Audio or Video sync problems in Pinnacle Studio

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In most cases this problem is caused by the following:

- CPU is overloaded

- system is low on memory

- some programs running in the background

- video and audio driver problems

- bad quality of a video source

The following steps in this FAQ should help to resolve the problem.


1. Try a different player

Try playing the video back in a different player such as Windows Media Player. If it is still out of sync, the problem is with the file. If the file was captured in Studio, try re-capturing it.

 

2. Minimum System Requirements

Ensure that your computer meets the minimum requirements.


3. Settings in Studio: Go to Setup > Control Panel > Preview. There are some settings in this section that may be adjusted to get better results.

Quality: Select “Fastest Playback” and see if your results improve.

Background Playback Optimization: Try disabling this option to see if it helps. Note that this may result in poor preview playback.

Render While Play: Try changing this to OFF. This will cause Background Rendering to pause when you are playing back the project.

4. End Background Tasks: It is important with this type of problem to unload any background processes when using Studio.

What are background Processes? Background processes are not just programs that you may have manually started. Many other things are generally running in the background that you may not be aware of.

If you are using Windows 7 and above you can hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and then the Task Manager button. You likely will not see much under the Applications tab, but if you click on the Processes tab, it will display a list of what is running. 


5. Update audio and video drivers: Make sure that you have the latest sound and video card drivers loaded from their manufacturer’s websites.

You can determine what sound and video card you have by checking in Device Manager. You can get to Device Manager by right clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties. If you are using Windows 7 and above you can select the Hardware tab then click the Device Manager button.

To determine what video card you have, click the plus sign in front of Display Adapters in the Device Manager list. Now your video card will be displayed. To determine the manufacturer and date of the video card driver, double click on the video card name. Now click the Driver tab and you will see all the driver information including Driver Provider and Driver Date.

The process for the sound card is very similar. In Device Manager the sound card is displayed in the Sound, video and game controllers section. You can double click on the sound card to determine the driver information in the same fashion as the video card.

Here are some links to common sound and video card manufacturers websites that would have driver updates available:

AMD : https://www.amd.com/en/support
Nvidia : www.nvidia.com
Sound Blaster (SB) : www.creative.com

6. Increase the Priority of Studio

In some cases it can be helpful to increase the priority of the Studio application in Windows. Here is how to do that:


7. Virus scanners or continuous media scanning applications

Virus scanner software can hinder performance. As a test, try disabling the virus scanner and see if it helps.

Note: For safety reasons, it is recommended to disconnect from the internet while the virus scanner is disabled.

If it helps, try to exclude media directories from the scanning paths and/or remove media files (MPG, AVI, WAV, BMP, JPG, etc.) from the files to be scanned. Contact the virus scanner vendor for instructions on how to do this.

Try disabling indexing tools or services from running such as Google Desktop Search, Yahoo Desktop Search, Adobe Photoshop Album Importer, etc.

 

8. Defragment your hard drive:

Defragment the capture hard drive: Since hard drives become fragmented over time, it is important to defragment the hard drive on a regular basis. See this link to a Microsoft article on using the Disc Defragmenter:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Improve-performance-by-defragmenting-your-hard-diskIf you have multiple hard drives, take the opportunity to spread the load by adjusting the parameters of Studio, change the Render Files Location on hard drive other than C:\ (by default). To access this option go to Setup > Control Panel, then select the Storage Locations section.

 

9. Free Space on Boot Drive: Make sure you have 50 GB or more on your boot drive for paging. If you do not have 50 GB or more, you will need to free up some space.

10. Set your computer for Best Performance:

  1. Right click Computer.
  2. Select Properties.
  3. Click the Advanced System Settings link
  4. This will bring up the System Properties window. Click the Settings button in the Advanced section.
  5. Select "Adjust for best performance". Click OK


11. Windows Updates: Make sure you have all the latest Windows updates that are available.
You can get the latest Windows updates from this site. ¶

 

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