All in Wonder Synch Problems

[bobspliff]

Hi guys,

I just recently purchased an All in Wonder and was playing about with it last night, but had some problems.

I was recording clips from TV to MPEG-2, using my own custom profile to match Pal SVCD - i.e. 480x576, 2.6mbps variable bit rate (modified to this exactly using Stinky's MMC Reg Editor), and 44.100 KHz 16-Bit Stereo sound.

Once I'd saved the clips I was then dropping them straight into Nero and creating an SVCD with them. I got compliance warnings but chose to ignore them.

Anyway, basically the video looked fine, but the audio didn't sound great and worst of all was going horribly out of synch (there were no gaps in the audio though). However, I didn't seem to be dropping frames when recording.

I ran the diagnostic software that comes with the card and it told me that DMA was not enabled and my sound card wasn't performing well enough (< 2%??) - I'm using the onboard sound on an Epox 8RDA+

Could it be either of these problems causing the lip-synch or is it something completely different? Can anyone recommend any good guides for the All In Wonder (all the ones on www.dvdrhelp.com seem quite dated).

Also, should I be ripping to AVI then re-encoding, or using VirtualDub, rather than using the inbuilt MPEG encoder on the card? In terms of quality, how much better would it be to use a different approach?

Thanks in advance,
Bob

[cjv]

I also have an AIW, but can't really help with the sync problems because I never got them. There is MMC 8.1 out yesterday, you might want to give that a try? Definately enable DMA, if at all possible! Also, sometimes onboard sound cards are not the greatest for capture, but I would explore your other options first before buying something new.

If it is quality you're after, then capturing to MJPEG/Huffy AVI, filtering, then encoding will give drastically better quality then the MMC real-time encoding...especially if your source is analog cable.

Try a WDM capture app like iuVCR or VirtualVCR. These apps work great with the ATI cards, and do some fancy stuff to keep your audio in sync. I personally prefer iuVCR. Note, you can't capture straight to MPEG2 with these apps, but then again, if you're after quality it's the best way to go.

cjv

[dilly]

The guides on vcdhelp.com are very rudimentary, it is very hard to make a step by step detailed guide and have it work for every possible scenario. Anyway, here's a lowdown. Right now, you're using ATI MMC to encode to MPEG-2 on the fly. That uses a lot of CPU power, and even if your card supports it via hardware it will be of inferior quality compared to software encoding. It is most likely the source of your desynch. But read on.

Don't use ATI MMC. Their software sucks (and so does all other bundled software, coincedentally enough) and in my experience you're bound to get desynch no matter what settings you use. The way to do it, for quality, compatibility, etc. is to cap to AVI (whether it be uncompressed or a lossless codec like HuffyUV or *MJPEG) in a third-party program like VirtualDub (free, steep learning curve), VirtualVCR (free, medium learning curve), iuVCR (not free, very easy).

You will want to capture at full resolution and resize afterwards, as opposed to capturing directly to a low resolution. (What will happen at low-res is your card really be capturing at full res but will be downsampling on the fly, and not the best quality possible.)

Then, using a MPEG-2 encoder like TMPGENC you can encode to MPEG. This process takes up a lot of disc space and time, but the quality is much better than capping MPEG on the fly. Also, with MPEG it is from difficult to impossible to edit commercials out exactly at the right frame --you will be a few seconds early or a few seconds late (unless you encode your MPEG as all I-frames, which isn't a good idea really)

You talk about sound card stability - some sound cards use their own "clock" and some of them are not entirely accurate. I am positive that iuVCR uses its own, separate clock for video&audio, which will eliminate most people's desynching problems. If you use VirtualVCR, you MUST set it to Resample Audio Dynamically to prevent desync. And, if you use VirtualDub, use a modified version called VirtualDubSync.

"that DMA was not enabled": You must enable DMA to capture, especially larger files. DMA is direct memory access, allows the device (hard disk) to access the memory (RAM) directly without going through the already bogged-down CPU.

Assuming NT5.x, Go to Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers -> Primary (or Secondary) IDE Channel -> Properties -> Advanced Settings -> set all to DMA if available.

Also, seeing as you haven't strayed away from MMC yet, I also assume you're not familiar with BtWinCap drivers. They take some effort to set up but once you've configured them properly it will increase performance of your bt8x8 card (ATI AIW is one of them, I have a Leadtek card with the same TV chip) dramatically. The WDM drivers shipped with the AIW (and most other cards, coincedentally enough) is buggy and doesn't work with a lot of software, eg VirtualDub capture.

Hope this helps,

-dilly

[cjv]

@dilly:

Good info, I'm sure it will help the poster a lot.

Just wanted to clarify one thing...the ATI AIW _cannot_ use the btwincap drivers. It is not based on the bt8x8, but instead on ATI's own Rage Theater chip (and you cannot even adjust the sharpness)

cjv

[bobspliff]

Thanks very much for your help. I'll certainly give your suggestions a try and let you know how it goes.

Just one thing, I've got the NVidia NForce IDE controller installed. Should I uninstall this, or is it possible to keep it and enable DMA?

Thanks,
Bob

[bobspliff]

Quick update...

I'm now using iuVCR and it's working brilliantly! So, thanks for your help guys.

Just wondering though, can anyone recommend what settings I should be using in iuVCR for the best results (I'm using the Huffy codec).

And still lookin for an answer re: enabling DMA (see above).

Many thanks,
Bob