Really Bad Audio/Video Sync Problems With Sage Recorder

[Allen McCoy]

I just installed version 1.1.4 of Sage Recorder yesterday and am very disappointed with the software. When watching TV, the audio and video are badly out of synch. I have the WinTV 2K application and have never experienced this problem with it. Any suggestions?

[dkardatzke]

What happens if you try a different Audio Decoder? You can change the Audio Decoders in Setup (Wrench button) under the Audio tab. These changes will only take effect after you close/reopen the Live Preview window.

[Allen McCoy]

I've tried all of the different audio decoders and none of them makes any difference. What I failed to mention in my previous post is that the video is somewhat jerky at times, almost as if it is in slow motion. This happens off and on during any given video segment.

I've switched back and forth between Sage Recorder and the WinTV 2000 application. The problem does not exist with the Hauppauge application. I closed each application before opening the other one.

I used two trial versions of Sage Recorder when it was first released and did not experience this problem.

[Xleon]

Have you tried adjusting the audio delay?

On my old PC, no delay was needed, but my new dedicated PC is slower and a 350ms delay is needed.


Also, try selecting a different video decoder if the video is choppy.
Have you altered anything since you tried the other versions? Codecs, updated gfx driver, directX etc.

[Narflex]

One other thing that can cause this is hard drive fragmentation. Defragment the disk that your video directory for SageRecorder is located on and see if it resolves the problem. Please let me know the results.

[Allen McCoy]

OK, I defragged the hard drive and that did seem to help. However, occasionally the problem returns for brief periods of time. It appears suddenly and just as quickly goes away. Very puzzling. I just worry that the problem will reappear right in the middle of an important recording.

[Narflex]

This is something that you'll only see in playback on random occassions (see below for the way to make those occassions essentially never). The recorded file will be just fine.

There's a change in 1.2.7 RC1 which will greatly reduce this occurence in live preview for SageRecorder. I also highly recommend recording video to a dedicated partition formatted with NTFS using 64K block sizes. With the larger block sizes (64K instead of 4K which is the default), the files will be 16 times less fragmented on average, which means your disk will be seeking 16 times less often. Disk seeking is what causes the hesitation/stuttering problem you were having.

Thanks.

[Allen McCoy]

So when will 1.2.7 RC1 be available? Will current users be able to download it without charge?

[dkardatzke]

It's available now at no charge. You should've received an email from us a day or two after you downloaded the trial version with a link. If you don't have a copy of the email, just send me your email address via a Private Message and I'll send out the link to you.