Audio problem in Corel Videostudio X3

[oscarcookie]

Hi all,

I have been capturing homevideos few months ago, and bought Corel Videostudio X3 to edit them.

The video and audio codec used is (as shown in VLC):
video: h264, 480x576, frame rate 50
audio: mp4a, stereo, 44100Hz

In Corel videostudio, on clip properties, I get the following information:
Video: 24 bits, 480x576, MPEG-2 (Transport stream, variable bit rate), comp ration 32%, Frame rate 25000 frames/sec
Audio Format: none

How can i achieve to enable audio in videostudio X3? I can't hear anything and can't edit, and my output has no audio...

Any help would be appreciated, I've been struggling for weeks to find a solution...

Thanks in advance,

OC

[DVDDoug]

When you have a "problem file", the solution is usually to convert it some other format with 3rd-party software... Try using SUPER* (FREE!!!) to extract the audio to a WAV file. Then, you should be able to re-combine the audio & video in Video Studio. (Uncompressed WAV or PCM is the most trouble-free audio format.)

You can also convert the audio & video together with SUPER, depending on what final-format you want and what you're trying to do.


* Make sure you are downloading SUPER... There are advertisements on SUPER's web page for the AVS Video Converter, which is not free.

[Clevo]

It's possible there is an issue with how you are capturing the video. If you can explain in more detail the process you are going through to capture and some details on the type of video camera you have perhaps we can offer further solutions

[oscarcookie]

Actually, the process of capturing was completed several months ago.

The source was an old VHS camera with small 'casettes', video was captured between 1990 and 2000... I used a analog to USB convertor, and then used VLC to capture the stream... I definitely realize that this isn't an accurate description, but at this point it is the best I can offer.

When capturing I had several problems, with my pc not being able to capture and giving bluescreens and frozen windows XP, probably due to codec conflicts. Would you recommend to recapture everything on a clean pc with Videostudio?

Thanks for the replies, they are greatly appreciated!

[Clevo]

I can't say I have any experience with the equipment you are using.

I expect that when you captured with VLC you tested the video files using a regular video player (rather than an editor). The video specs you gave seem at odds but I will cast my suspicions on the MP4a audio format. The first thing I would do is use something like Audacity to record "what you hear" and convert the sound to a .wav format

However, if it's at all possible, could you test capture using the capture software that came with the analogue to digital converter? More out of interest and as an experiment. I'm not familiar with VLC so I'm not sure if you can change the capture settings particularly since VLC loads a variety of codecs by default (which incidently can be a cause of problems too).

It just seems really odd that VLC sees the video with the h264 codec. Is that something you selected by choice? if so, I would try regular mpeg2. We know your VHS sourced video is standard definition

So, as you see, there is a lot to consider and what might be seemingly straight forward can get a complicated.

[oscarcookie]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm planning on doing the whole process over again, and when experiencing problems, I'll be back

Any good advice? Should I capture using the software that is delivered with the Video to USB device, or is it better to use Corel Videostudio to achieve this?

What are my recommended settings?

Thanks!

[Accolades]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm planning on doing the whole process over again, and when experiencing problems, I'll be back

Any good advice? Should I capture using the software that is delivered with the Video to USB device, or is it better to use Corel Videostudio to achieve this?

What are my recommended settings?

Thanks!

Using the software that came with your capture device would be a good start and setup correctly to capture video into mpg2 format.

After the capture is finished tou should be able to playback the captured video using VLC.

If you can see the video and hear the audio then try importing into Vido Studio X3 and post the properties of the video here if you are still having issues.

ps having the CORRECT and ALL the information about your hardware and software in the user control panel would assist those that are trying to help you!

[Ron P.]

I would suggest using the software that came with your device to capture the video. By chance what is your capture device, Easycap? Once you get the video captured, you can then use VS to edit.

I had no idea that VLC was capable of capturing video/audio, until reading your post. However I did play around with it, trying to capture video from my Digital-8 camcorder. I'm not impressed at all with it. You must define all aspects, including the buffer/cache amount in ms. It does provide for a variety of video formats (codecs), and various wrapper/containers such as MOV, AVI, OGG, MPEG. I found it not very intuitive. I tried settings for an AVI file using the MJPEG codec, and it only produced an error.

For capturing your VHS videos, you will want to use the least compressed format, and h.264 is not one of them. This compression will have to take place "on-the-fly", and is extremely demanding on PC resources. That's why I chose MJPEG inside the AVI wrapper. I also tried using MPEG-2, but found that it was horrible, and waaayyy out of sync.

Do you have a camcorder, one that has pass-through capabilities? My old Sony DCR-TRV120 does a great job of A-D (analog-digital) conversion, and I can capture my VHS tapes using it, connected to my PC with IEEE-1394 (firewire). The result is that I get DV (avi) that is easily edited in VS. However with the more recent versions of VS not allowing this, I use a freebie program called WinDV to capture, or one of the earlier versions of VS. Since the current video technology is HD, you might be able to pick up a good old Digital-8 camcorder at a real inexpensive price. You could use it as I do, to capture your old VHS tapes..