mp3 with no change. I don't see what else I can do to help. Any suggestions?

AE Version 14.0.1.5 on Win 10.

[Szalam]

Are you experiencing this issue after the relevant section has been cached or are you just playing back without caching first?

[davidp60953449]

Either way.

[Szalam]

Does the info panel indicate that you're playing back not in real time?

What happens if you tick the "Mute audio when playback isn't realtime" option?

[davidp60953449]

Yes, the not real time indications comes and goes.

When I choose the mute option, lots of muting happens. In other words, it works. Audio is muted during those sections. But that doesn't help me. I need to hear the audio then.

[Szalam]

So, you have previews that are fully cached and yet they're falling out of real time during playback?

That sounds annoying for sure.

I don't know what to suggest. I haven't had an issue like this happen to me. It's pretty rare on Windows, but I've heard of others with the problem. What, exactly is in your composition in the times when the problem is happening?

[davidp60953449]

I appreciate the effort to help. The composition is primarily several layers each of which contains several illustrator files that are being moved around on the screen.

[Szalam]

You might try to uncheck the "hardware accelerate...panels" option in Preferences>Display to see if it makes a difference.

If that doesn't help, you might also checking the "Reduce cache size when system is low..." option in Preferences>Memory.

[davidp60953449]

That didn't help either I'm afraid. I'll just get by with rendering sections for now. Thanks.

[Szalam]

How long is the section you were trying to preview? What are your system specs? (For the record, you're likely to have fewer problems with the WAV than an MP3.)

[davidp60953449]

The sections are just 5 to 10 seconds or so.

Win 10, 64 bit

i7-465OU processor

8 GB RAM (not much, I know, but has worked pretty well before)

[Szalam]

It should be able to preview a few seconds just fine once it caches the preview.

What resolution is your monitor?

[davidp60953449]

I have dual monitors, but the one I primarily use is 1920 X 1080.

[Szalam]

I'm just curious if making your timeline a lot smaller vertically (or hiding it entirely) helps out at all.

[davidp60953449]

Hmmm. I never would of thought of trying that. I'm playing with it to see, but for some reason, adjusting the timeline several times seems to have caused a crash. I'll keep trying.

[Szalam]

Interesting. Can you paste the crash logs somewhere? What kind of crash was it? Did you get any error messages?

[davidp60953449]

All I can find is the render log, but that's not what you want I don't think.

Adobe After Effects v14.0.1 Windows 64 render log for project “Adjusted Scores (converted).aep”

Rendering started on 12/8/2016 at 5:14:26 PM

  12/8/2016 5:14:26 PM: Starting composition “Opening”.

  Output To: C:\Users\David\Google Drive\Videos\Steve Tech Videos\Opening.avi

After Effects warning: Failed to write XMP metadata

  12/8/2016 5:19:03 PM: Finished composition “Opening”.

  Total Time Elapsed: 4 Min, 28 Sec

Log closed on 12/8/2016 at 5:19:04 PM

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi David P,

After Effects warning: Failed to write XMP metadata

My former colleague, Todd Kopriva stated, "XMP metadata can be written into media files or into sidecar files alongside the media files. If After Effects can't write this metadata, then you get that message. The most common cause is because of permissions---either the file or the folder is set to read-only."

I hope this is helpful

Thanks,

Kevin

[nsd3]

As an experiment, disable any anti-virus/malware software you may have running.  By disable, I mean close down the anti-virus/malware application, don't just switch off the protection features.  Does that make a difference?

Steve