Video and audio out of synch

I have spent hours searching forums and the internet but I can't find a specific solution to my problem.

I am converting my old VHS to DVD. I use ADS DVDXpress which comes with Capture Wizard 3.1 and Ulead VideoStudio 7. I don't use VideoStudio, I use DVD-Lab 3.1 instead for the authoring.

I have successfully transferred 2 old VHS of about 90 minutes each to DVD, with no problems.

Here is the problem:

Now, I am working on a 3 hour VHS. I have captured the video using the DVDXpress hardware and Capture Wizard 3.1 and it is saved as an MPEG file. The MPEG file plays back perfectly fine under Windows Media Player. Video and audio are in perfect synch.

However, when I take this MPEG file and using DVD-Lab 3.1 to compile it, the video and audio in the compilation are out of synch, especially at the end. The audio is behind the video by a few seconds at the end.

Can anybody please tell me how to fix the problem?

 

Did you already check out in dvdlab under "Tools"
"Audio Delay" ?
Haven't had this problem myself, so this is all i
know of it,
Sometimes combinations of bitrates of the audio
and video, work better or worse, do you encode
audio in MPEG ? or AC3 ? if one, check if switching
these, helps, (Besweet & AC3Machine will be a great
help, if, when you encode your avi, then encode audio
into wav file, and encode with Besweet into AC3.)

 

Fugitive, thanks for the reply! Yes, I did look at the Audio Delay feature in DVD-Lab. However, I did nothing with it because it was "vague" in its operation. Do I need to play with it and just guess what settings to use with it to get it to work?

I wonder if somehow my PC is dropping frames during the conversion, and how to check if it is. This might be why the audio lags towards the end.

Do you have a specific method for VHS capture to DVD conversion that works every time?

I capture the VHS with DVDXPress. The capture is in MPEG-2 format. I have no choice in this matter. Then, I normally just take this file in to DVD-Lab without demuxing. I just drop the file in for a quick compile. Since I started having the A/V synch problems I started now to demux the MPEG-2 file to M2V and M2P using TMPENC, and then plugging these 2 basic streams in to DVD-Lab but this does not solve the sync problem.

I am stuck. :-(

 

What some Hardware Mpeg encoders and some Software Capture Programs do is they will Drop or add Padding to the Video stream when there is a dropped Frame or when it adds a frame so it can keep sync with the audio, But when these Files are re-muxed like when DVD-Lab compiles the files into Vob files the Blank Frames/Padding gets removed so this causes the Sync Problem especially when the Movie is Very Long....
there are also other Sync methods that capture Software/Hardware uses to Keep sync which makes them go out of Sync when the files are Processed.....
Check the Length of the Audio and the Video and see how much different they are from each other and this differance should be the ammount that the File is out of Sync at the end of the movie...The only way I know to fix it is to use a Good audio editor like GoldWave to Stretch/Shrink the Audio file to the Exact length of the Video file and then author the 2 files to DVD...
This Type of Problem runs Rampant with the ADS Express USB device, Every one I have talked to who has bought this device had the Same Problem with Captureing Long files and in general Most USB devices aren"t any good unless you are willing to spend the money for a good one with an audio lock feature.....well good luck

 

Minion,

This is great. I have used GoldWave before but I will redownload it and use it again. Can you recommend a capture device that has the audio lock feature? Thank you for taking the time to help and to educate me.

 

There are Very few Capture devices with an Audio Lock feature accept for the Canopus Analogue/Digital converter devices like the Canopus ADVC-100/50/55 or the Canopus ACEDVio...They are very high quality Capture devices that run between $150 and $225 and these devices use Hardware DV AVI encodeing to convert the Analogue signal to DV AVI and they Lock the audio and Video streams together at the Time of Compression so that there is never a Chance of the files going out of Sync....
If you want to make DVD"s from the files captured with one of these devices you have to encode the Files to Mpeg2 first but these are type of devices that are used in Professinal movie studios to convert Analogue Video to Digital...Most of these devices use a Firewire interface or are a PCI card but this company also makes Professinal Quality Hardware Mpeg2 encoder Boxes that use the USB 2.0 interface and they have an audio lock feature but they are expensive at about $350 to start but the quality is top notch but you can get the same quality useing one of the Analogue/Digital converters.....
well good luck...Cheers

 

Minion, you are awesome, tell me, if I am going to keep this ADS DVDXpress, are you telling me I should keep the time of whatever I capture under say 2 hours?

And, my laptop is only a year old. It has a firewire port. Is Firewire better than USB 2.0?

Thanks,
Todd

 

@ tdfuller, yes, ADVC100 is great, i own one myself,
did not want "to put you down", by saying, the capture
device you have is crap, buy Canopus, (a lot of people
think that is some commercial spam)
For the moment you have to make the best of it,
i guess, without spending too much money,
Sometimes it helps also to remove hardware you don't
use, or switch off background tasks, like virus killers, or change priority settings of drivers, or
hardware.
Also experiment with different drivers for your device, new ones aren't always an improvement,
but can solve sharing conflicts, also prefer Firewire
above USB.

 

Well As far as Capture devices go the Firewire devices are better than the USB ones mostly because the Firewire Technoligy is older than USB 2.0 and most editing/Capture Programs are built to capture from Firewire ports, but all Firewire Capture devices are Analogue/Digital Converters that capture the Video in DV AVI format......
You can Minimize the Effects of your Sync problems by keeping the Captured Files under 2 hours or maybe there is a File splitting feature in your Capture software that will split the files while captureing?!!
well good luck.....Cheers

 

Minion,

I got tired of fooling with the ADS USB device. I took it back to circuit city and ordered a DVC100 Canopus. I hope it is much easier to use and comes with some good software.

 

If you ordered the Canopus ADVC-100 then it Probably doesn"t come with any software just the Box and the Cords, You also must have a Firewire Port on your PC and the Firewire Port can not be one made by Texas Instruments because there is a Compatibility problem..
The ADVC-100 will Work with Most DV Capture/Editing Programs but they don"t come with the device because Editing Software can cost as much as the hardware....
If you get stuck for software then PM me and Maybe I can help you out with finding something that will work with your device....Cheers

 

There's only a demo with the ADVC100, (Procoder)
Forget that, the full version is way to expensive.
But they could have put any software with it,
you do not depend on any special one, i guess that's
also a "plus"
Do you already use NTFS on your system ? because
then you don't have file size problems,
The conversion to NTFS is very easy and quick.
Using WinDV for capturing is easy, for encoding,
i spend my money on CCE Basic, 58$ it's a good and fast one.

 

Minion: OK thanks for the offer. I will definitely keep it in mind. For now, I will have to wait and get the Canopus which I should have by Monday.

 

Fugitive2:

I have a one year old Gateway laptop with Centrino and Pentium M 1.4, 256 MB.

Minion says that there is an incompatibility problem with those that have a Texas Instruments Firewire port, which Gateway uses. However, I found no such note of incompatibility on the Canopus website or the Ecost.com website.

As far as software, I have already spent quite a bit of money on: DVD-Builder 1.3, TMPGENC Plus, Roxio Easy CD/DVD 7, and also have DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter, Image Tool, and a couple of little things.

Can you recommend what software I need? All I want to do is get the film off the old videocassettes as simply as possible. I will do some editing and combining of shorter film segments so that I may combine several of them on to one DVD.

Thank you for your help.
Todd

 

Fugitive2: Oh yeah, by the way, yes I have NTFS, pretty much standard with the Windows XP Pro.

 

I also bought TMPGEnc Plus, i am sorry to say.
if you want to use the extra's with this one, it takes too much time, so i stopped using this one,
For burning i use Nero 6, also because it get's regulary updated, and seems to be the most trust worthy util. but i guess if the one you're using give no problems, stay with it.
CCE Basic works great for encoding, i believe the codec used in it, is the same as in the $2000 version,
anyone correct me if i'm wrong...
Next to DVDLab i use also TMPGEnc DVD Author, for quick, and good results, it has fewer features,
but i like it for: editing out commercial breaks, (it also accepts VOB's and different types of audio streams) it's a simple process.
Also you can store menu templates, if you changed background features, frames, colors.

With the software i mentioned you can do a lot already, and prices are not that steep.
I also used Pinnacle's Studio 8 in the past,
but with the mentioned software, i don't need it
anymore for my "needs".

 

btw. i just saw i didn't mention: WinDV,
WinDV is all you need to use with the ADVC100,
to capture your video source through your Firewire
interface/controler, i hope the TI chipset gives no problems.. otherwise you should plug in a PCM-CIA (PC Card) Firewire card,(without TI chipset) and use that.

_X_X_X_X_X_[small]Bedankt, Thanks,

Fugitive.[/small]

 

Fugitive2: You have been very helpful. I would hope that if there still is a compatibility problem with TI firewire and the Canopus 100 they would have put this note on the specs page for their product on their website. There was no such note.

As far as the software you recommend, let me make sure I have your recomendations clear?

1) for capturing I can simply use WinDV

2) for encoding, can I use my existing TMPGENC Plus? But you recommend CCE Basic over TMPGEnc Plus?

3) fo authoring I can use my existing DVD-Lab 1.3? But here you recommend TMPGENC Author?

I LOVE the idea of editing out commercial breaks. I want to do this hopefully quickly and easily. Will DVD-Lab do this?

I could just convert the captured AVI to MPEG, and then use a Merge and Cut feature like with TMPGENC or Womble MPEG2VCR to edit out the commercials in the MPEG?

I also have an authoring program that came bundled with Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator 7 package; I think it is called DVD Builder. Is this any good?

Thanks for your help. You and Minion have been very helpful.

 

Copied a message of the Canopus site:

Re: What problems can the Texas firewire cause [Re: Videoman123]
#157916 - 02/25/04 06:48 PM
The problem only affects a very specific combination of TI chips (note that TI makes a lot of firewire controller chips which equate to hundreds if not thousands of possible combinations) and in that case the ADVC simply won't be recognized at all - no device detection, nothing.

Somewhere along the line we made a few changes that should alleviate that problem as well, so it should be very very rare to encounter such a problem.

--------------------

 

Answers to your numbered Q's:

1) yes.

2) you can, but [bold]CCE Basic[/bold] is better & faster.

3) [bold]TMPGEnc_DVD_Author[/bold] is great for simple & fast projects, and let you remove commercial blocks easy,
[bold]DVDLab[/bold] makes this a complicated process..
these are mine experiences.. and i tend to be a lazy person..
But DVDLab is great for more advanced projects,
they have some nice examples on their site,
i tried the "keylock menu", nice !
Don't know about [bold]DVDbuilder[/bold]... i guess you don't need it, when you use the other progs. mentioned.
Just burn the projects with [bold]Nero[/bold], and you're ready.
_
_X_X_X_X_X_[small]Bedankt, Thanks,

Fugitive.[/small]