John Blankenship Posted April 2, 2007 Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 I'm using a laptop for sync playback for music videos with the song in mono on channel one and timecode on channel two. I've been using Windows 98se and playing back with Sound Forge. The output comes from the computer's built-in headphones mini-jack. The setup works really well for this application. The computer is a ThinkPad with a 366mHz processor. I recently added a second ThinkPad as a backup. (Older laptops are dirt cheap -- ain't it great!) So, on the second laptop I decided to install a newer operating system only to discover something alarming. With Windows 2000 or Windows XP, there is a great deal of crosstalk between channels. Using either of these two newer operating systems, the time code is audible (at a lower level, of course) in channel one. Windows 98se has practically no crosstalk. The difference is not hardware related. I can swap the hard drive in a given unit and get the same results. I haven't found any software settings that seem to affect the crosstalk at all. Playing back a WAV file in Windows Media Player, I get the same result: practically no crosstalk in Win98se and a lot of crosstalk in the two newer operating systems. Does anyone have any ideas on this? Thanks, John Blankenship, CAS Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Mayer Posted April 2, 2007 Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 John, Is your mic input muted on 98SE? IIRC, the mic input and hp output are right next to each other on most laptops -- probably on the same ribbon cable. Could be that the bleed is coming through an unmuted input on XP or 2000. ---Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted April 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 Good thought but I've tried muting everything except what's absolutely necessary and I get the same result. Thanks, JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted April 3, 2007 Report Share Posted April 3, 2007 Seems like it would have to be hardware related, either in teh wiring or HP jack or on the audio board itself. My old ThinkPad worked great that way w/ Sound Forge as well, no (or very little) crosstalk, and it was on XP SP1. Philip Perkins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted April 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Philip, That was my thinking, but then I tried it on more than one ThinkPad and even swapped the hard drives in a given unit. The only change being one hard drive has 98se installed, one has 2000, and the other has XP. All the rest is the same hardware. A new, clean install of XP gave the same problematic results. Maybe there's a magic software setting somewhere that I haven't figured out. I've definitely looked. The one thing that I was thinking was that maybe the Crystal WDM sound drivers were different. On the newer operating system, they're built into Windows, whereas with 98se they need to be installed separately. Which model ThinkPad did you have? The ones I have are Model 600E. Maybe yours used different drivers. This one sure has me perplexed. Any ideas on how I should proceed to solve it? Thanks, JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Philip, That was my thinking, but then I tried it on more than one ThinkPad and even swapped the hard drives in a given unit. The only change being one hard drive has 98se installed, one has 2000, and the other has XP. All the rest is the same hardware. A new, clean install of XP gave the same problematic results. Maybe there's a magic software setting somewhere that I haven't figured out. I've definitely looked. The one thing that I was thinking was that maybe the Crystal WDM sound drivers were different. On the newer operating system, they're built into Windows, whereas with 98se they need to be installed separately. Which model ThinkPad did you have? The ones I have are Model 600E. Maybe yours used different drivers. This one sure has me perplexed. Any ideas on how I should proceed to solve it? Thanks, JB I think it was a T21. (Gone now.) It was definitely WXP the whole time we had it. My main studio DAW is WXP Sp2, and I don't have cross talk issues using SoundForge on it (custom computer, a desktop type not a laptop). Sorry I don't have more info. Philip Perkins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted April 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Philip, It's beginning to sound like the MS Crystal drivers may be the culprit. There may be nothing I can do about it. I even tried installing the older drivers under XP but had no success with that. Thanks again for the input. JB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmgoodin Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Some drivers for windows employ some phony baloney "Digital spacial Effects" These are psycho-acoustic simulation of environments or phony 5.1 surround out of 2 speakers. Look in the Audio drivers and in the Control panel for any sound related adjustments and turn off any spacial effects or surround settings. Set the machine for 2 desktop speakers and disable any "Enhanced Sound" features of the drivers. This could be causing crosstalk because these "Spacial enhancement" drivers add delayed info from each channel to both with some kind of phase reverse to create this "3D" sound. ----Courtney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted April 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2007 Courtney, You win the prize! After hours and hours of looking for what you suggested and everything else under the sun -- even combing through the registry -- it, indeed, turned out to be the 3D simulation. The problem was that I had to first find it and turn it ON before I could then turn it OFF. Go figure. Courtney, YOU ROCK -- and so does this forum! A big THANK YOU also to Matt and Philip for your help. John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Wexler Posted April 8, 2007 Report Share Posted April 8, 2007 Courtney, YOU ROCK -- and so does this forum! John Blankenship, C.A.S. Indianapolis (Super Bowl Champions!) Good call, Courtney. I knew you would have the real answer. - JW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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