Nearly ready to buy but...
 

I've ummed and ahh'd and sometimes asked why should I pay all this money, given that performance-wise, my PC will handle native HDV editing with as much ease as DV editing.

I'm impressed with the demo version but there's one issue, and I know it sounds petty, that may stop me from buying, and that's when I play a project in the timeline, the audio is out of sync or a second or so and then pops back into sync. When playing the timeline, CPU usage jumps up to around 97% for a few seconds before settling back to around 45%. This could be the cause of the audio glitch each time I start to play the timeline.

As I say, the above may seem petty, but if you're quickly reviewing and edit, making a slight changes, then reviewing etc. it's not long before this audio glitch becomes really annoying. Are there any settings I should look at?

I have a dual core Athlon 64 4600, 2 gigs ram, AT X800 Pro graphics card.

The high CPU usage is due to Aspect HD buffering ahead, this is a very good thing and it allows you to play smoothly throw complex multi-layered real-time segments. If you don't want to buffer ahead, within the Playback Settings set you buffers to the minimum.

Thanks. Unfortunately it doesn't help with the momentary out of sync audio after I press play.
I'll stick with the trial a few more days to see if it's really going to be as annoying as I thought it would. I hope not.
However, I'm using on-board sound. Maybe a cheap sound card would help.

Hey Graham... the pros and cons of making the investment have been discussed in depth on many other threads. Since you have used the trial version, you know its function.

The audio sync issue simply must be your hardware. I can't think of an instance when I have had even a momentary loss of sync. Do you have the same problem when editing natively without Aspect?

All things being equal, if you can easily solve your audio issue (which is a warning flag regardless of whether Aspect is used or not)... Aspect is a must in my opinion.

Do you have a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi sound card? It has compatibility problems with other cards; RAID controllers in particular.

Best,
Christopher

I don't know that it'll actually help you with your audio problem per se but I just got an M-Audio Firewire 410 and it is AWESOME. I was hesitant about trying an external firewire audio solution but even as someone who isn't very knowledgeable about audio, it was easy to set up with barely a glance at the manual. I can crank my audio receiver all the way up and still ZERO noise/static/cross-talk/whatever. Cost was about $300 at a local guitar store...maybe it would avoid whatever is giving you the audio delay.

So far, it looks like no consumer-grade PCI card could possibly do better. All you can do is try.

Hi Marty and all. The onboard sound is Realtek AC97. The out-of-sync after pressing play only lasts for less than a second, then it pops back into sync. Well I've taken the plunge now and bought it. I couldn't let that spoil my fun but it still niggles. It only happens in a Cineform project, not in native HDV or standard DV

CFHD more than doubles the size of HDV files. You might try testing other large non-CFHD formats such as uncompressed AVI to see if you can duplicate the problem without CFHD. I struggled with audio problems for several weeks with symptoms that appeared to be related to HDV m2t files until I discovered it was a sound card / RAID controller incompatibility. The pops and noise in the audio increased as demands on the RAID controller increased. So, it seemed at first related to the video format, but was actually related to the disk bandwidth of the video format.

Best,
Christopher

Graham... that's the same sound hardware I am using without a problem. I also have a RAID 0 setup.

This may not have any logic behind it, but just out of curiousity.... what lags at the start of your clip, video or audio?

I am sure not an expert, but it sounds like a conflict somewhere. I don't believe, even with the size of the Cineform clips, that your system is wrestling for resources.

You may want to go get a nice cold beverage, and start reinstalling things. Many times, problems can be eliminated this way. Consider how long it takes to trouble shoot something of this nature, as opposed to just biting the bullet and rebuild a few things.

Just a thought.... it's worked many times for me.

Keep us posted.

Christopher - are you using onboard raid controller or do you have a card?

Marty - it's difficult to tell as it happens so quickly, I think the video lags momentarily. It's not been too long since I re-installed my O/S. But I've just noticed the video drive is very fragmented, so I ought to get that sorted.

One other thing I might try is create a small project on my system disk. It's a SATA drive but not in raid config.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Much appreciated.

A card. The Creative X-Fi card is not compatible (in the advanced modes) with the SiI 3114 RAID controller (the X-Fi has issues with other cards and mobos as well).

Best,
Christopher

I experienc ethe same hicup on my system...
I live well with it, by checking on the basis of the TimeLine Play , not the clip.