Sync issue, haven't found threads with same..

[Nathan323]

Howdy all,

I have a 350mb AVI that plays out of sync. This seems to jump around, so if i play from anywhere in the movie it will sometimes be right, then audio will fall behind soon after. I have ran the AVI through GSpot, it says i have 5 compatible codecs. It says "File length correct", also The DirectShow Render says the Video Src Type is "4cc: XVID" & audio is "MPEGLAYER3 (MP3) (0x0055)". I don't know if this helps, just thought I'd add in case.
I'm playing the vid in WMP 10. Do I need to change the codec used for playing to one of the other compatible codecs? Can I even do this?
Is it definitely a codec issue, or (regardless of GSpot) could it be a faulty file?

Thanks heaps for any help.
Nathan

[LT. Columbo]

wmp 10 SUCKS for playing avi's, i bet it is the pc just lagging.
i highly suggest using media player classic (do a google search) its free and plays just about everything under the sun. if iuse wmp10 on my avi's they all do what your talkin about here half of the time...

[Nathan323]

Thanks for the reply mate. Tried Media Player Classic, same problem..

[setarip]

Install and use the FFDShow filter/codec for playback...

[LT. Columbo]

nathan 323

"Thanks for the reply mate. Tried Media Player Classic, same problem.."

follow setarips advice, i use xvid 1.0.3 myself....i found ffdshow gave me some problems...but install it and see how it works.

[Nathan323]

Have downloaded & installed FFDShow, still no luck. Are there any particular settings (cant find any good setup guides)?

[LT. Columbo]

try this, install "koepi's latest build xvid 1.0.3"

(latest stable binary)

http://www.koepi.org/xvid.shtml

[Nathan323]

Thanks again for the help guys.

Downloaded/installed, no change. So if GSpot reports "File length correct", is the file definitely OK?

[LT. Columbo]

i think the file itself is no good, i assume you did not create it? do you have similar files that play ok now?

[Nathan323]

other avi's i have downloaded (like this one) have played ok, mostly; i remeber this happening with a couple here & there, but with those i didn't care so much - this is the third epoisode of 24 that i missed the other day, if i dont see it before next week, all hope is lost for the season!!!!!

[LT. Columbo]

as i said earlier, i believe you have downloaded someone else's "crap" (a bad file)

[newb5000]

Hi there,

I think I have the same problem.
I have 3 different avi files encoded with XviD (I did not make them myself) and when trying to play any of the 3, the video stream starts to lag more and more behind the audio stream. Since this happens to all 3 files, I doubt it's the files themselves which are causing the problem.

My specs are as follows:
Intel Celeron 500mhz overclocked to +- 750mhz
64mb RAM
Voodoo 3
Windows 98

I googled my problem and found some suggestions, none of which really solved my problem.

I have stopped using Windows Media Player since it is the most CPU intensive player out there. I have tried the DivX player and BSPlayer too. BSPlayer seems like the fastest and least CPU intensive player.

I first tried playing the movies with the DivX 5 / AC3 codec installed. It seemed like the codec didn't drop frames, causing the video to play slow and the movie loosing sync with the audio. Every so often though (maybe every 15-20 secs), the codec would drop a whole bunch of frames, and the audio / video would be in sync for a small period, thereafter loosing sync again. Pausing and resuming produced random results - sometimes the a/v would be in sync, sometimes not.
I then uninstalled DivX 5 and installed a XviD codec. Same results.
After that I uninstalled the XviD and AC3 codec and installed ffdshow. Ffdshow produced a smoother picture, but still not fast enough to keep up with the audio. A problem with ffdshow is that it does not drop frames at all on this PC so the gap between the a/v keeps getting larger and larger. Pausing / resuming however always syncs the a/v though (afterwhich they loose sync again).

I doubt it could be the CPU since on another PC (Pentium III 800) the movies play fine. I think it's just some software settings, but I really don't know which ones. I have also tried disabling post processing where possible. Turning off hardware acceleration on the gfx card has no effect.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

P.S. Upgrading this PC is not an option at this stage.

Edit:
I forgot to add:
I also tried downloading the newer WMP Classic, but it gives me a runtime error (probably because I'm using Windows 98). Start > Run > mplayer2 launches an older WMP classic, but the picture isn't as smooth as BSPlayer.
Another thing I notice is that whenever I launch BSPlayer (or WMP Classic) the PC freezes for a few secs (can't even move the mouse cursor) and then resumes again. This happens a couple of times before the movie actually starts playing. I don't know if this also contributes to my problem.

[setarip]

To newb5000

Welcome to the Digital Video Forums of Digital Digest!

"Intel Celeron 500mhz overclocked to +- 750mhz"

Turn off the overclocking...

[newb5000]

Thanks for the suggestion and the welcome setarip!

I restored the default BIOS settings. Turns out that it was actually a 600mhz Celeron. Unfortunately this didn't solve the problem, and the video actually lags more now. This makes me think that the problem is indeed the slow processor. The strange thing is that my girlfriend (this is her PC) told me that movies played fine before she formatted it. Before the format though, someone had come over and changed some software settings in order to get divx / xvid to work properly - that's what makes me think it's a software setting. Unfortunately she does not know what settings were changed, it could have been driver, codec or system settings. I've tried adjusting many settings with no luck.

[setarip]

"someone had come over and changed some software settings"

It would probably be best to speak to that person...