P: 3.4 unable to create slideshow video with soundtrack.

[Guest]

Lightroom: 3.4 unable to create slideshow video with soundtrack.
I created a voice over for my slide show so that I can send the file to relatives to watch.
Voice over created with as an iPod voice memo. That created a .wav file which LR does not support. Annoying, but fair enough. Next step was to create a .m4a file which LR claims to support. That runs within LR, but crashes when I attempt to create a video file (the intended recipients do not have LR).
Error text:
Log (6)
Assertion failed: self->aenc
info: Creating MainConcept H.264/AVC video encoder ...
info: Version: 8.0.0.47059
info: Platform: OSX
info: Using library: MainConcept optimized Software Encoder (mc_enc_avc.001)
extendedOption: media_time_offset : 0.000000 -> 1000.000000
End error text
Third step was to try a .mp3 file.
That comes up with an exclamation sign beside it, and will not run withing LR. It also crashes the "create a video" subroutine within LR. Different error to above. I could find no explanation of what the exclamation means. I tried the help, clicking, double clicking and right clicking.

Both conversions were from the original .wav file by WavePad Sound Editor v4.5.1 using default options in the SaveAs dialog box
LR3.4
Mac OSX 10.6.7
I have tried two machines - a MacPro i5 and an iMac Core Duo

[Guest]

Just to add to this.
I have now tried with LR3.4.1 Same issue
I have also tried a different program (Audacity) to convert from .WAV to m4a/mp3. The symptoms do not change.
This points to the problem being within Lightroom.
The original slideshow was 360 photos (Duration 40Minutes). To simplify testing, I am now using 11 photos (Duration about 1'30")I have also tried with an m4a file from my music collection. This worked fine. So the problem will need to be recreated using a .wav file from an iPod.

I refer to the LR Help file (My emphasis)

Lightroom can play any .mp3, .m4a, or .m4b music file as a soundtrack to a slide show. Music plays as the slide show is viewed from within Lightroom or exported as a video. Music does not play in exported PDF slide shows.

This makes it a Lightroom problem.
Please fix it.

[dtull]

If you can send me the m4a file, I can take a look and see what might be going wrong. I located the assert in the code. That code should be checking the result and handling the error. Fixing that would avoid the crash, but wouldn't resolve the fact that Lightroom doesn't play the audio.

My adobe.com e-mail handle is dtull. If the file is more than 6 MB or so, transferbigfiles.com or yousendit.com would probably work better for getting the file to me. Thanks.

[Guest]

Thanks for that Dan.
email Sent.

[Guest]

I just received what I assume is an automated response from help_adm at adobe.com saying that I should post a question on the forum. Since I have already done that, this is raising my annoyance levels considerably. Can you confirm whether you have received my email?

[Geoff the kiwi]

Greg, if you keep posting your issue in different places you will get many responses. I am one of the moderators the on-line manuals for Lightroom and Photoshop and I triggered the email you received. Why?
1. Because your problem was not something that is dealt with in the "Comments" section of the manual. You have a distinct issue that may well be to do with software other than Lightroom and the forums (here) and the U2U forum are the appropriate place to have issues verified.
2. I had seen your post here and Dan's request for you to contact him.
3. The Adobe Lightroom team are busy people and I guess like to sleep sometimes so I'm sure Dan will report back to you when he has assessed the problem. The team are very good at responding in my experience.

This site is new and it may take some time for all he little glitches, duplication, etc sorted so I ask for your patience meantime. Thanks.

[Guest]

Thanks Geoff for clarifying. I appreciate the need for sleep, and the different time zones involved. I was not expecting a response this soon from Dan. My concern was that the email you in fact triggered was an automatic response triggered by an interception of the email I sent Dan. The timing was about right for that to be the case. I'm glad it wasn't.

I have raised the issue in a number of places, both here and in forums associated with the audio software. So far, to your credit, this is the only place where I am receiving any help at all.

The manual states that any mp3, m4a and m4b may be used to generate a soundtrack for a slide show. That is clearly NOT the case. That is why I raised the issue there so that others would be aware of the discrepancy between the manual and reality, not because I was expecting a resolution to my problem there.

[Geoff the kiwi]

No problem Greg thanks for understanding. Hopefully Dan will have an answer before too long. I get to do odd things at odd hours as I am in New Zealand and so have UTC +12 hours at present - maybe I do them before they happen!!

[dtull]

Ok, I can reproduce the assert. It doesn't crash for me, and the file plays back in Slideshow for preview, but it does emit this error and fail to create the video file properly, so I can move to the question of why not:

Log (5)
Assertion failed: self->aenc
info: Creating MainConcept H.264/AVC video encoder ...
info: Version: 8.0.0.47059
info: Platform: OSX
info: Using library: MainConcept optimized Software Encoder (mc_enc_avc.001)

[dtull]

I filed a bug for this internally. There's something not quite normal about the file, but various players are handling it fine (including, in my case, Lightroom), though it definitely fails when attempting to export a slideshow as a video. The MainConcept routine doesn't appear to provide a more detailed error message, so I don't know exactly why it fails.

I'm getting mixed results from different analysis tools. Exiftool (which apparently does a whole lot more than EXIF) says it is 22050 Hz with 2 channels, QuickTime player says 22050 with 1 channel, and VLC says 44100 Hz with 2 channels.

I suspect if I knew more about audio formats and encoding, I could offer a workaround, but this is out of my zone of expertise.

[Geoff the kiwi]

Thanks for the prompt attention to Greg's issue Dan !!

[Guest]

Thanks from me too Dan.

Armed with your information I went looking further.
I discovered while reading the Audacity blogs, that iTunes can convert a .WAV file into an AAC file. Something I didn't know. I tried this, and after working out where the new file was put, by no means obvious, I discovered that it was saved as .m4a. I tried using this as the source Audio for the slide show and it all works. Great result.

Now to go back to the original slideshow & rerecord a soundtrack - I have made some changes to the photos in the meantime.

Then all i have to do is convert the mp4 file into a standard DVD movie so I can mail it off. More learning curve ahead. Sigh.

Thanks again. Greg.
PS I hope this bug you uncovered gets fixed in a future release.

[dtull]

Excellent, glad that you found a way around the problem for now. I'll try to remember to post status on the bug when I know more.