VHS sound out of sync

[Bartman]

I use ATI All-in-Wonder 8500 DV to acquire VHS video to burn them eventually on DVD.

I have acquire many files until I realize that the audio get out of sync with the video. The gap seems to grow with the lenght of the file. I have acquire 1 hours of VHS tape which resulted in a 4.5 Gig AVI files.

I used windows media player to read it after acquisition and can see the mouth don't match with the sound.

Can this problem be related to the parameter I use for the Audio. Since this is VHS, should I set the audio to a specific set up ?

I have a good PC (2.4 Ghz Athlon, ATI All-in Wonder, Soudblaster Live Value and a 60 Gig hardrive) so I don't this the problem come from this...

Finally, I use Pinnacle Studio 8 which I really don't want to drop for another program. I really get along with this one after trying a couple other without much succes as this software.

Any help would be appreciated.

[shiny#3]

welcome Bartman.

do you use the built in capture feature of Pinn. Studio?

I suggest that you check your capture capabilities with this tool



ftp://ftp.pinnaclesys.de/driver/pc/extras/amcap.exe

maybe this will reveal your capture problem.

If not, why don´t you try to capture with Virtual dub and then
import the avi into studio 8.
you also could benefit of better capture compressions
using the Divx codecs or xvid or MS mpeg 4.

studio 7 or higher is able to read them.

this would make your source avi files a lot smaller also.

on top of that I would also suggest to use no audio compression
while capturing (use uncompressed PCM (*.wav)).

with that audioformat you have the least difficulties to solve out of sync problems!!

good luck!!!

(there is a small chance that maybe another codec or codecpack
is causing your out of sync problem, which means that your
capture might be ok but you experience the problem when
palying it)

EDIT:

it might also be that the windows media player is not able to
decode the special Pinnacle capture format correctly,
(which is some sort of avi wrapped pinnacle mpg)
and your capture might be ok though.
in this case just import it to studio 8 and play it there to check!

[Bartman]

Hello Shiny, i have check my capabilities of my PC with the amcap.exe and everything is ok. Pass all the test without any problems.

I have tried to capture with virtua Dub but I can't get the image thru in capture mode. Don't know why since if I open Studio 8, the image appear right away in capture mode.

I have capture another file in AVI (cannot access the compression audi option to switch it off in Studio 8) and looked at the file with different tools and there really is a delay. Yeasterday, the problem seem worst than before, I had a delay of the audio about 10-15 seconds with the video only after a 15 minutes captured shot...

I had not specify this in my first mail but the lag appear either in Windows Media Player of Studio 8 so the problem is not related to a decoding problem from pinnacle that Media Player cannot handle.

Do you have any other cheap software you recommend I can use to capture the video ? I would like to test them and compare if the problem persist.

I was acquiering the file in AVI because I didn't want to make a double compression (acquiering and burning on DVD). What I understand is that when the movie is done, Studio 8 take the AVI file and transform it into MPeg which mean losing more quality in the process. I know I can acquire a file directly in the format that Studio will use to burn on the CD when I transfert from my Dv camera ? But I cannot seems to be able to do the same with VSH tranfers....

Any hints will be greatly appreciated.

[shiny#3]

you have to set your ati dv 8500 to the right input channel
with your default TV application first if you want ot capture with virtual dub.

so if you use the s-video line in set it with your Tv application to s-video channel
then close it and run virtual dub in capture mode

if you use the composite in do likewise.
if you use an adapter between your vcr and your s-video
cable maybe the svhs video or rgb in setting is the one that works.

question: why dont you use the ati compression method to store
your video first. is it that bad??

other capture programs are "power vcr" by cyberlink (commercial)

"Ghost" (freeware)
Capture pad (freeware)

there are a lot more to much to mention all.
TV movie click recorder is another one.

by the way your videosource (vhs) bandwidth 3 mhz
is not so good that you loose much if you record it
with a mpeg4 or divx codec and then recompress it if you choose
a bitrate above 900 kbits/s

good luck

[Bartman]

After looking on more article, I finally found that there was a problem with the Radeon with capture. I updated the driver, and also updated the Windows Media capture feature. Then I capture the sequence in MPeg-2 format which will be ready to be burned on DVD.

Made a test yesterday and synch was ok !

Thanks for your time and help !!!