Analog Video editing in VS9

[Mark2]

I am capturing family VHS video to VS9 then editing and copying to DVD. I have a Panasonic VCR plugged into a Leadtek Winfast DVT1000T via RCA cable. Audio is from the VCR to microphone input on sound card. First video copy was sucessful although memory hungry in hard drive 200Gb for 2h45min of video and took 9 hours to render. Second video runs for 45 min. When dragging to edit time line the audio is about 3 seconds out of sink with the image. I am using captues setting of AVI on main capture screen. In capture property settings I have Input at video composite, TV as PAL, Audio device as Advanced AL97 audio (the only option) and Input as Microphone. Not sure on the audio format bitrate etc. I have used 48000 16 bit stereo and 12000 8 bit mono. Does anyone have any idea what are the appropriate setting for analog video capture. (I am also using Ulead Direct Show for capture and that worked okay for 1st project but was a huge file to work with). Thanks Mark, VICTOR HARBOR, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

[THoff]

Looks like you are capturing in Uncompress AVI format, which chews up disk space in a hurry. I suggest using a lossless codec such as Huffyuv instead -- it saves disk space without sacrificing quality.

Regarding the audio problem, was the audio out of sync from the very beginning, or did it drift? If the discrepancy was consistent, you could split the audio from the video, and reposition or trim it to bring it back into sync.

If the audio slowly drifted out of sync, then you probably ran into dropped video frames, either because of a bad video sync signal or because your computer was unable to keep up with the capture. This can happen due to drive fragmentation, background processes, screen savers kicking in etc.

Capturing from two separate devices such as a VIVO (Video In/Video Out) card and a sound card is tricky and fraught with problems. If you have a digital camcorder with pass-through capture support, I'd use that instead -- most people don't even know that quite a few camcorders support this.

[heinz-oz]

Another problem could be the connection to the Mic In port. Do you have a Line In port? If yes, connect to that one instead.

[DVDDoug]

Some of this has been said / asked by heinz-oz, and THoff...

A/V sync problems are common, and they seem to have several different causes & solutions.

Search the forum for "sync" and you'll find lots of discussion and suggestions.

200Gb for 2h45min of video

Something's wrong! I looked at Leadtek web site, and your capture device seems to be MPEG only. A DVD-quality MPEG-2 file is in the ballpark of 3GB per hour. Is it possible that I'm wrong? Could it be uncompressed DV? An uncompressed DV file could be about 200GB for 3 hours. An AVI file can use a variety of compression schemes. The most common AVI/DV format (from a digital camcorder) requires about 13GB per hour.

When dragging to edit time line the audio is about 3 seconds out of sink with the image...

So, you are saying it's out of sync as-captured? Before you edit it? Try using the other capture software (WinFast DTV) that came with your card... If that software can capture from the composite video input. That software may be designed to compensate for the audio and video coming-in through different devices. (Most capture devices have their own audio inputs.)

Is the sync error constant, or does it start-out OK and get worse? If it gets worse over time, you have a corrupt MPEG (assuming that it is MPEG).

Input as Microphone.

I would expect the line-out from a VCR to overload a mic input. You should be able to use your LINE-IN or AUX-IN.

...and took 9 hours to render.

This could be normal, depending on the speed of your computer and the compression format. People converting DivX to DVD seem to report very long render-times.

Analog capture (or real-time digital broadcast capture) is the trickiest part of digital video editing. You might find some helpful information at DigitalFAQ.com.

[Mark2]

Thanks guys for your responses. Yes I am transfering uncompressed AVI format. How do I incorporate 'lossless codec' to compress the video when using VS9. Sounds like it could be complicated. How do I split the video and audio track when in the edit screen? My normal view is the top line with thumbnail clips for each scene I have no visual on the audio streem. I think the audio track is drifting, if so it sounds easier to adjust the audio streem if I knew how to bring it up. There are so many audio setting it is confusing which to use. I have tried to pass the video thru my panasonic camera, had no luck therefore put the Leadtec TV card in. To add salt to the wound the first capture, edit and DVD created turned out fine. I'm pretty sure the setting were the same using Direct Show plug in and source as AVI. I have tried using DSW MPEG, audio works okay but picture is pixelised. The only port on my sound card that I can get audio is the microphone input. I'm wishing for a simple solution but doesn't sound like there is one.

[GuyL]

Thanks guys for your responses. Yes I am transfering uncompressed AVI format. How do I incorporate 'lossless codec' to compress the video when using VS9. Sounds like it could be complicated.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/cap ... atiavi.htm

I would also recommend huffyuv. The above link is specific to ATI cards but it should do the trick. You can set the same settings within VS9.

[THoff]

You can find the Huffyuv codec and instructions for installing it here:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/HuffYUV.htm

Once the codec is installed, simply specify AVI as the capture format, go to the Options dialog, and select Huffyuv in the Compression tab.

[jchunter]

Mark,
Whatever format you use, be sure to follow the workflow recomended in the top sticky post. Video properties for capturing analog are listed there. BTW, improper procedure has been known to unleash lots of problems and grief.

That said, Your Leadtek Winfast DVT1000T captures in Mpeg2 format, which is the one you need to produce DVDs. When you encode analog video direct to Mpeg2 and don't perform drastic editing, this format is "Smart Rendered" directly to the video file that you will need to burn the DVD. This workflow is faster and simpler than most others.

BTW, use the Leadtek's S-video connector to bring in your analog video from the VCR, for best quality.

I have used this procedure with all my analog video projects (different capture device) and all turned out with excellent quality.

[Mark2]

Thanks guys for your input. I have spent hours trying all kinds of settings etc. I finally got results just by capturing small sections of the vhs footage (about 5 minutes) into the time line. ONly other problem is have had was the video running in slow motion. I recaptured the footage and seems okay at this time.