No sound!

[Ian Sharpe]

I have some footage from HD TV recorded to my hardrive via my DVICO PC TV tuner, the format is 1280x 720 x 50fps. Yeah, I know I shouldnt have , but I was just mucking around trying things, now that I can get Digital out my way.

When I import the file (mpeg2) into VS & Pinnacle S9 for that matter , there is no sound?? Strange. When I use another program I have TMPGEnc DVD author 3, there is sound & I can make a disc from that which includes sound.

Maybe VS doesnt like the audio format??

And another thing, how come I can actulaly record this stuff anyway. I thought that all HD stuff was governed by HDCP & I dont think I even have any HDCP stuff on my PC, I certainly dont have a HDMI connection anyway. Seems a bit strange to me.

Any ideas on these 2 issues??

cheers

[Ken Berry]

Come on Ian, you know the drill by now! Right clicking on one of the files in VS, what are the properties, particularly the audio properties?

For what it's worth, I have a DVico HDTV dual tuner in my main computer, and I normally capture using its native .tp format. It's a pain to convert, but I use a freebie called HDTV2MPG2 and never have any trouble with the resulting video or audio; and it maintains high quality.

I am less sure about video quality when I set it to capture using mpeg-2 as it seems to vary the bitrate according to the length of the program I am recording, seemingly on the assumption that I will want to squeeze it all onto one single DVD (which I normally don't do -- I just want to watch it on my computer in its original HD format using the DVico main panel as the player). But even so, I never have problems with the audio. I just happen to have a couple of earlier files captured using the mpeg-2 settings, and the audio is standard mpeg layer 2 48,000 Hz 16 bit and a bitrate of 256 kbps.

As for why you can record it at all, there is no magic. XP (and Vista) have all the necessary wherewithal (apart from the antenna connection!!). And as far as I am aware, even a half decent graphics card is all that is necessary... Although my DVico card is on my Quad, I also have a a Winfast DTV2400H high def TV card in a computer using XP Pro. It too has no problem capturing, and I didn't install anything except the software/drivers which came with it.

[andrewgerm]

If I can add my 2 cents worth of understanding.

HD content, specifically from Blu-Ray on a PC is supposed to only show in HD if all hardware (drive, motherboard, graphics card, monitor) are HDCP complient. This also keeps things digital all the way, and also allows for rights management so that the content can not be copied.

Digital TV, or HD broadcasts may not be encoding those actual rights, and therefor allow the recording.

Hope this makes sense ( and better still, is actually correct )

As for your original question. What results do you get if you use another program to resample and save your MPEG file as a DVD or such complient file? That might help.

[Ian Sharpe]

OK, Ken,

In VS there is nothing for the sound properties, its just blank, in my other program it is 48KHz stereo!

For some reason VS & Pinnacle is not able toi import or recognize the audio ?

I made a disc using the TMPGENC program , but the audio was well out of sync.??
But at least the audio was there!

[Ken Berry]

Does TMPGENC give any indication what the original audio format might have been? I would find it strange if your and my DVicos, if recording to "native mpeg" format, would be using a different audio codec. And as I say, in that mode, mine records the audio as standard mpeg layer 2 which VS and anything else has no trouble at all recognising.

Have you tried changing the recording format to .tp and then converting it to mpeg-2 using HDTV2MPG2?

[markymark]

I was about to post a similar question.

Here's some background info: for years I've been using Sony Vegas to edit DV files, and the accompanying Sony DVD Architect program for authoring. I recently purchased an AVCHD camcorder, so I decided to try the Video Studio software for editing.

But first I wanted to burn some DVD's of older, rendered, DV files on double layer DVD's to save room. The Sony software does not handle the DL DVD's. So I attempted to import the rendered mpg2's into Video Studio.

With Sony, I rendered separate mpg2 for video and ac3 for audio. The problem here I think is that Video Studio does not "mux" the video and audio files back together. The DVD I prepped did not have any audio.

I haven't yet tried to "mux" the mpg2 and ac3 separately before importing into Video Studio for authoring. I also haven't played around enough with the program to see how to correct this issue.

Anyone else have any thoughts on Video Studio's ability to author pre-rendered mpg2 and ac3 files?

[Ken Berry]

My only experience with this was not with Vegas-generated files, but from Adobe Premiere 2 and 3 which both generate DVD-compatible video stream mpeg-2s (i.e. minus audio) and a separate audio track. I believe it can be done in two ways -- at least the ways I did it.

In most cases, I simply inserted the video file in the main video track of the VS Editor module timeline, and inserted the separate audio file into one of the audio tracks. Then selected Share > Create Video File > DVD, and using the same collective properties as the original files for both video and audio. This in effect "muxes" the two tracks into a single file (although it still uses the mpg extension and not .vob).

I am not sure that SmartRender operates in these cases, but the process seemed to be quite quick (I can't recall actual times as it has been some time now since I have done it.) And maintaining the same high quality settings of the originals from Premiere meant that any loss in quality through re-rendering if SmartRender was in fact not operating, would be minimal and probably not detectable by the naked eye.

The other way which I used once just to see what would happen was to insert the video and audio tracks in the timeline as described above, then saving it as a project. Then immediately choosing Share > Create Disc > DVD. This opens the burning module and automatically inserts the *project* file (as opposed to the actual video) into the burning timeline. Then I built my menu and burned. In this case, of course, the video and audio are first converted (I believe) and then actually muxed as a separate step, though I wouldn't swear to it.

I also wouldn't normally recommend this procedure, even though it worked in this circumstance. Many others use this procedure all the time successfully with standard video DVDs. However, others run into problems, which is why we would normally recommend that the re-encoding occur as a separate step in the editing module, rather than as part of the burning process.

[Ian Sharpe]

Ken,

yes its mpeg layer 2 audio. WIndows media player is the only thing I can get that plays the audio correctly. VS10/11 wont, Pinnacle S9 wont, & the file properties say no audio whatsoever, I guess thats a good hint as to why there is no sound, eh.

TMHencDVD author imports & play the audio , but the audio is way off sync.

My DVICO can make .td files, but I havent tried that.

I could copy the file to disc & drop it off or post it to you, to see what you make of it.

cheers

[Ken Berry]

Please do -- either drop-off or mail would be fine...