NO SOUND WITH AIFF OR QT EXPORT

I'm working with a project that has one long clip of material (50 min.) that had been captured on DV firewire for a raw footage DVD. Now I'm trying to work with this one clip to pull individual segments of the footage for an edit. But when I edited about 8 different sound clips together in the timeline (all sourced from the same single clip in the browser) it would not export successfully as a AIFF or QT file. When I open the AIFF file on the desktop, it shows a player, but as the playhead moves, no sound at all. I don't know if there is a problem with using the same source clip to pull individual clips from, but I really don't want to have to recapture the footage again. Does this make sense to anyone?
Thanks very much!

So you can export an AIFF but it's empty, is that it? The question is a bit confusing - but cutting clips from your source shouldn't be a problem.

What is the file size of the silent AIFF you made?

Can you get other sounds out of your computer? Try playing a cd - maybe there is something wonky with the sound in general? Have you got speakers plugged in and turned down?

Make sure the application you're using to open the AIFF or QT sound export (iTunes? QuickTime Player?) isn't on mute.

Open the exported file in FCP. Do you see waveforms?

Does the exported file match the length of your sequence where you assembled the audio?

Recapturing your footage is almost certainly not necessary. If you were able to hear the sound in FCP while editing (certainly you were, since you were *able* to edit), that means even if your capture settings were wrong, your audio was still captured in a format compatible with FCP. And if that's the case, FCP should be able to work with and export it. That's not likely to be the source of the problem.

Also, my experience has been that if you don't fully render your sequence first (both video and audio, ie. both Option-R and Option-Apple-R), audio tends to be bad. The Export process is supposed to do your rendering for you, but it does not do it well. Not rendering first, however, tends not to cause your entire audio clip to go blank (more often, it just creates drops in your audio), so I don't think this is the culprit either.

Thanks for the responses. I've checked all of my sound levels, and nothing seems to be amiss. Just glad to know that I'm not missing a bigger picture problem with pulling numerous edits from one long captured clip. I'll leave an update later. Thanks again!

I think I may be having a similar problem.

Dual 1.8mHz G5
os 10.3.9
FCP 4.5
1.25 GB ram


I am currently cutting an hour long documentary, but I have had this happen on a 6 minute project too.

When I export to QT, the resulting movie has sections where there is no sound. If I open the movie in FCP and look at the waveforms, I can see a flat line in the blank sections. There is in fact sound in my sequence at those points. I have tried exporting "self contained" with the same result.

I am working in DV:
all video footage has been captured form mini tapes in DVCam format,
stills are hi rez stock photos,
music from CD
voice over recorded with a desk top computer mic

I have nested the 4 acts of my show onto one timeline so that I have 1 video track and 2 audio tracks and set my preferences to 2 channels of audio at High Quality and rendered all of the audio in an effort to get rid of the problem, but it did not help. It playes in FCP just fine.

When I noticed this on my 6 minute project watching the QT's over and over to make sure all sound was there was a pain (and time consuming) but I could insure everything was there. Watching a 45 minute progam over and over is not practical. After Shutting down and restarting my computer the 6 minute project did finally export perfectly. I have tried Shutting down for this project but it doesn't help. But it does make me think my problem could be RAM related.

Any thoughts???

Terry



Post Edited (10-12-05 08:59)

my system

dual 1.8 G5
2 gig ram
FCP 5.0.1
OS10.4
AJA Kona LS

Post Edited (10-12-05 09:09)

my system

dual 1.8 G5
2 gig ram
FCP 5.0.1
OS10.4
AJA Kona LS