Unfortunately, because of licensing restrictions, Lightroom only supports Dolby Digital audio with 2 channels or less. The files in question had Dolby 5.1 audio. So it appears the behavior of playing video with no audio in Lightroom is as expected.
It's possible the video has Dolby Digital (AC-3) compression scheme audio. Photoshop does not have a license for that decoder.
In CS5, the Audio is muted by default. Got to the Animation panel (Window > Animation), then verify Audio Playback button is ON (the speaker icon will have 3 waves ))) coming from it when the mouse is NOT over the button).
There's a free tool out on the web that will help you determine the encoding of your audio. Free Tool: http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php
Lightroom only uses the "default" audio device for audio playback. Make sure there are speakers (or a headset) attached to the default playback device. On Windows, you can right click on the speaker icon in the toolbar to see a list of audio devices and which is the default. You can also change the default here.
You can also open the volume mixer to see if sound is being outputted from LR.
I get sound on all other video formats I've imported, including those from my canon dslr and point and shoot. This only seems to be a problem with the MTS format from my sony camcorder. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.
Unfortunately, because of licensing restrictions, Lightroom only supports Dolby Digital audio with 2 channels or less. The files in question had Dolby 5.1 audio. So it appears the behavior of playing video with no audio in Lightroom is as expected.
I hope "working as expected" isn't the final answer. There should at least be some sort of warning on the screen to indicate that Dolby 5.1 isn't supported.
Stephen- I completely agree. Lightroom needs to do a better job of warning users when audio codecs are not supported. The bug has been filed internally.
I am having the same problem on a new install of Lightroom 4 with Production Premium CS6 on Windows 7 64 bit. Audio plays everywhere but Lightroom. Interestingly, after I installed Quicktime, I was able to get one video to play with the audio in Lightroom (an mp4 file), and it showed a brief "Audio Loading" message with a % notice before the audio was available. That file continued to play with audio when I returned to it in the catalog. But no other video file would play with audio and I never saw the "Audio Loading" message appear again. It does make Lightroom much less effective since I do many interviews and trimming would be very welcome based on the audio in the files.
I know the same issue occurs in Premiere until the audio has been conformed in the system. Does Lightroom 4 also conform the audio like Premiere? Is that what the audio loading message meant?
OK, here is another piece of data. Lightroom will load audio for one file each time it opens.
Lightroom does not close cleanly. When I exit the program, it leaves a running instance of lightroom in the task manager process list and leaves
dynamiclinkmanager.exe
dynamiclinkmediaserver.exe
Adobe QT32 Server.exe.
also running.
If I stop all those processes, I can open lightroom again and load audio for one file. The previously loaded files will still play, so it is like it is conforming the audio but gets stuck after the first file is completed.
Has there been any movement on this issue? I have a Panasonic camcorder which records to .mts2 files with 5.1 channel audio. I get audio on all other types of video files in Lightroom, but not from my camcorder which is a HUGE frustration for me. I was so excited to see that there was finally a program which would allow me to sort and tag my video files like I do with my pictures. But the no audio issue makes it completely useless. What good are nicely sorted and tagged video files without sound?
Adobe either needs to say (Before purchase of the software) "This only supports ..." or needs to needs to work to ensure all the Adobe product line supports the same codecs. The same video files play audio just fine in Premier CS4 & 5. My problem is I am now in the range of 2TB of video files from my camcorder and I want to tag/sort them using the awesome functionality of Lightroom. So close to a perfect piece of software, this is the only issue I have and am really looking forward to getting this issue addresses.
I would be happy to assist in any testing/trouble shooting for this issue.
You would think at very least it could playback left/right audio. The video runs fine after importing, but you can only hear the audio with the windows media player. I'm a little suprised the the free windows OS player can playback the files, but the lightroom application can not.
I am about to shell out money to buy a third party MTS converter. Does Photoshop have a recommendation of what to buy or whare to look? I tried Aiseesoft and it seems to work for files in Lightroom and in Final Cut Pro X but I see bad reviews about the company and spyware.
I try to import my AVCHD (.mts) video, it works. I can watch them in LR but I don’t get any audio. If I export the files in “native” format, audio is working. LR4.1 (and 4.0) over Leopard doesn't output any sound, even on any transformation inside. Any help?
No Audio when playing back Video in LR 4 and LR 4.1 RC. (The rest of LR4 is flawless)
This affect .mov .avi .mts files (All files play back without issue in VLC player, Quicktime and Mindows Media Player. No other issues with audio on this PC (WIN 7 64bit, i7 quad core, 8GB ram)
Lightroom shows up in Windows Volume Mixer (see attached screen grab) but no sound is fed through to soundboard.
I bought the MTS converter and batch converted all my .MTS's. They work in Lightreoom and Final Cut ProX.
I think the problem is in the surround sound feature. Next time out I will set the camera to just two channel sound.
John Fitzpatrick, thanks for your comments. I have exactly the same problems and concerns over lack of Dolby 5.1 channel support.
Adobe sales literature and technical specifications should be more explicit about file formats and codec which are and are not supported. On-line interaction should include "Dobly 5.1 audio not supported" messages...but, better yet, Adobe should just pay the Dolby license fee and include this capability! The price tag on LR4 is high enough that it should include common audio formats such as this!
Have heard anything from Adobe, learned of any second-party solutions, or discovered a workaround? I share your frustration!
Having the same problems....Adobe needs to step up and resolve this issue!
I teach Photoshop and Lightroom........how do you explain this to multiple classes? Thanks for posting your work around.
Most people would be willing to pay for an upgrade. But to spend that much money and have something that puts the photographer 10 weeks behind in delivering their product with no easy way to diagnose the problem is very frustrating. I am still looking for the right product. This is not it.
Delane Wycoff, so far I have yet to find a viable solution to this problem. While there are ways of converting the files to a format that works in Lightroom, that doesn't work for me. Why go spend the money for a HD camera with Surround sound only to be required to convert the files to a different format to use them in Lightroom? It makes no sense to me and is really frustrating. The worst part is that the files work great in Premier CS5 so Adobe obviously has the capability to fix this... Heck, I'm willing to pay for another piece of software through Adobe which would merge the workflows of Lightroom with the power of Premier... I just want something that does it all... Since they advertise Lightroom as working with video, I think they should fix it. Otherwise, stop advertising video as a part of Lightroom standard and make a special Lightroom Video edition that has ALL video formats.
I purchased the Aiseesoft converter and set it up for MP4 output. I loaded *.MTS and selected the output location and let it run. Then I used these videos in Lightroom and in Apple Final Cut Pro X. The worked fine but it is still a lot of hassel for something that Lightroom could make available for a cost if necessary.