sound problem on Quicktime movie copy of edit

Hi!

I made a back up copy of an edit as a Quicktime movie and 9 times out of 10, you can't hear one of the audio track (which is someone's voice and appears 2 or 3 times during the edit). Sometimes when this happens you can hear the voice very very faint in the back and there is a tiny audio signal on the audio indicator thing. So the sound is not lost and at times it will play fine. I can't go back to the original edit to make a fresh copy. This problem is very annoying.Please help! Thank you.

First question is what did you edit on and are you sure there is no way to go back and check the original? Second, when you get a copy that works, have you made a copy of it and had the same problem? Third, what condition is the system that you are playing back on? Maybe you have a bad card or a short in the wiring? Have your transferred to another platform and experienced the same problems?

There might have been some type of compressor effect that limits the audio levels when encoding the quicktime. I really haven't experienced this problem before, hopefully Skyman or when of our intrepid members has an idea.

I only have that one copy and as I say it is temperamental with this particular audio track (voice of one of the narrators which comes in 3 times in the one-hour long edit for a couple minutes). I work on Avid Xpress Pro on a Mac.
No the original is gone. I have another copy on a USB and it behaves the same.
It was compressed on I think MP4 but I'll check again.
I hope there is hope. Thanks!

you couild try and reimport the file into avid and try to raise the levels on track two above normal, you might have them too low in the first place. If that doesn't work, try the forums at Avid.com and run a search on the similar problem. You might find your answer.

I second that, if you are still having troubles getting decent levels (but there is some level) you can try unsyncing the audio and the video and doubling up the audio track. if the levels are clean, you can do this several times until you get the appropriate signal. most dvd's aim for between -12 and -18db depending on the headroom you need. it is very important when mixing audio to pay attention to what your level meters and vu meters tell you, as your ear can be fooled by other things such as ambient noise, amp and speaker power etc.