Choppy audio/video; VideoExpress; WinCoder; a work-around

[RalphTheExpert]

This post is a follow-up to:

Choppy video; Choppy audio; A work-around described

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... f0698785ae



Briefly, my attempts to use Ulead’s Visual Studio 6 (VS6) or Visual Studio 9 (VS9) to capture to an avi file (DV Type 1) has been full of frustration.

The problem, of course, is that the avi file produced by SE6 and SE9 (on two different but quite fast computers) eventually produces choppy audio and video.

I’m going to report here what worked for me and what didn't and some of the travails along the way.



One thing I did was download Intervideo’s Wincoder. (Intervideo is a competitor of Ulead’s). I downloaded the software and the software told me that I had 45 days to use it. It says that it is “full featured”.

OK, gave it a try.

They lied. It may be “full featured” but it limits the amount of captured video to around 5 minutes.

On the other hand, the small avi file that Wincoder produced was not choppy! OK, I’ll purchase Wincoder. But, hey, how much is it?

Go to Intervideo’s web site and Wincoder is not to be found.. Oh, you can download the trial from there but you can’t purchase it!

So I pick up the phone to call sales. It is utterly obvious that Intervideo is yet another company that does not wish to talk to its customers. I got the “I’m not in but please leave a message” thing. No way. If I can’t get through to – at least – a salesperson or an operator, there is no way I’m buying anything from that company.

Intervideo just lost a sale.



I searched the web for another product that would do video capture. I found a product called “Exsate VideoExpress” (www.exsate.com)

Exsate’s shareware product ($29.95) is clearly amateurish. It’s English is truly awful. It has several bugs that leave me feeling very uncomfortable. For instance, selecting “Capture whole tape from beginning to end” does not first rewind the tape. There is an option called “Copy from current position to the end of the record”. Like I said, the English is terrible.

But there are two overarching things that commend VideoExpress: The interface is more-or-less straightforward and the capture to avi appears to work.

Let me say that the capture does not work perfectly. For a few seconds (about 10 seconds) at the beginning of the avi file, things are choppy; both audio and video. But after that initial glitch, the audio and video are flawless. No dropped frames. No choppiness.

It’s a ten-day free trial and it is not time-limited the stupid way that Wincoder is time limited..



So I then used the avi file produced by Exsate’s VideoExpress in Ulead’s SE9. I don’t know if this is a bug or not … but the “split clip by scene” does not work when I select the “time code” method. It does work if I select the “split by content” method. (Sorry if I don't have the wording exactly right. I’m doing this by memory since my machine is busy rendering the avi file.)

I don’t know enough to know if an avi file (DV Type-1) stores the time codes.



So after about 8 hours I have a DVD in hand. The DVD won't play at all on my Toshiba laptopeven though the DVD is readable and I can see the directory structure; so I bring the DVD over to my desktop. I stick in the DVD and watch and listen in horror as there is a noticeable choppiness to the audio.

Ugh.

(Does anyone know why the DVD runs on one machine but not the other? I'm running Windows Media Player Version 10 on both machines.)

But wait, I take the DVD over to my stand-alone DVD player. The audio and video are gorgeous. No choppiness.

I finally have a DVD that I can use.



I haven’t tried this DVD on a low-end DVD player. I’ll keep you all posted.

[2Dogs]

Hi Ralph!

I know, there is no bonfire..... (that's cos you ****ed on it!)

There are free programs out there that will capture AVI - like WinDV, often suggested by many posters.

I would also suggest WinDVD Creator 2, a video editing program by Intervideo. (although competitors to Ulead, they recently bought a controlling share)

It's a very simple, easy to use and clean looking program, with limited options all grouped together in one place. Also MUCH quicker - by a factor of 2 or more, than Video Studio for encoding AVI to MPEG. No bugs from doing that from the timeline either, so no reference to the sticky in this post. (darn I just did mention it!)

So I then used the avi file produced by Exsate’s VideoExpress in Ulead’s SE9. I don’t know if this is a bug or not … but the “split clip by scene” does not work when I select the “time code” method. It does work if I select the “split by content” method. (Sorry if I don't have the wording exactly right. I’m doing this by memory since my machine is busy rendering the avi file.)

I don’t know enough to know if an avi file (DV Type-1) stores the time codes.

If there are gaps in the timecode, it can mess things up. Some recommend shooting a blank tape in a quiet room with the lens cap on first to ensure there's a continuous timecode. Then if you shoot clips and play them back on the camcorder, you don't have to be so exact in resetting the camcorder before you shoot more video - or you can deliberately leave gaps.

DV type 1 AVI does have the timecode info on it - you'll see some of it displayed at the bottom of the preview window when you play an AVI clip, and more if you enable "show timecode in preview" in "File >> Preferences".

When you play an interlaced DVD on a pc, which is a progressive scan device, the DVD player software will use software de-interlacing. That might possibly be a cause of the stuttering. Otherwise, if there's a problem with the read rate of the DVD drive, it can give a choppy effect. The latter would be easily tested against a known good, commercial DVD played in the drive, however. Most laptop DVD drives struggle to play AVI files on a DVD, since the read rate needs to be more than 3x higher than for DVD's. (although I'm not suggesting you have AVI files on your DVD! I used this method to test DVD and CD drives at a local big box store)

More than one or two posters have had trouble with Media Player 10. Does it work with alternative programs - WinDVD, Media Player Classic (by Real Alternative)? The latter program is freeware, and has some very handy statistics you can view whilst playing - like frame rate, jitter and so on, that can often point to problems.

[RalphTheExpert]

> WinDVD Creator 2

I still can't figure out how to quote text. Most embarassing. I tried

[quote="2Dogs"]
WinDVD Creator 2
[\quote]

without success.


Anyway, back to WinDVD Creator 2.

I have had nothing but trouble with that software. Specifically, I have had problems with audio/video synchronization. When clps were concatenated the audio went out-of-sync by several seconds.

This was most embarassing since the DVD went out to TV stations. I had recorded a debate between a Colorado governor and someone he was debating (Douglas Bruce) on a tax issue.

I didn't hear about the problem until a TV station called me. I did not have the time (or the presense of mind) to review the entire DVD before running the DVD to a dozen TV stations in the Denver area.

If something can go wrong, it will.

More to the point, WinDVD Creator 2 also is unable to capture video properly from my camera.

It's good to know that two major players in this arena are pooling their bugs.

[2Dogs]

Hi Ralph,

quoting has been a bity buggy for me lately - maybe 'cos I just upgraded my firefox browser to 1.5. I've had to try quoting several times before it takes.

Odd that your experience of WinDVD Creator 2 is the reverse of mine. VS still doesn't do a great job of controlling my camcorder, but Creator does.

Wonder what your workflow was with the audio-sync problem project? You weren't trimming MPEG-2 clips by any chance, were you? That might result in a creeping, progressively more out of sync audio. Otherwise dropped frames during capturs can do the same.