Audio comes on too late/early

[harakiri_never]

I use the latest ffdshow as my only codec which is all I need for the files I play, and only very rarely problems playing files. I got an avi file and suddenly half way through, when the people speak, their speech comes on later, so many times you see their mouths talking without any speech, or nobody is talking but you can hear them saying things. I tried other codecs like XP codec pack, K-Lite codec pack etc. and no success. What's the problem? Maybe the avi file screwed? I really thing there is some kind of codec issue though, I remember having this in the past a few times, and updating the codecs was all there is needed but not this time!!

[guns1inger]

The begin with, all those codec packs have probably installed conflicting versions and settings, so you may never get anything to play correctly again. Codec packs are often created by amateurs with no real idea what the impact of their choices is.

I would start by using Media Player Classic to play the clip. If uses it's own codec in most cases, and will help rule out any screw ups fromt he codec packs. You can also adjust the delay, or skew, in the audio, to help push it out or bring it back.

[harakiri_never]

I don't use codec packs, I tried them after my ffdshow failed which it rarely does. So now I tried MPC and still same problem, and how do I adjust the timing of the audio? Is it a fast and easy procedure or will that take hours?

[guns1inger]

Play -> audio -> Options : Audio Time Shift.

Note : this is not a permanent fix, just while you are watching the video. Once you have worked out what the skew is, you can use virtualdub to make the change permanent. This should only take a few minutes as you don't have to re-encode.