DV-capturing with VDub and no audio

[Zusan]

Hi,

Iam simply trying to capture my Mini-DV-tapes from my camcorder using a firewire-cable (IEEE 1394) and VDub. All I want to do is capture the tapes as they are, encode them in MPEG-4 (DivX or Xvid) and burn them to DVD, but this seems a pretty difficult task...
When capturing with VDub I will get an avi-file, which contains audio-data (an audio-stream?) according to the settings I made before I started capturing (stereo, 44,1kHz, 16 bit), but there is only silence in the audio-stream. When I check the incoming audio-data in capture-mode the volume-meter doesn't show any audio-input as well.
When I tried the same with the demo-version of Nero Vision Express 3 I got the correct audio-data in the captured avi-file. The file information in VDub for that file says "Unknown (tag FFFE)" for the audio-stream compression-method!?!
So I suppose that I didnt really understand an important point when using VDub for my purpose. Can anyone provide me some helpful information on this issue?

As my goal is to get my data from the camcorder (DV) to DVD with the best possible quality, not more than one DVD (4.7GB) per hour DV and without having to use more than one program for capturing and encoding and one program for burning to DVD I would also appreciate any recommendation for commercial software which is easy to use as well. I just dont want to spend hours and hours searching for the right program and settings and codec, etc.

Regards,

Zusan

[rfmmars]

I would like to find one porgram that does it all correctly too.....there ain't one.

I capture analog using VirtualVCR with a ATI capture card producing a DV.avi file on the fly, 1 step, no frames dropped.

This Panasonic codec is open then by Virtual(xxx) with audio/video with perfect sync. Pre-process in VD(xxx), edit in another NLE, and burn DVD there. That's the facts of life as of now.

richard
photorecall.net

[Zusan]

So am I right, that there is no way to capture the audio data from my camcorder along with the video data using VDub?
I really cant believe that it is such a problem to find any software, which just meets the basic requirements I explained above (capturing with audio from camcorder and encode to MPEG-2 or -4).
There are so many people using camcorders since so many years and not any company or open-source-project has ever published one piece of software for this task? Unbelievable.

Zusan

[rfmmars]

OK there is a complete NLE program that will do it, Magix's EP-10 at $49.95 burns DVDs also, and you can frame serve in from VD, www.magix.com At Amazon.com you can get last years version for $24.95 with a $20.00 rebate See

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000AFX5Q/qid=1112540060/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl65/002-0363938-9736811?v=glance&s=software&n=507846

Richard

[Zusan]

Hi rfmmars,

thank you very much for your reply. I immediately downloaded an eval-version of Magix Video deluxe 2005 (the german version of EP-10). Unfortunately it is not a time-limited version, but they disabled the export. So I have no chance to test if the created files will be played in my standalone DVD-player (which is DivX-certified).
Because I already found out, that most of the time the avi-files which are created by the different software-products can't be played at all or can only be played without audio by my DVD-player this test is very important to me. Can you at least tell me, if you have the option to select, which codec to use for encoding in EP-10 (DivX, Xvid, etc.)?
BTW, I also tried out Adobe Premiere Elements Demo (no export in the demo as well), Ulead Videotoolbox 2 eval (own MPEG-4-codec with max. 2MBit datarate and no option to select others like DivX or Xvid) and many more, which all dont work for me.
But if you say, that I can use EP-10 resp. Video deluxe 2005 for my needs, than I might just make that investment without having the chance to check out if this really works with my devices!?!

Regards,

Zusan

[rfmmars]

Unless you are doing capturing other than DV, don't use EP-10 for capture, but it fine for DV.avi.

My whole business is based around this program, I am a software evaluator for them, no I do not work for them, and I raise a lot of hell with their faults. Yet it has so much going for it and the best support forum around, not company support.

Here's a link where where I show how to use Avisynth and Virtualdub(xxx) to frameserve to Mep20xx & ep-10.

http://support.magix.net/boards/magix/index.php?showtopic=12122


You can do it faster and better than Vegas or Premire. It's the only NLE that I know of that you can multi-frame serve to it.

There are a bunch of great people there that will take the time to help you.

richard
photorecall.net