Has anyone experienced intermittent audio distortion while using av.io sdi streaming via wirecast to YouTube? Very intermittent, the distortion ends by turning the audio input to wirecast on and off. Has anyone experience similar and found a solution? Thanks
Good day Paul!
Do you have an example of what you’re hearing on your end, perhaps a recording?
Hello Ryan. Thanks for being in touch. I have posted a sample unlisted on YouTube at https://youtu.be/aCid2_uFM1w
The audio issue appears about 6 seconds into the clip. It began after I turned off and on again the audio input to Wirecast from a Canon XA55 camera through an av.io sdi. It was ‘cured’ by turning it on and off again. The issue is very intermittent. Thanks for any insights!
By the way, to clarify, I am not suggesting that the avio sdi is the cause of the problem. I don’t know what the cause is! I have updated wirecast and got a pc with high-end audio, but the issue is intermittently recurring. Any suggestions on where to look would be appreciated. Thanks
oh no worries about any possible inclination of what the issue could be caused by! We have always been transparent so if the issue might be related to our device, we are not afraid to say so and work towards a solution 
Based on the YouTube video, I am leaning towards a possible encoding or DSP (digital signal processing) issue. It sounds like there is an audio gate acting on the audio, as when the woman in the video stops talking the noise floor is effectively zero; no room noise is heard.
Some further strangeness, when the issue happens you can hear what sounds like a “mouse click”, as if someone is clicking something at a computer.
Is there some audio effects like a gate that is acting on the audio feed in wirecast?
Hello Ryan. So, yes, about 3 seconds into the clip, you can hear ambient noise, including a click from auto prompt equipment. Then for about one second, about 4-5 seconds in, the noise floor is zero. At that point I turned the audio input to wirecast on and off. I did this because in the past the problem started after a few minutes streaming, and was cured by turning the audio on and off. So I thought it was an issue that built up over time while streaming, and I tried to pre-empt it by turning audio on and off. This time, the problem started immediately after I did this! And was again cured by turning on and off again.
I am not sure what a ‘gate’ means in this context. I have certainly not intentionally applied any audio input options in Wirecast or elsewhere.
It is odd that only the audio is affected, not the video, which are both coming from the same source, the camera via sdi and the av.io sdi device.
Thanks!
Paul,
Thank you for the update - if turning the audio on and off again in the program was the previous solution there is a good possibility this issue occurs because and as part of Wirecast. Have you reached out to Wirecast to see if they have any suggestions?
A gate, in this case an audio gate, is a processing effect for audio signals. You can think of it like a pressure valve that has a certain “threshold” in which it will open and close. Therefore, if the pressure, which is audio amplitude (volume), is under x amplitude the valve (gate) closes and no audio is let through. When the audio amplitude is over y, the gate opens and stays open until once again amplitude is under x.
Gates are great for reducing room noise and only including audio from microphones in recordings when the content source (a person speaking into a microphone) is actually speaking. There is more complexity to gates, but generally the above is true. They also come with their drawbacks too, an example being that a noise floor of zero, so no audio, can sound unnatural.
I hope that helps and please let us know what Wirecast says!