audio video not synced

[zoranb]

When capturing video, although it seems to sync in the beginning, near the end its out of sync. What am i doing wrong? Im capturing with Premiere 6.5

[hech54]

Capturing to................?

[zoranb]

What do you mean? Im using an Apple G4 laptop, im capturing it to its hard drive, via fw400.

[hech54]

Your other posts seem to suggest this is a data transfer, not a "capture".
MUCH more information is needed.

[zoranb]

In my other post i do want to make a backup yes, save the footage as dv files in order to be able to use them anytime later in the timeline.
Unfortunately my iMac prolly has issues in capturing via the fw800 port, so im trying an older machine, that accommodates only fw400!
Whats confusing you?

[sanlyn]

The question is what format/media are you capturing to? Are you making two captures, one to DV and another to something else? Are your DV transfers out of sync, or is it some other capture files that have the problem? Are your sources DV or VHS tape? If your source is DV, it isn't "captured" via firewire, it's supposed to be transferred (copied).

[zoranb]

Okay im sorry, only now i understood what stuff i didn't clarify!
Ok, so...

The question is what format/media are you capturing to?

Well im capturing from mini-dv tapes to mov dv files.

Are you making two captures, one to DV and another to something else?

No just one capture, dv.

Are your DV transfers out of sync, or is it some other capture files that have the problem?

Yes my dv captured files are the ones that are out of sync! Mainly visible at the end and when the whole tape is captured.
When the whole tape (1hour) is captured, at 50th minute loss of sync is very visible. If i make a partial capture between 40-60th minute, there is no problem with sync at 50th minute, or actually there is no problem with sync at all!

Are your sources DV or VHS tape?

My source is a DVtape but footage was transferred there from VHStapes. When i playback and watch the footage on camera, there is no loss of sync, its perfect there.

If your source is DV, it isn't "captured" via firewire, it's supposed to be transferred (copied).

I dont understand this one sorry

[smrpix]

Based on your other posts, it sounds like there are control track breaks on your tape, probably where the timecode resets to 00;00;00;00 as well. Please give up on this notion of capturing"whole" tapes. It doesn't matter with DV. Do it in 5 minute chunks if that helps with sync.

You may want to peruse this slightly dated but still valid comprehensive overview:
http://www.adamwilt.com/DV.html

[zoranb]

Based on your other posts, it sounds like there are control track breaks on your tape, probably where the timecode resets to 00;00;00;00 as well. Please give up on this notion of capturing"whole" tapes. It doesn't matter with DV. Do it in 5 minute chunks if that helps with sync

Okay i will and thanx for the understanding, im just curious... why sync isn't working? Could it be a matter of a slow computer?

[smrpix]

why sync isn't working? Could it be a matter of a slow computer?

Could be.
Could be gaps in the tape and and too high an ignore breaks threshold.
Could be a camera issue
Could be different audio data rates in different segments.
Could be dropped bad video frames which accumulate over longer captures. -- MOST LIKELY
Could be a one time fluke.
Could be bad transferred VHS to Digital that you can't see on the viewfinder.
Could be simply the way DV plays back vs outputs.
Could be slight differences in audio to video head alignments in different cameras.

[turk690]

Could be because you are not capturing to a separate hard drive.

[zoranb]

Im capturing to the machines drive!

[PuzZLeR]

Im capturing to the machines drive!

Is it the one which the O/S is on, or a separate drive (which is also inside the machine)?

I don't think your machine is too slow for this work, but something else is stuffing it.

One thing that can help in capturing is an SSD drive installed internally (very super fast drive). You don't need a big expensive one. A 100GB should do in your workflow - good for a couple of capture sessions before you edit/archive and restart. They do much better than the traditional ones.

Another thing I can suggest - check your machine's cooling system. If it's getting hot during the longer captures, then the processor starts to slow down to prevent fire hazards, and this slowdown leads to errors in capture. This is/was typical of Intels (which is what may be in your Mac). I'm curious - is there some sort of buffer at the end of your captures? In other words, when you stop capture, does your machine continue processing for some time after to catch up? That would be a good sign that something is slowing down the machine.

It's obvious something's wrong in your setup, so in the meantime while you figure it out, you can capture in shorter segments, or just cut off and re-capture the later bad segments you notice in your inspections (and implement in edits later). Yes, it's a pain as it shortens your cycle, but it can still function.

[turk690]

Im capturing to the machines drive!

We know that now. And that may be a major part of your problem. As I have said in previous threads on similar topics in this forum, any laughtop Mac or PC, straight out of the box unmodified, is fundamentally unsuitable for any serious level of audio and video editing because it has only one hard drive. It is always a bad idea to use the same hard drive where the OS and programs are to also put captured, edited, rendered, to-be-rendered etc. files in there. A separate single-controllered hard drive should be used (like SATA or eSATA) for this. This is a fundamental groundwork feature for any computer that will seriously heavy-hittingly intended to be used for capturing and editing audio and video. Your computer may have an i7 and a fancy GPU with loads of system RAM, but unless this two independent physical single-controllered hard drive requirement is met, aborted captures, out-of-sync audio and video, crashing programs, and gnashing of teeth are the rule rather than the exception.
Why is this? Simply put, after boot, when the kernel has been loaded onto system RAM, OS still has to make regular contact with the hard drive dynamically loading and deleting files. These are crucial operations that take top-level significance in the OS scheme of things; I don't think MacOS and windoze are that much different in this respect. Damn if some bits of audio and video being captured in the moment get in the way; they are just going to be bulldozed. Some posters have overruled my insistence on using single-controllered hard drives and insist that external USB drives will also do (USB is a multi-device controller system which can, and often, introduce its own set of problems). May or may not be, but at least they didn't dispute the requirement for another hard drive separate from the primary boot one containing the OS and programs.
A DV tape with multiple 00;00;00;00 timecode stamps on it (which may or may not be like the one you have) because of the sloppy way the video was shot already requires some trickery on properly configured NLE computers, let alone your macky. If I encounter such tape, I disable camcorder control on the NLE program (I use Premiere Pro 5.0.3) so that capture is not aborted when a 00;00;00;00 point comes along, plus the captured DV AVI file stays in sync all throughout. A worse situation would be where there are actually little blank parts on the tape between legit DV segments. These blank spots will always introduce loss of sync between audio and video. One can always independently cut audio and video segments on the timeline and manually sync them, but if these blank segments (which naturally have no timecode on them) are only a few frames long, the timeline may have to be zoomed to distinguish individual frames so you know where to precisely cut.