Openshot-qt: Audio Pops in Timeline and Export

[snr8065]

System Details:

• Operating System / Distro: OSX 10.10.5 Yosemite
• OpenShot Version: 2.4.1

My audio track sounds clear in other programs and in OpenShot's Preview Audio mode. But when played via the OpenShot Timeline AND after Exporting, there are intermittent pops and crackles. I've tried 24bit WAV and 192kbps m4a - both 44.1k sample rates.

At this point, I don't want to redo my video edits, so I'm going to export a silent version and lay in the audio with a different program. Like I said, it plays clean everywhere else except Timeline and Export, so it's for sure something within the OpenShot architecture.

I just wanted to let you know the audio bug still exists in the latest version. Best of luck, devs.

[osve001]

Moving my comments from this thread:

1069 Audio popping & crackling in exported video with overlaid audio tracks.

I think it fits better here.

Windows 7
Openshot 2.4.1

I'm afraid I'm suffering the same problem. The video recording is perfect (no crackling at all). No other audio track but the one in the original video (video game recording with comments on the go from Android tablet). When playing back the project, the sound crackles and, what's worse, the crackling remains in the exported video. I think that the problem begins when importing the video.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

---

I've tried Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04: same problem. Then, I extracted the audio (soundtrack) from the video (that's to convert it to mp3) and added it to the Openshot project. I muted the video and ... It works fine, the audio is perfect (no crackling, as in the original recording).
So my conclusion is that there could be a problem with the audio when importing the video.
I hope this helps.
Thank you.

[osve001]

I can tell you that the audio also crackles with Windows Movie Maker 2012 (Build 16.4.3xxx).
Thank you

[DylanC]

@osve001 - Maybe a problem with your system configuration or the audio file?

[DylanC]

@snr8065 - I think a fix has been added to sort audio popping. Can you try the latest daily build?

[osve001]

I'm working with OpenShot Version 2.4.1 (on 1 PC: Windows 7 - Ubuntu 16.04 and another laptop: Windows 10. And I tried the three OSs)
Is there a newer one?
With these tests I would rule out any hw flaws or wrong settings. And what's more, and I mentioned it, if I import the audio (previously extracted) and mute the video, everything is fine. So, no problem when importing audio. The issue with the soundtrack appears when importing the video.
I hope this helps.
Thanks

[DylanC]

@osve001 - There are newer versions with the latest fixes called the daily builds. I would recommend you try one out in case the audio fix for popping works for you.

[fabrixx]

I've been trying to solve this problem for months. Today I found an experimental solution subdividing the video clips that were on a single track on three different tracks leaving the audio track unaltered as in the picture. the sound popping has disappeared both from the preview and from the exported file. I hope he can help someone. (Arch Linux & OpenShot-v2.4.1-115-ge7a99e9-59-697-x86_64.AppImage)

[N3WWN]

Is the audio popping occurring only where the video tracks butt up against each other?

[fabrixx]

Yes. Between two clips. I noticed also with single 1audio+1single video tracks if i leave an empty space from first to second clip, pop move from second to third or last clip. So strange.

[N3WWN]

This may be an artifact that also causes #1337 and #1478 .

If your audio is always on a different track, try silencing each of the video-only clips (Right-Click on Clip -> Volume -> Entire Clip -> Level 0%) and see if the audio issue is still there.

I'm guess that, if you mute the video clips, that it won't matter where they are in the timeline or what track they are on...

[fabrixx]

I've already tried to silence the video tracks but I still have the problem. I have no problems with the video but only on the audio. I also tried with wav liblamemp3 AAC with various bitrates. I've only encountered the problem for a few months, before everything was ok. I have the same problem on Notebook & Desktop (Arch Linux). I have tested Openshot latest snapshot and stable.

[fabrixx]

UPDATE: Version 2.4.2-rc1 for Linux greatly improves stability and usability (preview finally work great also at 60fps) and produces a much weaker buzz that tends to fade immediately after each transition.

[peanutbutterandcrackers]

@fabrixx - Awesome! The formula used to maintain the audio levels is still quite simple. So, perhaps some improvements can be made there. But thank you for the good report! Please do look forward to rc2 and 2.4.2 and please do keep on reporting issues as they arise. Thank you!

[fabrixx]

Today I did some tests and I can give more precise details about my solution of movement on multiple tracks.
To check if there is a relationship with the video fade i exported the video and then added the tracks to the mp4 file without video transitions.

After I did the same thing leaving the video transitions and I also got the disappearance of the popping in this case.

The problem is due to the audio transitions between the tracks. If I have two audio clip A clip and B clip on the same track to which an audio transition is applied I have the annoying noise both in preview and in export.
The problem is solved if I move Clip B to the highest track as in the image.

[speedytechdev]

@snr8065 or @fabrixx Is this issue still happening?

[fabrixx]

Yes. I edited some video for my last trip and have this bad sound in every video:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxp9ZhyOHJury7jTXFzYvpolgkfIYGXqq

Solution for me is export video and after re add audio track.

But i think to have minor quality.

[speedytechdev]

We will work as fast as possible to fix the issue, we are just low on volunteer staff. Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you. If you have any questions please feel free to ask us.

[kristopolous]

i'm totally experiencing this as well ... the format for openshot used to be a rather parsable xml but it looks to be a large json now. I was thinking there'd be a rather trivial way to parse the json and then construct a shell script to use ffmpeg and relayer the audio ... but this doesn't look readily achievable.

It looks like that no audio transition is done at all if you open things up in audacity ... the two audios are simply layered on top of each other at 100% volume and then one goes from 100%->0% instantly which is what's causing the clipping.

It's really too bad as the older 1.x version of the software didn't have this issue.

[Polda18]

I moved to Shotcut that also has the performance issues with FHD video playback, but it doesn't seem to have the audio crackling in the exported video issue. I can easily just lower the resolution of the video for preview and return it back to FHD when it's ready for export. Nothing fancy, but it works. Look at this testing clip I made as preparation for my gaming channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5zv2n2gvlQ

[stale[bot]]

Thank you so much for submitting an issue to help improve OpenShot Video Editor. We are sorry about this, but this particular issue has gone unnoticed for quite some time. To help keep the OpenShot GitHub Issue Tracker organized and focused, we must ensure that every issue is correctly labelled and triaged, to get the proper attention.
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