Problem with merging audio and video during recording

kinrob

Hi everyone! At first, thanks for this great product! It's perfect for those who starts and doesn't have anything but the idea.

I am one of them, but have the problem: CamStudio cannot merge video and audio. Recording is fine, but when i stop and save, i have two error messages. At first I see the:
"Unable to merge audio and video streams (1)"

, and after the pause I get the

"CamStudio is unable to merge the video with audio files. Your video and audio files are saved separately as"

with info about output files with paths.

Offcourse I can merge them in VirtualDub, but during the playback audio sometimes goes slower than the video. The timeshift option woudn't help as if the shift flows during the video: sometimes there is no shift, but in a minute I see my actions before the comments.

I don't have to many applications running (as I have just read in the forum, that it may couse such problems).

I have such problem (CamStudio cannot merge video and audio) on several computers with diffrent hardware and one notebook (all WinXP) and have it with 2.0 and 2.5 beta as well. Would appreciate very much any help. Thank you in advance.

brandished

What settings are you using?

kinrob

My video settings:
http://img194.imageshack.us/i/screenshot1206200914560.jpg/

Microsoft Video 1
Quality 100
Key frames every 150
Capture frames every 66
Playback Rate 15
No Auto Adjust



My options for microphone:
http://img194.imageshack.us/i/screenshot1206200915055.jpg/

Default input device
22.05 kHz, stereo, 16-bit
MPEG Layer-3
56 kBit/s, 22,050 Hz, Stereo 6Kb/s
Interleave every 100 Milliseconds
No use MCI Recording

Anything else?

Thank you.

brandished

I'm not sure why it isn't merging with those settings. Your not using VBR (variable-bit-rate) for the audio, are you?

As for the time shift:
"If you are recording with video and audio, you will want to have a value for the playback rate that divides into 1000 without a remainder (eg: 10, 20, or 25). A playback value that does not divide wholly into 1000 (such as 15 or 30) will cause the audio and video to become out of sync."

And:
"If the recording is still unsynched, try:
* Options > Audio Options > Audio Options for Microphone > Use MCI Recording
* Keep in mind this will override the chosen audio compression format
"

Paraphrasing the info from:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Screencasting_with_CamStudio

kinrob

Thank you for info about framerates settings. I have changed them to Autoadjust with 20 frames per second playback and keyframe every second (every 20 frames).

As for VBR, i'm not sure... Where it can be set?

I have tried with different audio settings for Interleaving and MCI recording:
- with interleave every second (every keyframe)
- without interleave
- with MCI
- without MCI

in different combinatins... useless; the merging problem remains... may be result of merging in VirtualDub will be better.

One note: I have to restart the camstudio (2.0 and 2.5) after having the merging error. If i try to record without restarting CamStudio, I get error messages:
- if MCI recording set, I get only the "Error Creating AVI File" note:
http://img38.imageshack.us/i/camstudioscreenshot1506.jpg/

- if MCI recording not set, I get two error messages:
at first the message "Wrong device descriptor specified. in Stop()" (not sure about the translation: I get it in Russian; as I understand, the "device descriptor" can also be the "handle"):
http://img38.imageshack.us/i/camstudioscreenshot1506l.jpg/

and than the "Error Creating AVI File" note.

... Can it (merging video and oudio error) be coused by "innatural" drivers for the my audio device? My workstaion (Fujitsu-siemens "Scaleo P") was purchased with Windows Vista installed, but I had to reinstall it with WindowsXP. But didn't find necessary audio drivers for the XP and have to use one of realtek XP drivers. This driver works well for the audio playback and Skype calls... Will try on other computers upon the chance.

Thank you.

brandished

You do not want to use VBR audio inside an AVI file, it's a non-standard and it may break compatibility. To be honest, I'm not sure about why the audio and video aren't merging, it could be a security setting issue or, as you mentioned, a driver issue.

quassum

Same problem here, tried every combination of video and audio codecs but no luck, also tried other audio capture devices for example the standard microphone port on my motherboard. I'm using 2.5b1 btw on Vista 64bit.

kinrob

I had a chanse to check it on another comp (hardware different, os the same:WinXP). Result is the same: camstudio cannot merge video and audio. Going to try it on Vista or 7, but cannot install it on my comps right now.

topcz

I am new with CamStudio, but the same problem. When I create new video as long as 1 minute, there is all OK. When I create next video as long as 5 - 6 minutes, after creating I receive Warning INFO:

"Unable to merge audio and video streams (2)"

I tested a few miscellaneous settings, but the result is the same. I use PC - HP Intel (R), Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.6 GHz,
1.0 GB RAM, system Win XP Pro, IE 8 with Service Pack 2. I have not any problems with creating others videos by another software e.g. VideoWebWizard, or BlazeMedia Pro, e.t.c. But these do not allow to create instructional videos.

Can somebody find any solution?

Thanks

kocmoc

I FOUND! Its directory save problem! I also have russian version, and i foind its good to save in dir(path) WITHOUT non-english signs!!

Say thanks to me =)

TerryBritton

kocmoc,

Come now... it can't really have been THAT easy to solve, could it? :-)

Thank you very much!

Terry

kocmoc

So to say, wtf programmists make progs which can epicfail because of dirs?! DOS-times are back.

TerryBritton

kocmoc,

I'm not able to confirm that the use of Russian characters in the folder name would bring about this result.

Could you please try this on the same drive as your successful attempt using Russian characters in a folder with the same name as failed earlier? And then perhaps again using a folder name with different Russian characters? I ask because we've seen this problem occur also when two other conditions applied: insufficient space on the target hard drive, or a recording that exceeded the AVI format's imposed limitation of 2-gigabytes in size.

I just want to confirm we aren't committing a logical "causation error" in our analysis of your success. For a program using any modern operating system to dislike a character set used in the folder name seems very strange, and since the definition of illegal characters in file and folder names is specified by the operating system and not by the program in most cases, this seems especially odd to be occurring here.

Terry

kocmoc

Ok i tryed it.

When Saving Video to C:\CamStudio\Vids\ its ok.
Saving to D:\Vids\Vids\ its ok.
Saving to C:\??? ?????\ it EPICFAILS.
Saving to C:\???????\ it EPICFAILS.

Then, i have XP SP3, everything stnaddart.

Maybie, smthin other happens, but it helps me =_)

Ask me if you want more info!

kocmoc

Lolz even forum can not work wit rus text =)

TerryBritton

kocmoc,

Heh - that is funny! :-) Pretty lame forum software it is!

Now, that leads to a Microsoft libraries issue then, which this forum software may be reflecting as well. Directories that are all question marks (a wild card!) will certainly not be recognized as being legal. The only thing that could be worse would be for the Russian characters to be changed to all asterisks!

Thanks for checking for me. We'll look into why this is happening. May have to wait for the hoped-for complete rewrite to get this fixed, as this version leans on Microsoft libraries very heavily, so where they are broken, so is this program at the moment.

Terry

baron@barontayler.co

Terry,

"...or a recording that exceeded the AVI format's imposed limitation of 2-gigabytes in size."

Now that I've solved the merging of the mic output and stereo output problem, I'm trying to get around the 2 gig AVI limitation. The conferences I'll be recording are 4 hours long, which will create a file of about 12 gigs. I've already tried recording an hour and a half, which results in about a 4.5 gig file, and about 14% of the way into the compression process, it stops, tell me it can't merge the audio and video, and then, a few minutes later, tells me the audio and video files are done, in two separate files.

Is there a relatively easy way around this? I know I should be able to merge them with VirtualDub, although there's the possibility that the audio/video may be out of sync.

Solutions?

Thanks