Capture -> DVD-R Sync issues

[orionware]

Ok. I've spent the past two hours reading all of the posts that come up when I search for SYNC and so far I have not seen an answer for this.

I captured an episode of "Curb your Enthusiasm" off of digital cable using the analog out.

Captured at 6Mbit video, 44khz 224Kbit audio. There was not a setting on Power VCR II unfortunately so I figured I could just upsample using cool edit 2000 later.

Captures fine, looks great. No sync issues at all from start to finish.

I split the resulting MPEG with TMPGenc and get a mp2 and m2v file. I convert the mp2 to wav and upsample to 48KHz.

I take the m2v, run it thru it thru CCE 2.5 to use VBR so i can get four episodes on one DVD-R. Results are good, looks good. Pulldown the new file so I can import it into Authoring software.

When I bring the files into Reel DVD, it converts it to AC3 and is shorter than what is used to be. Only by a few seconds and what results is a video that is synced ok in th beginning but by the end it's terrible out of sync.

Is there a problem with the upsample?

Anyone have a method for doing what I am trying to do with good results? I'd prefer to grab the video at a high quality or near raw and use CCE to compress with great results.

Thanks..

O

[orionware]

Well after another 9 hours of experimenting I still can not figure this out.

No matter what I do, if I record something right to MPEG2 and de-mux, and re-mux, the audio is never in sync. I understand there are inherent format differences between avi and mpeg but there has got to be a way to demux/remux and still keep sync together.

I bought Power VCR II hoping that I would be able to use it as a PVR and for stuff I liked, burn to vcd or dvd. Right to VCD works but the quality is not that great. The quality at DVD quality is very good for real time but I can't get it on to a DVD since I can't split and rejoin!

Has anyone had ANY luck capturing something right to mpeg2 and then being able demux and remux sucessfully?!

To further clarify what I did:

Capture 30 minutes at 720x480 MPEG2 / 44Khz Audio 16bit
Demux using TMPGenc 2.58.44.152 Plus
Create a project using DVD2AVI 1.86
Create an AVI using VFAPI Converter 1.04
Load resulting AVI into CE 2.5
Reencode and it looks great.
Convert the mp2 that TMPGEnc created to wav
use SSC to convert the wav to 48Khz
Bring both assets into ReelDVD 2.5
Create VOB files
Test in WinDVD 4.0 and starts out in sync, gets farther out of sync as time goes on.

Thanks

Orionware



Thanks
O

[Calypso]

You mentioned you ran Pulldown against your encoded video... why? If you captured via digital cable, I presume the source would have been 29.97fps. Unless you set your AVI synth to do a telecide and decimate (which should not be done unless you can confirm the source was telecined), you should NOT do a pulldown on the video.

[orionware]

That is correct. I did capture against digital cable. After turning it into an AVI project using dvd2avi and VFAPI converter so CCE could re-encode it, it resulted in a 24 fps file. When importing into ReelDVD it told me that it was not a 29.97 fps file. So I did a pulldown so it would import.

Is there a setting that needs to be made when using VPAFI or should i be using AVISynth?

Thanks for the response btw..

O

[Calypso]

I have never used VFAPI- only AVISynth. I guess the next question is did you set the ForceFilm option in DVD2AVI? Again, you have to be acutely aware of the source material before working with it. The best way I have found is to load the capture up in VirtualDub, and step through it one frame at a time in a scene where there is movement or panning. If you see two frames that are combed, followed by 3 or so frames that are free of combing effects, then it is safe to Telecine/Decimate the source. If running through DVD2AVI, then this means you would select the ForceFilm option. In this case, yes, you have a 23.96 source to encode with CCE. Sounds like you did everything correct here. I don't know where 24fps came from though... this could be your problem. If CCE did not recognise the source as 23.96, then there is something wrong with your process.

What again did you use to upsample your audio? I'm not familiar with SSC. I always use BeSweet to do this when I have audio upsampling requirements- I find it to be the most 'accurate'.

[orionware]

I started from step one again, starting with capturing another 30 minutes of video directly to MPEG2 using Power VCR II.

This time after I de-muxed I loaded the files m2v and mp2 right into a player. The mp2 directly de-muxxed was about 2 seconds shorter than the video. I'll bet that the situation is during the capture there are dropped frames and once the A/V get split, there is just no way to put it back together again and have it in sync.

It's not the tools at all I suspect but a faulty capture. As it's put together initially it's fine, after the split, since there is no timecode, it's just screwed for good..


Just ordered a Canopus ADVC-100. I'll have to capture at full uncompressed DV, but it will be a nobrainer to edit, encode and author...

Thanks for your suggestions and help.

O

[Calypso]

Originally posted by orionware
I'll bet that the situation is during the capture there are dropped frames and once the A/V get split, there is just no way to put it back together again and have it in sync.This is why I use AVI_IO- it rarely drops, and when it does there is never an audio sync problem.

I understand you wanting to go with Canopus... but you just might give AVI_IO a try. I have found no equal.

[orionware]

Damn.. I have never heard of it before and was just checking out their page. I wonder if it would have solved my problem.

Unfortunately I just ordered the Canopus... Can AVi IO simply take an incoming stream? I noticed that it does scheduling which I would really like to still have.

Thanks again

O

[artful]

orionware,

I capture VHS to mpeg2 with a WinTV PVR250 card that does hardware encoding. I normally find that I can't crop the mpeg (to get rid of rubbish at the end) because the timestamp frequently resets to zero. I don't understand the reason for this but after a lot of hair pulling and the usual frustration I found that by running it through PVAStrumento and selecting the "makeps" option with the defaults set it creates a new corrected mpeg2 file by dropping frames where necessary and correcting the sync. I then have an in-sync mpeg2 file with correct timestamp that I can process with no problems.

PS You also have the option to demux the mpeg with PVAStrumento if you want to process the m2v rather than create another mpeg2.

[vtwin0001]

Ok,,,,,, here's what I do, since most of the times Im capturing from vcr to computer (to put the video on a dvd, with nice menus and all)

THIS IS A RATHER LARGE PROCESS, BUT THE OUTCOME IS GREAT

1. Capture the video (my hardware is a VideOh! Card from Adaptec, and use the software that comes with it to caputre it, which is Sonic MyDVD)

2. EDIT: My .MPG file is with commercials and everything you can imagine, so I edit it with this great app, called mpeg-vcr, this app works great, you can put together 2 videos to 1 (or more than 2) and cut out stuff, I found out of it here in doom9.

3. I use DVD-Lab to create my menus

4. I create a "DVD" (not a real burned dvd-r) with the VIDEO only with DVD-Lab, when importing the .mpg, DO NOT DEMUX IT (demuxing it will just de-sync the video from the audio), just leave it as it is and you'll get a "DVD" with synced audio

5. Create an ISO out of your "DVD" created with DVD-Lab (Ultra ISO or something similar to create the ISO Image)

6. Mount your new ISO

7. Run DoItFast4U and let it rip out your video, it will correct everything for you

8. Use CCE to compress if you wish and create a file to work on Scenarist

9. In Scenarist import the Menus you created with DVD-Lab (use Sub Ripper to rip the Subs into BMP and the menus you can rip them out with mpeg-vcr, using the picture option)

10. Mux and Burn, and you're done!

HAVE FUN!!!!!!

[echooff]

Seems like a lot of work. Try loading your m2v after you pass it through cce into vdubmod to get the exact time of your finished video. After converting your mp2 to wav load it into cooledit and use the time stretching filter to make your audio length match your finished video length. After that procede with the rest of your usual procedure. If you don't have cooledit there are other audio apps that do the same thing. It is important to use only the final encoded m2v to get video time. Cool edits stretch filter uses seconds, so remember time is base 6 not base 10.

[orionware]

In February I posted that I ordered the Canopus ADVC 50. It's been a rock solid product for me and not only has it solved all of my sync problems but the resulting video it produces is simply beautiful.

Aside from the issue it has with Win XP SP1 (Will be solved in Sp2 Canopus says) It's a fantasic product and can be had for well under $200.

[echooff]

orionware

:D :D :D I was answering a thread posted yesterday and it never occured to me to check the date you first posted. That is a good one :D :D :D lol. On to more serious things. I bought the advc 100 a few days ago and the captures a breeze. Do you have any problems with macroblocks?

[orionware]

Actually I have not had issues with the capture having macroblocks at all. I mostly capture from Comcast digital cable which really is a pathetic excuse for what they call digital. Terrible artifacts at scene changes. I've called them asking them if they have a newer box available that decodes better or if the problem lies on the encoding side. The phone monkeys they employ wouldn't know what a compression artifact was if it bit them in the ass.

I encode all captures with CCE which gives fantastic results.

I am wishing I bought the 100 now however because I filled my last bay and now want to add more drive storage.

How quickly you can fill 820 gigs of storage at 14G/hour plus processing overhead :)

Time for the gigabit ethernet setup with the Network Attached Storage.. :)