Video too fast?

[synaesthetic]

For some reason any video played back in Media Player Classic is playing with the video going too fast... and as a result, the audio is severely out of sync.

Format does not appear to matter... softsubs or hard subs, .mkv or .mp4 or .avi.

Anyone have any ideas?

Edit: Downloaded another episode to check and this time now the video is too slow or the audio is too fast... no matter what, everything is out of sync.

But episodes played through Firefox (particularly on stream-anime.org) are in perfect sync.

[synaesthetic]

To be a little more specific... taking the xvid version of Eclipse's sub of To Aru Majutsu no Index episode one: the opening scene in which the perspective of the satellite camera is used, the video seems to be moving abnormally fast.

MPC's onscreen display shows the decoder framerate at 28-31fps, while the video is supposed to play back at 23.98fps. The audio does not sound unusually fast or slow, but due to the mismatch in speeds at which the audio and video is playing back, everything goes out of sync quickly and rapidly gets worse.

Edit: Some additional information... upon loading the video, the framerate is abnormally high and scales down to the normal ~24fps within the first minute of playback. It starts above 100fps and over the course of the first minute slows down to 24fps.

I tried playing the video in VLC (which doesn't use ffdshow) and it plays at a steady ~24fps the entire time (but has other problems, specifically with h.264 encoded video).

What gives? Why is ffdshow ramping up the framerate in the first minute of playback? Is there any way to fix it?

Edit: Further update; the other test file I was using, CoalGuys' widescreen of K-On! episode 1 was having similar sync problems. For reasons unknown, it no longer has them and the framerate is static throughout the whole video. Now I need another test file.

This is just weird.

[synaesthetic]

Problem solved by removing all traces of ffdshow from the computer and registry and reinstalling the newest version of ffdshow.

[guibin]

I'm also having sync problems and just wanted to ask around here. I don't feel like having to create a new thread for a similar problem.

Anyways, it seems I'm the only one experiencing this and It's only for the OP and ED. The rest of the episode is fine. The subs and sequence itself is too slow apparently. Which is weird because it looks like it's going normal speed but the song is way a ahead of what is happening. And the song sounds like it's going normal speed too. Once it gets to the end of the song, I just need to drag the thing back a little and everything will sync again and the video will be fine but if I do that during the middle of the OP or ED, it'll just go back out of sync again.

I don't know if it's just MKV's because I've been expereincing this with gleam's Valkyria Chronicles and Suzumiya harui S2 episodes. It also happened with Mazui's Suzumiya Haruhi S2 episodes. I use Media Player Classic Homecinema.

[SeijiSensei]

OP and ED sequences can often have much more information in them than the programs themselves. Often the OP and ED are more animated with more on-screen activity than than program material. This means they make greater demands on your computer, especially H.264-encoded videos which are often contained in Matroska (MKV) files. I couldn't play the Kure-nai opening smoothly on a computer which played most every other file without problems. The OP for Nodame Cantabile also had substantial lags when I tested it on a netbook with an Atom processor. The actual story content played smoothly.

I've wondered whether the additional bandwidth demands of the OP/ED audio play any role here, though audio is generally so small in comparison to video it doesn't seem likely to matter. I bet some of our talented and experienced encoders could provide a better answer to these questions.

[Revenger1589]

Originally Posted by guibin

I don't know if it's just MKV's because I've been expereincing this with gleam's Valkyria Chronicles and Suzumiya harui S2 episodes. It also happened with Mazui's Suzumiya Haruhi S2 episodes. I use Media Player Classic Homecinema.

Both groups use softsubs for karaoke as far as I know and as SeijiSensei said, OPs and EDs are already demanding without subs. Try turning off the subs, if the OP plays fine it means your computer is at it's limit.

[synaesthetic]

Messing around with CoreAVC's trial version before I plunk down the 15 bux to purchase the software, I've run into a similar problem as well.

Now, unlike the previous issue in where the video was too fast, now it's playing too slowly... the OP of gg's sub of Umineko moves much slower than the sequence should move (compared to when using libavcodec for h.264 decoding), and the audio drifts out of sync. Like the above person mentioned, pausing or changing position will resync the audio, but it just drifts out of alignment again.

The weirdest part is after about 90 seconds or so of playback, the audio starts to skip and drop out. Once this has started, there's no fixing it and it continues to play incorrectly while also out of sync.

When using libavcodec for h.264 decoding, there are no sync problems, but a few dropped frames during the OP and ED sequences of various h.264 media (but usually not the episode itself). This is reasonably acceptable to me; I usually skip the OP/ED anyway. But I wanted to see if CoreAVC could fix it.

And well, it does. There aren't any dropped frames and the video runs silky-smooth. But it seems to run with a lower framerate.

So I'm trying to fix it, or find out if it can be fixed, before I plunk down the cash for CoreAVC. My computer is not fast--a year-old eee PC with the 900MHz Celeron M--but I'm looking at flipping it and buying a newer 10.1" Aspire One since I can get a 10% discount on them at work.

These aren't the best processors in the world, but a lot of the joy of a tiny computer is similar to that of a portable DVD player--watch video while on long trips or laying in bed.

Considering the decline in XviD releases for all but the absolute most popular series which still get .avi versions, I need to get h.264 stuff working properly.

Edit: It would be nice for everyone involved if subbers would hardsub the OP and ED. ^^;

Edit 2: Now libavcodec is exhibiting the same behavior. It didn't do this before I installed CoreAVC, which is now uninstalled.

Edit 3: Annnnnnnd it's only doing it with [gg]'s Umineko #4. I just fired up [Chihiro]'s Haruhi S2 #6--no sync problems, either codec. Testing some other files...

All the gg Umineko display some level of A/V desync and slow framerate, both codecs. CoreAVC doesn't drop frames, libavcodec does occasionally.

WinD's Higurashi Rei h.264 works.
CoalGuys' K-On! 480p widescreen works.
Everything else I have is DivX and doesn't apply.

Update: Now I'm starting to really wonder. I downloaded [Lambda-Delta]'s Umineko #3, and the karaoke subs on the OP are much, much, much more fancy than the [gg] release. And it works just fine, libavcodec or CoreAVC, no problems at all.