Streaming Audio Syncing Problems

[minibeast198]

In my Flash file, when I export it as the swf, the sound gets off towards the end. I double checked to make sure it was streaming audio and it was. I am working at 24 fps.

When I export just the scene where it starts getting off, the sound is perfect.

Is there a way to fix this?

[hp3]

how many frames pass before the sound starts to loose sync?
is there a way you can try the entire animation without using scenes?

[minibeast198]

It gets off around frame 3050.

And it was originally all together, but it was still off then. I put them in scenes to see if that would fix it, but it didn't.

And when it was all together in one scene, it still got off at the same frame.

[hp3]

not that this is any help, but this seems to be a common problem where flash no longer maintains sync after playing several thousand frames.

[minibeast198]

So there really isn't way to fix this?

[hp3]

I am not sure...

Some people claim that if you stop the main timeline and restart it again then the sound resyncs. To find out if this is true you might put a stop action shortly before the sound sync problem with a button to manually restart the timeline after it stops. If the restart does fix the problem then you might try to set up an automated "stop/restart" system to keep an uninterupted long form animation. (If this is a long form animation, then I doubt you want a "click here to continue" button 3000 frames into the animation)

One thing you could try for automated "stop/restart" is to find a natural pause in the animation and put a stop action at that point to stop the main timeline. Then start a looping mc or onEnterFrame event to pause at that point in the main timeline for a few frames before restarting the main timeline. Try increasing the pause time until you achieve a consistent resync. Hopefully these two workarounds will help resync the sound.

If this does work, you might employ this technique at ~1000 frame intervals just to make sure that the sync does not start drifting earlier on other computer configurations. Some people have reported drift occuring at 1000 frames.

Let us know how this works for you.

[minibeast198]

I like the idea of the second option. I'll give it a whirl. What code should I put in the animation? (I'm not that good at Actionscript)

[minibeast198]

Sorry, but what code should I use. I don't know Actionscript too well.

[hp3]

Before you try the code approach, you might verify that manually stoping and restarting the timeline fixes the sync. If that works, then try using code to automate the process.

try something like this:

/*
put this code in frame that is natural pause point in your animation 
somewhere before the point at which you loose sound/graphic sync.
*/

stop(); // first pause the timeline
trace("paused");

numframeswait = 3; // number of frames to wait
framepausecount = 0;
this.onEnterFrame = function(){ 
     if(framepausedcount >=numframeswait){
            this.onEnterFrame = null; // stop enterFrame loop
            trace("playing");
            this.play(); // resume playback
     }
     framepausecount++; // count the number of paused frames
}

If this does not resync the sound, then you might try changing the numframeswait variable to larger wait time.

[minibeast198]

Hm.... it still is getting off (and I know it's stopping with the code). I guess there is no way to fix this.

And one more question. Should I be using Event Audio instead?

[bryonDev]

Hi, I just had the same issue, Was using sync:stream in my audio properties and it was playing just fine on publish, but when i posted it would trail off synch a bit.

I am not sure which of these settings fixed it, but here is a line item group of things that will address;

First, make sure audio is set to 22.005 kh. (i hear you can also use the 11kh or 44kh option, but i havnt tried)

Make sure you have the audio properties sync option set to stream, and not 'start' or 'event'
*note, you may notice that this gives your audio a "crackly" sound or echo\feedback, but you can fix this by going to publish settings and clicking "Over-ride sound settings" on the audio stream mp3 option, and setting this for 64kbps. At this point, on playback you should have good quality sound, synced perfectly, but may still have ""crackling" sounds. Fix this by clicking edit next to sound file in properties tab and dropping volume bar at top just a sliver.


Worked perfectly for me, and I was having same issue.

hope this helps,
Bryon

[minibeast198]

Okay, I tried everything you said, but it still doesn't work... This sound thing is driving me crazy!

[bryonDev]

Are you trying to import as WAV or MP3?

[minibeast198]

um... they are WAV files.

[bryonDev]

Thats a big part of your problem. Use a conversion program to convert the wav file to MP3 with the settings i mentioned above. Flash handles mp3's alot more efficiently than it handles WAV's.

um... they are WAV files.

[minibeast198]

Ok.

[minibeast198]

Okay, I found out something new today. It gets off even when I export it as an .avi and a .mov.

And I checked to make sure that they were synced just fine in the timeline...

[bryonDev]

make sure in your audioroperties bar that your audio synch is set to stream, not event or any of those,

[minibeast198]

All of them are streaming. And the more frames I add, the more off it gets towards the end...

[Threebrain]

I've run into this problem many times and it was so frustraiting that I gave up flash for a while. I found a work-a-round though it's a "sound-kicker" that makes your movie stream every frame no matter what. hahaha what sucks is I can't find it just now but I'm looking through my files. It worked like a charm though! it's like you set some sound on the first frame to repeat a thousand times and then EVENT it and for some reason that makes flash stream every frame like it should or is supposed to anyways. I'll find where I used it and then post back.