Hi Jerry -

MP3 = MPEG - Layer 3 (synonymous)

MP3 files have been giving me (& many others) grief since PD9 came to town. All kinds of efforts have been made to rectify the issue, but to no avail.

Had any of the suggestions made by other forum members worked, I'd be able to offer you a solution.

The MP3 files you attached play fine in the media library of my PD10, but become distorted when played in the timeline.

When converted to .wma or .WAV, the files play perfectly in both.

Cheers - Tony
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Jerry & Tony,

Downloaded the sample files and imported into PD10 and I had no issues with either one, sorry. I've attached two screen shots showing the files in the media library. Each file is listed as a mp3 format, also captured ,both in media viewer. Each of the files played flawlessly in time line and media viewer, no bumps, skips or starting issues. In all the mp3 files I have ever encoded I was always careful not to over extend the sound because it will distort, looking at the birthday song the lower portion of the sound track extends below and off the screen in the timeline (this will give distortion), the top portion looks fine.

Dave HP Envy 17
Win10 Pro (64-bit) Intel i7 Core - 4510U @ 2.00GHz 2.60GHz
16GB ram
PowerDirector 11 Ultra 64-bit ver. 11.0.0.3625
Cyberlink Power2Go Deluxe 7.0.0.1827
PowerShot SX40HS
Canon Vixia

Dave -

What you've posted is consistent with previous findings. MP3s caused issues for some but not for others. Unfortunately, no common cause/effect was found.

I'd post the link to the various discussions, but the search function doesn't!

Cheers - Tony


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I am a new PD user and in my initial "learning-by-doing" runs found that mp3 audio was exhibiting the same things noted here - good in the media player but distorted in the timeline and resulting videos. After quite a few hours of experimenting this is what my particular solution was:

The issue seems to be caused when the system 64-bit codecs are set up for a speaker output of 2.1. Changing to a speaker output of 2.0 or 5.1 or "same as input" in the codec configuration (using a Codec Tweak Tool) resolved the problem with "muddy" mp3 generation on the timeline and resulting videos.
This is a very unusual result and seems to indicate that PowerDirector is possibly applying incorrect directives to whatever codec it is trying to use in that particular function.

I am using Window 7 64-bit and the K-lite Codec packs for 32/64 bits.

In a kind-of related subject - using WaveEditor I could not save a mp3 file. This was resolved by disabling the KLite 32-bit LameACM filter. Go figure ??

John -

I have no idea how you came across that as a solution to the MP3 distortion problem, but I'm glad you did. When I raised the issue, along with others, back in PD9 all sorts of configurations were applied... complete removal of K-Lite & other 3rd party codecs, uninstall & re-install, using previous builds.

Though I don't generally use the forum star ratings, I couldn't help myself on this occasion.

Just to (largely) confirm John's finding. Setting the speaker configuration to 5.1 (which is my speaker set-up) or "same as input" using the Codec Tweak Tool, allows MP3 files to play correctly in PD10's timeline. (2.1 didn't work here) N.B. The speakers were already configured to 5.1 in the Windows Control Panel.

Great investigation John!

Cheers - Tony
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Tony -

Glad you could make use of that info.

Seems like codecs can cause all kinds of weird problems but I suspect that some programmer is not "playing-by-the-rules" in some instances. In this case it is strange that the media player has no problem but only the timeline. Probably two different methods used in the software ???

Thank you for confirming that I am not a lone case.

And, thank you for all your assistance and advice I have seen on this forum.

G'day to you (I am in California)

John

I ran the Codec Tweak Tool and, with much trepidation, let it fix whatever it thought needed fixing: missing keys, missing files, that sort of thing.

So far nothing seems to have broken, but my original problems haven't changed.

The cymbal clip is about 8 seconds long, but PD insists on thinking it is about 4 seconds long.

Sometimes I get a click when I try to play one of these clips. (Actually, I think it might be the entire clip played at light speed.)

I suppose I no longer have distortion that I didn't notice I had. Jerry Schwartz

Jerry -

Just to give another set of eyes, I pulled both clips down and tried them, and they worked fine and reported the correct length for me. Interesting, though, is when Dave tried it (above) and reported everything to be fine, his screen shot shows the cymbal swell as being 7;17 long, instead of 8 seconds (which is what I got).

One thought I had wsa that your problem might have something to do with the bitrate of the files. It's just a hunch but it might be worth investigating. I don't know if there are truely 'standard' bitrates, but the cymbal file is encoded at 146 Kbps, which is an odd value. I would try opening them in something like Audacity and exporting them back out at a more common bitrate such as 128 or 256 (or even better - as WAV files to remove the compression altogether) and see what happens.
PowerDirector 10 Ultra
Dell XPS Studio - i7 3.4 GHz / 8 GB RAM / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Hi Skully,

Thought the bit rate to was a little strange too. Birthday was produced at a constant bit rate of 160(lame version 3.97) according to media info, cymbal was a variable rate of 146(lame version 3.98r). Times listed by media info are different too. Cymbal is 8.19, Birthday is 2.26....

Dave HP Envy 17
Win10 Pro (64-bit) Intel i7 Core - 4510U @ 2.00GHz 2.60GHz
16GB ram
PowerDirector 11 Ultra 64-bit ver. 11.0.0.3625
Cyberlink Power2Go Deluxe 7.0.0.1827
PowerShot SX40HS
Canon Vixia

Quote: Times listed by media info are different too. Cymbal is 8.19

MediaInfo is second and milliseconds, so 8 seconds 19 milliseconds or 8.019 seconds. On the otherhand PD is seconds and frames. 19 milliseconds is a fraction of a frame so PD will not show it, the clip is 8 seconds long.

Jeff

Hey Jerry,

Just to add one more test point for your files, I downloaded and ran them. Everything appears ok on my system (after the fix I noted above about mp3 distortion.)

I also show them as mpeg - why PD may inconsistently report "mpeg" or "mp3" is a bit of a mystery as well. The cymbal file on my system shows a length of 08;05 which is not consistent with Mediainfo that shows 08.019. (that five frames would be equal to about 167 milliseconds. Another ??

I can't help think that somehow codecs are involved in all this mix up. A wild guess would be that the software is not handling mp3 codecs correctly and any system deviations may be narfing it up.

Because of previously encountering codec isssues of one kind or another in Windows XP, I now try to keep variances as small as possible. On my Win 7 64-bit system I keep strictly the Windows base set of codecs and have only added K-Lite Full and 64-bit packages. I know that sometimes different codec packages can conflict and cause problems. Generally it seems that proper codec configurations is rather hit or miss - not good (and I sure don't understand them ) I also think many software packages add their own versions which may further muddy the water.

Differences may also show up between PD and WaveEditor if you are running on a 64-bit windows machine. PD will run in a 64-bit mode and WE is 32-bit mode.

All I can suggest is to disable mp3 codecs (you can do this with the Codec Tweak Tool) and laborously load and check after each "tweak".

Best of luck on this one - I know it can be extremely frustrating. Hopefully Cyberlink will eventually put a little more robustness into their mp3 handling code.

Sorry Jerry -

I suppose I no longer have distortion that I didn't notice I had.

I went way off track, buried in my own MP3 distortion issue. Your issue is the incorrect duration of imported MP3 files.

On my PD10, your files show the correct duration - cymbals = 8:00 & happy birthday = 2:26:01... consistent with MediaInfo reports.

Skully - I tried your bitrate modification suggestion, converting both files to MP3 with a bitrate of 128kbps then 160kbps. Sadly, it made no difference to either the distortion or the duration display in PD (but that wasn't an issue for me)

I wish the search was working. The issue of truncated MP3s has been discussed before (PD9 forum). From memory, I think there was some kind of cause isolated.

Cheers - Tony
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What I wound up doing was to open and save the cymbal file in WaveEditor, without making any changes. The resulting file works fine, lasts a long (enough) time.

I didn't bother doing that with the Birthday clip. Since the results were totally inconsistent, I decided to roll the dice and produce the video. Since that came out okay, I stopped horsing around and burned disks.

My codec collection has gotten out of hand. It seems like every program I install brings in a new batch; and then, when I have trouble, someone suggests yet another set. I have no idea how a program decides which of a dozen MP3 codecs it actually uses, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the precedence were constantly being shuffled.

3ivX is the most annoying to me as a human, because it floods my "hidden icons" area with dozens of icons. Jerry Schwartz

Jerry -

Glad to see that you were able to at least complete the project you were working on. But the frustration with mp3 file processing is still there

I did a bit more thrashing around trying to find a common thread - but mostly to no avail. I do have an open problem inquiry with Cyberlink about this issue. About the only clue I can find for truncated mp3 files is that it seems to be related to the mp3 "format version". Anything that was written with Version 1 seems to work (on my machine anyway) but that is inconsisten with the example that you provided. I have found problems with files that were written using mp3 Version 2 or 2.5.

I still think there is the possibility of a codec issue here but in any case PD should be able to either handle it or at least give us an error message.

If Cyberlink can resolve the problem I submitted I will surely try to get it posted here as well.

Hang in there - good luck with future projects.