Files saved under Vista truncated

Theory · Post by **Theory** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:57 am

Files I save in Vista lose their last .1 seconds. The format doesn't seem to matter.

I've noticed that in the program the files are destined for, the wave data can be seen to extend past the end of the file:

The blue line is where playback stops. Goldwave and WMP11 play the file the same way, so it's definitely not the programs that are at fault.

This is on Vista Home Premium with Goldwave 5.20.

donrandall · Post by **donrandall** » Wed May 23, 2007 9:27 pm

I am not smart enough to solve the problem itself, but I have a "work around" suggestion that may work.

Why not leave an extra second or so of silence once your audio is recorded? Is it necessary to trim right at the very precise moment at which the audio ends?

Theory · Post by **Theory** » Thu May 24, 2007 5:57 am

Yeah, I have to be precise as I'm dealing with spoken sentences. I could do it, but it'd be faster to switch to a program without this issue...and I do quite like Goldwave.

DougDbug · Post by **DougDbug** » Thu May 24, 2007 3:07 pm

Theory,

You may need to wait for an answer from Chris (GoldWave) on this one. Chris hasn't posted to the forum for about a week or so, and there are a couple of un-removed spams.... So, maybe he's busy with something, or otherwise unavailable at the moment.

Or, you may want to send your question directly to GoldWave via the Tech Support Web-Form.

This is probably a Vista-related problem, and most of use here are not running Vista yet. (I'm still quite happy with Win 2K.)

The format doesn't seem to matter.

I assume you've tried a WAV format. People do report problems with MP3s. The problem with MP3s is usually the opposite... Silence being added to the begining of the file. And, the MP3 problems are not limited to Vista.

Doug.

Stiiv · Post by **Stiiv** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:48 am

Yeah, I have to be precise as I'm dealing with spoken sentences.

Are there any sampling rate/bitrate conversions happening before you save your files? Are you altering the time or pitch? It might help if we knew of any processing you might be doing before you save.

Also, what "flavor" of wav (which is a container format, meaning the wav could be encoded a number of different ways, requiring different codecs) are you saving as? 16-bit integer, 32-bit floating, ACM, mp3, etc.?

Post by **GoldWave Inc.** » Fri May 25, 2007 3:21 pm

If you are saving the file in Wave, PCM 16 bit format, it is unlikely that the file itself is truncated. It is most likely a problem with the sound driver ending playback slightly before it should. Many Vista sound drivers still have glitches to work out. It reminds me of a problem with early sound drivers on Windows 2000 where the first 0.1 second or so wouldn't get played. The drivers would skip it or play a small bit of audio from a previously played sound (usually causing a click at the very beginning).

Does it play entirely if you have playback looping enabled in GoldWave?

Chris

Theory · Post by **Theory** » Fri May 25, 2007 5:11 pm

I'm saving to MSADPCM.

Looping doesn't help. It's only files saved in Goldwave that are affected, so that's not terrifically surprising.

Theory · Post by **Theory** » Tue May 29, 2007 9:36 am

I have a Realtek HD Audio sound card with the 1.67 drivers BTW.

Post by **GoldWave Inc.** » Tue May 29, 2007 4:00 pm

The problem appears to be related to using MSADPCM and the Microsoft Audio Compression Manager. Saving as PCM 16 bit should avoid it.

Chris

Theory · Post by **Theory** » Tue May 29, 2007 5:36 pm

It does, but that sends filesizes sky high. Is there anything I can do to or with this MS compression manager?

Post by **GoldWave Inc.** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:38 pm

There is no way to avoid the ACM problem in GoldWave (except adding silence to the end of the file before converting).

Do you have to use the Wave format? If not, you can save in MP3 format or one of the other compressed formats. That would give much better quality than MSADPCM, with even smaller file sizes.

If quality is important, FLAC or Lossless WMA would be about twice the size of the MSADPCM file, but there would be no loss of quality. The file would be identical to the 16 bit version, without any leading/trailing silences or missing endings.

Chris

Theory · Post by **Theory** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 6:16 am

It has to be WAV, unfortunately.

So is this a Microsoft problem? Are they likely to ever fix it if it is?

Post by **GoldWave Inc.** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 2:58 pm

It has to do with the way the audio compression manager works when decoding the last block of compressed MSADPCM audio. It has been like that for a long time.

If you can avoid using MSADPCM and use different compression attributes, that's what I would recommend. See if the MPEG layer 3 attributes are available under the Wave type. If so, that will give better quality and smaller file sizes (but it adds short silences to the ends of the file).

Chris