TMPGNEC Audio Problem

[Cush1978]

I hope somebody can help me with this problem. First of all, I'm new to these forums, and have not been able to find a fix for my problem by searching. Also, please forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong forum. My problem is the following...I've used Microsoft Movie Maker to capture home video off of my DV Camcorder. I saved the video to my hard drive in the DV-AVI format. When I play the AVI file back in Windows Media Player, the video and audio is fine. I then used TMPGENC to encode the AVI into NTSC DVD format (CBR at 8000kbs). The encoding goes through fine but when I play back the WAV file that TMPGENC created, the voices are all very deep and distorted. If you've ever seen an interview on TV where they try to disguise a person's voice, this is exactly what it sounds like. My audio settings in TMPGENC were set at 48000k. I tried both the CBR Linear PCM Audio and the CBR MP2 Audio, to no avail. At this point, my plan is to open up the AVI file in GoldWave and resample the audio and save it as a standard PCM Wav file at 48000k. I will then try to load that file, along with the M2V file TMPGENC created, into my authoring program (Ulead MovieFactory 2). Hopefully my audio problem will be fixed and I won't run into any synch problems with the audio and the video. If that doesn't work, I'll import the GoldWave WAV file directly into TMPGENC along with the AVI and re-encode into MPEG 2. I just wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions, or had seen this problem before. It should be noted that I've created DVD's before that were encoded in TMPGENC and the audio was always fine. I always captured the video using a different program though. I have a feeling that the issue is probably with the audio codec Windows Movie Maker uses - it may have a compatibility issue with TMPGENC. Thanks a lot for any help you guys can offer and please excuse my ignorance if it shows.

[setarip]

"I've used Microsoft Movie Maker to capture home video off of my DV Camcorder."

Do you know what the audio settings were?

Can you select different audio settings from within MovieMaker?

[Cush1978]

RE:

Thanks for the reply Setarip. In Windows Movie Maker, you aren't really given a lot of versatility on the audio. When you choose to save the captured video as DV-AVI, it automatically sets the audio at 48 kHz and the audio bitrate at 16 kbps. The only options you can change are the volume levels, which were not changed at all. As far as which audio codec specically is used, I'm not really sure on that. I'm still somewhat of a newbie.

[setarip]

"audio bitrate at 16 kbps"

This is the source of your problem, since TMPGEnc's DVD template is converting this to a MINIMUM of 192kbps. I've got to believe the program provides the ability to change this rate - If only based on the logic that Microsoft's free tools (WM8EUTIL.EXE) allows you to set this rate up to 448kbps for WMV/WMA videos, which is what MovieMaker produces.

Perhaps if you read the associated "Help" files... It may be as simple as either double-clicking or right-clicking on the indicated sampling rate - or clicking on a down-arrow to the right of the indicated 16kbps...


"As far as which audio codec specically is used, I'm not really sure on that."

MovieMaker undoubtedly uses Microsoft's WMA2 Audio codec - and this may present a problem if, in fact, you have to resort to outside (meaning other-than-Microsoft) software to adjust the sampling rate...

[Cush1978]

Setarip, thanks again for the reply. I think I found the problem after doing some more research and experimentation last night. Apparently Windows Movie Maker only produces DV Type 1 files, and not Type 2 files. When I tried to open my AVI file in GoldWave to resample the audio, it gave me a message indicating that it could not read Type 1 streams. After doing a little bit of reading, I learned that Type 1 files do not have a separate video and audio stream, as Type 2 files do. Apparently, because of this, a lot of applications have problems with Type 1 files. At any rate, I've come up with 2 solutions at this point. I've found a DV converter which will convert my Type 1 file to a Type 2 file, but I don't have enough hard drive space right now to create another 10+ gb file. My plan is to just delete my current AVI and recapture with Premiere 6.5. Apparently Premiere does capture to a Type 2 file. I just wish that Windows Movie Maker gave you the option to save to a Type 2 file. I know it sounds dumb, but of all the programs I've used for capturing and basic editing to this point, I actually prefer the free Microsoft program the best. Oh well. If you think there's another solution, other than the two I've mentioned, I appreciate any suggestions. Thanks again Setarip.

[setarip]

I'm sure you'll have more success with Premiere...

"Thanks again Setarip."

My pleasure ;>}