Virtualdub VHS capture A-V desynchronisation.

[uciekamy]

Hello y'all guys..

I got a big problem that i mess with for a pretty long time with no clue how to handle it..

I wanted to convert my old VHS tapes to DVDs, so i plugged my VHS recorder to PC via Compro E800 TV Tuner (composite) and wanted to capture them. I've read many guides aboud it, also the one from doom9, but it doesn't really work for me, because no matter which program i use to capture i get an Audio-Video desynchronisation problem.
I've used VirtualDub, Virtual VCR (prefer them both), Pinnacle Studio 12.. ComproDTV aplication that came with a TV card works pretty fine with recording, but it lets only capturing to mpeg1/2 while i'd prefere mjpeg/huffyuv to get better quality.

I tried almost all the settings including "timing" tab in VDub and "AV Sync" tab in VVCR. Tried "sync video to audio", tried "sync audio to video", tried "DO NOT sync", tried resampling, and in all that ways i get that da*n captured material unsynced..

Just asking heaven why.. Is that so hard to record audio and video with just the same timing? Hope somebody could help out with this.. Maybe if i can't capture it fully synced so there is any possibility to sync it after recording?

Waiting for any suggestions and thanks in advance. Will appreciate.

[FlimsyFeet]

In VirtualDub, did you try the options to enable drop or insert frames to keep sync?

[uciekamy]

Hmm.. I did, it's enabled by default, but i get about 3-4 dropped frames per second, and about 5-10 inserted.. Have no clue why it is that much, and why it drops and insterts the frames at the same time (?) ..

Also film look like freezing sometimes fo few ms if that options are enabled..

[FlimsyFeet]

The reason could be either:
The tape is in very poor condition, that is, stretched or worn out.
Or you have some kind of hardware problem with your capturing chain.

Do you get the same problems with other tapes?
Do you get the same amount of dropped/inserted frames if you capture with no audio?

[uciekamy]

Will check that tomorrow and let u know.. The tape i want to capture at the time is not so poor quality.. 14 years old but there isn't much noise on it..

Thanks for interest..

[setarip_old]

Make certain to capture the audio as Uncompressed PCM (.WAV) format. This will help maintain synch.

You can then convert the audio to .MP3 or .MP2 format...

[uciekamy]

I forgot to write it, but of course i always use PCM..

.. and FlimsyFeet, well:

I got the same results with different tapes.
Capturing without audio doesn't make a difference with frames dropping/inserting amount.

Now i got about 1-3 dropped frames per second, and 0 inserted, but when i watch saved capture file i can see that frames were romoved by not smooth playback. So i can't let that options enabled bocause it can't look like that.

[manolito]

Hi uciekamy,

your problems sound very much like the problems I used to have. In my case the trouble was simply caused by my slow computer (Celeron 1.1 GHz, Ultra DMA 3, slow hard drive). But I finally was able to achieve very good capturing results.

First of all huffyuv and MJPEG with a quality setting of 20 would overload my I/O bus. I got the best results using the PICVideo MJPEG codec v. 2 with a quality setting of 19. The FFMPEG MJPEG codec was too slow also.

My optimum VDub timing settings are like this:
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5066/settingsh.png

Other important VDub settings:
Under the Audio tab uncheck "Enable audio playback". And under the Capture tab I had to check "Hide display on capture".

With these settings I get no dropped frames at all and only a few inserted frames which is visually undetectable.

Hope this helps...
Cheers
manolito

[uciekamy]

Hi manolito..

Slow computer is not a problem for me (i think) - Core2Duo 3.0 GHz, 4GB RAM, and SATA2 200GB HDD..

About the codecs, i use PicVideo MJPEG 3 at quality 18. 19 and 20 makes much bigger file while the quality improvement isn't really noticeable (especially in case of capturing WHS wich quality is very poor).

BUT! It was surprisingly right what u wrote about "Enable audio playback" and "Hide display on capture" options. I got now 0 inserted and 0 dropped frames!
I'll start capturing now, and we will see if there is any AV desync right now.. Will let u know.

Thank u all! :)

EDIT:

IT'S WORKING! :D Wow.. After about 3 weeks of trying i got it working. :) Recorded 30 mins sample and it's beautifully synced. THANK U GUYS. I appreciate all of your advices. Tapes, come to poppa.. ;)

[manolito]

IT'S WORKING! :D Wow.. After about 3 weeks of trying i got it working. :)
You should have come here sooner...:)

Cheers
manolito

[uciekamy]

I'm here very often, but forum is quite fat and there is much information to read over here :) Good that i decided to make that topic ;) Thx..