Audio won't play in Premiere, but plays in QT, FCP, and Adobe Bridge.

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

I'm normally pretty good at troubleshooting, but this audio issue has me scratching my head.  A cameraman had DVCPro tapes transferred to QT movies.  All the clips playback fine if opened with QT, FCP, and Adobe Bridge.  Import these clips into Premiere and there's no audio.  Nothing shows up on waveform- there's nothing there.

I would switch to FCP, but I already started the project in Premiere (CS 5.5) with earlier footage- which were mxf files right off the P2 card.  That works fantastic.  The footage I'm having an issue with was footage that was just shot recently on DVCPro tapes- so switching to FCP isn't the most time efficient.  But I'll do it if I have to.

What confuses me the most is that the clips play back fine in Adobe Bridge, so I don't think it's a codec issue.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice getting to the bottom of this.

Erik

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Just a guess, but are you waiting long enough for Premiere to "conform" the audio?  There should be a little gold progress bar in the lower right.  It doesn't take too long, but until it conforms you won't hear anything.  Had me scratching my head for a couple of days!

[Guest]

Yes, I know about the conforming audio.  That's not the issue.  This is a very strange case indeed.  Thank you for your response, but there's something else wrong here.

[Allynn Wilkinson]

okay... so not the obvious. 

You don't see waveforms in Premiere but you *do* in Quicktime?  And it plays back in Bridge?!

Try this... take the shortest clip you have and transcode it to something friendly (ProRes 422?).  Bring it in and see if it works.  Not saying you need to do this for everything.  Just trying to narrow the problem.

Also... can you post the full specs of the QT files?

[Guest]

Yes, if I bring the clips into FCP, I can see the audio waveform.  And if plays back in Bridge just fine.  I did load it into QT and export an audio track and resync it in Premiere.  That worked, but that's tedious.  I'll try to re-transcode into ProRes and see if that works.  My only concern is picture quality.

The QT specs are:

29.97

Compressor:  DVCPRO HD 1080i60

Data rate: 13.9 MB/sec

Pixel aspect HD(1280x1080)

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Tedious indeed!  But interesting that it works. 

Something funky must have happened with the original transcode.  Not that that helps you in any way.

How much footage do you have?  That will help to answer the question is it better to switch back to FCP -OR- just export the audio?  If you're concerned about loss of picture quality (and I agree you should be) with yet another transcode I would tend to suggest exporting the audio.  You won't suffer any audio loss doing that and there shouldn't be a sync issue either (though if any of the clips are very long there might be drift).

[John T Smith]

Hmm... this is about AVCHD, but may give ideas - http://forums.adobe.com/thread/805382

[Allynn Wilkinson]

John, Is this really true?:

"If the audio was recorded as  Linear PCM, it won't play in Pr"

That would sure explain the problem!  I didn't think Linear PCM was weird like that

[Guest]

OK- first off - thank you to everyone responding!

Just exported a Pro Res HQ clip out of QT with Linear PCM audio and everything works fine.  There is a dropped frame message under properties though.  I think the facility that transferred this for me had several capture issues.  The audio is out of sync frequently.  If the clips have dropped frames due to a poor transfer, would Premiere reject the audio?

[excited_Genie16B8]

Not for that, no.

Can you upload a clip so others can test?

http://www.depositfiles.com/en/

[Allynn Wilkinson]

Yeah.. I just did a confirm that Linear PCM works in Pr.

I don't know if Premiere would "reject" the audio.  More likely there's bad (or non-standard = worse-than-bad) header information.  I'd "reject' the transfer facility!

Do you notice the out-of-sync problem with the original files in FCP ot QT?  And, if you do, is it always in the exact same place? 

If you don't notice a sync issue in FCP (unlikely - but let's think positive) than you can probably use the footage in FCP.  If you notice a sync problem in exactly the same place everytime, the footage is probably damaged in a few places.  I've had audio go out of sync when there's a video glitch.  If this is the case (and it doesn't happen too often) you can use the footage after you re-sync it.  If, however, the audio drifts or the out-of-sync is otherwise inconsistent, you're hosed (sorry).

How much of this stuff do you have?  When do you need to finish editing it?  And what's the likelyhood you could have it transferred again (some place else?!)?

[Guest]

Yes, the audio out of sync is throughout the clips.  The out of sync issues are the same played on QT or FCP, so it's just a bad transfer.  I don't believe that it's the tapes.  It could've been a dirty playhead?  I didn't realize this out of sync issue until recently- I just knew they wouldn't play in Premiere and once I started digging, then I realized that there were more problems.  I would like to upload a clip, but it's corporate internal communications, so there are confidential issues.

I was just researching renting a DVCPRO deck and transferring it myself- then I could capture it at a higher data rate anyway.

But there's still the troubleshooter side that wants to know why Premiere won't recognize the audio when Bridge, QT, and FCP will play it.  There are no audible hits, no audio issues that you normally encounter.  There are no video glitches either...

We may have to concede defeat and say that this is a unique issue generating unique problems.  What do you think?

[Allynn Wilkinson]

I'd hate to conceed defeat but you may have a point.

Isn't there even a few seconds of someone "non-confidential" knocking over a light stand or something?  I'd be curious to see the footage.

I hate to say that it *could* be a camera problem.  I've had that happen before even on very good, well maintained units.  Let's hope it's just a bad transfer.

[Guest]

I was trying to make a shortened clip for you with identical settings, but all these clips play OK in Premiere. Well, sort of OK-  ALL exports report dropped frames.  I'll have to see how they transferred it.  I think a re-transfer is definitely necessary and I think those new clips will playback fine.

Thanks to all who tried to get to the bottom of this problem.  We're going to have to accept that the culprit behind this issue was the poor transfer (dropped frames) from tape. 

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.  -Erik

[Guest]

The footage was recaptured and all is well with audio playback.

[excited_Genie16B8]

What's the audio codec used in the MOV files?

[Guest]

All it says under "more info" is Linear PCM.  Is there a way to get more details?

[ChuckMcL]

I had a similar problem, I'll tell you how I solved it.  Understand that I am a newbie at video editing and Premiere Pro.  I shot videos on a DSLR (.mov) and then transferred them to my computer.  I then imported them into Premiere CS6.  The videos played fine, and the sound bars indicated that audio was playing, but there was no sound.  The clips I imported played fine in Windows Media Player.  I did everything suggested on the forums, but to no avail.  Then I thought of something no one else had suggested, and it worked!

I ordered my Rain Stratus computer already set up with Premiere CS6 installed.  When I opened a new project, it by default chose Black Magic Design presets, since that is the video card I have.  Being a newbie, I just went with that.  But since the video I was importing was not captured by my Black Magic video card, it was the wrong choice.  It took awhile to figure out, but I finally realized I needed to choose Digital SLR as the sequence preset when I created a new project.  Then the audio worked!

One more thing I had to do, though, before it worked: in PremierePro, go to Edit/Preferences/Audio Hardware.  I had to change the hardware from Black Magic Audio to Premiere Pro WDM Sound, click ASIO settings, choose my speakers, and then check the box marked "device 32-bit playback" (even thought I have a 64-bit computer.)

I hope that helps someone else from going through the same frustration.

[Eruditiollc]

I know this is an old thread, but it appears it was never resolved, at least not on here.

I was having the same issue.  In fact, my footage would play the video in premiere with no audio, and the audio in media player with no video.  I found 1 VERY simple solution that worked for me. 

Rename the clip to an .avi

Yeah, that actually worked.  Hope this helps someone.