removing "metallic" sounding dialog on audio track

[dogbrain]

Hi Folks,

I have some old VHS tapes which I am trying to convert to digital format and although I have explored all the audio filters, I have only been partially successful on minimizing, but not eliminating the "metallic" twang in some dialog.

Has anyone had a similar problem and have you found any solutions?

Thanks

[Black Lab]

VS is not a very good audio editor, and the number of filters is limited. I have installed extra Audio Plugins that help. You could also try the free and powerful Audacity.

[DVDDoug]

There may be nothing you can do, or the cure may be worse than the disease. (Even with very-advanced software, the pros still use great care & effort to record good audio/video, because it can't always be fixed in post-production. Most on-location movie dialog is re-recorded in the studio.)

As far as audio filters, your best bet is to experiment with an equalizer ("EQ"). The idea would be to reduce the frequency bands that contain the offending sounds. When you say "metallic", I would guess that reducing the mid-high frequencies... Say, betwen 1kHz and 5kHz... But, you will have to experiment.

The main problem here is that you are reducing frequencies that are important to speech and intelligibility. If you have to make large adjustments to too-many frequency bands, you'll make the overall sound worse.

[dogbrain]

VS is not a very good audio editor, and the number of filters is limited. I have installed extra Audio Plugins that help. You could also try the free and powerful Audacity.

Hi Jeff,

So how would I use either of these with VS3?

The audacity docs do not address editing video streams, and the plugin seems to be geared to work with other s/w.

Thanks,

[Ron P.]

The plug-ins would need to be installed in VS's plug-in folder, (C:\Program Files\Corel\Corel VideoStudio Pro X3\aft_plug so they would be available in VS. However I did notice that the free plug-ins are supported only in Win2k and XP.

With Audacity, you would export the audio portion of your video file, Share>Create Sound File, then open Audacity and insert that sound file. Once you have finished working in Audacity, just export the file, and insert it back into VS. I would recommend doing this before any editing of the video, so you will not have any a>v sync issues. You will not be able to "join" the video and the new audio track into one. Just place the audio file on one of the audio tracks, line it up with the video track, and make sure the audio is muted on the video.

[dogbrain]

The plug-ins would need to be installed in VS's plug-in folder, (C:\Program Files\Corel\Corel VideoStudio Pro X3\aft_plug so they would be available in VS. However I did notice that the free plug-ins are supported only in Win2k and XP.

With Audacity, you would export the audio portion of your video file, Share>Create Sound File, then open Audacity and insert that sound file. Once you have finished working in Audacity, just export the file, and insert it back into VS. I would recommend doing this before any editing of the video, so you will not have any a>v sync issues. You will not be able to "join" the video and the new audio track into one. Just place the audio file on one of the audio tracks, line it up with the video track, and make sure the audio is muted on the video.

Thanks Ron,

I will give Audacity since I am running Vista.

[dogbrain]

Hi Ron,

Thinking more about the procedure for exporting and importing the audio track, I realized another too I have could do the trick and it did. I am enclosing an image of the equalizer settings in case anyone else wants to repeat this approach.

[Ron P.]

Good to hear..

What EQ plug-in, or program did you use? If you could provide a link, we might include it in our Downloads section..

[dogbrain]

Hi Ron,

I used Roxio's Creator 2009 which I purchased originally to he transfer audio and videotapes to digital formats. The audio capabilities are pretty good, but I purchased Corel Video Studio Pro to deal with the video tape transfer. Roxio (at least the 2009 version) was abysmal - claiming lost signal transfer when it was actually displaying the video on screen.

I think VSP is heads and above superior when it comes to dealing with the video, and I am just trying to improve the sound quality, as the metallic twang I occasionally come across in some of these tapes makes it difficult to understand the dialog.

I cannot recommend someone purchase the Roxio product just for this reason, but since I already bought it, it comes in handy for this task.