Static / low quality audio

[el_sn00p]

hi .. Some Xvid encoded AVIs I got from friends playback with really scratchy / staticy audio. It sounds like radio quality audio, or a really scratchy record. The video is fine. All files are approx between 300-600mb. All other audio (WAV, CDDA) is fine. It seems Divx encoded files work ok, altho I do not have any greater than 150mb.

Apologies if this issue is addressed in another forum post, I did search, but found nothing specifically related to this problem.

FYI .. PC specs :
P2-333mhz
128mb SDRAM
12gig WD HDD
ASUS P2B (BIOS ver 1007)
Win 98SE
SB AWE64 (using 98SE native drivers, and tried most recent Creative drivers .. don't have specific version numbers with me atm)

I have installed AC3 codec, various types of xvid codec (eg. koepi's), Radium MP3 codec, various codec/filter packs like Tsunami 2.8.9 minipack etc and ffdshow. Tried using Bsplayer. I know it's not necessarily a good idea to install multiple codecs and packs, etc, but I have done my best to remove existing packs before installing new ones, and removed codecs that aren't needed before installing new ones. I only recently reinstalled 98SE, and even from a fresh load with minimal (but required) codecs the problem existed.

I've heard that there's some prob with playing xvid/divx files on "slower CPUs" (fairly general comment, I know) which efects the audio quality .. but I am not sure if there is any validity to that statement. I have a friend with a P2 400 and the audio plays fine on his ..

Have you guys any suggestions on what I could do to fix this up? I want to use this P2 as a media box for my living room .. so getting the audio fixed up would be good! Feel free to throw around any questions or comments.

Thanks all.
european_dave@yahoo.com

[Enchanter]

The problem might lie with your aging SB AWE64.

I am not too sure about its specs, but if it does not handle 48KHz sampling rates (which most movie tracks on DVDs and hence their rips use nowadays), then that explains the bad audio you are getting. I can only assume too that the sound adapter your friend is using is of more recent generation and supports the said 48KHz sampling rate. You might try getting some unused, and newer than the ancient AWE64, soundcards and see if replacing it in your P2 media box solves the problem.

Regards.

[el_sn00p]

48khz compat

Thanks for the info enchanter .. that is a good point. I will see if I can get my hands on another type of card to test this theory.

This might be a bit of a tacky work-around, but if it is my SB's incompatibility with 48khz sampling that is causing it, I guess I could down-sample the audio stream in the AVIs to 44khz or below and it may make a difference? Admittedly there would be a slight loss of quality dropping 48 to 44khz, but it would probably not be noticable considering the current quality I am getting ..
Will see if I can determine the compatibility with 48khz when I get to my machine at home tonight. After a brief look, Creative's page doesn't seem to have a manual that would tell me .. but I'll look harder later.

thanks again. If anyone is interested, I will post the results of this.

[Enchanter]

It is also possible that the PII CPU is hardly coping with the decoding task at hand, but I strongly suspect the weakest link is actually the soundcard.

Do tell us how everything goes after a soundcard 'swap'. Cheers.