TV Capture not loud enough

[programm]

I made several tests comparing my bro's PC that has an old TV tuner and my laptop with my own internal/analog TV tuner. The tests showed that my bro's TV tuner card that is also internal kinda records it louder that my tuner Can you tell me how can I make my TV captures to be just as loud, even louder?

My bro uses some Prolink PixelView Station for his tv tuner card, he has a PC with Windows XP Pro Sp2 (or SP3). Master volume in Volume control on my bro's PC is max, Recording Volume is NOT max - it is even closer to min (closer to no sound) because if I increase it even 1/4 of the scale, it will be louder but there will be noise on the background when they talk on the TV Capture. Even when the Recording Volume is almost 0 to be clean of noise, it is, get this - much louder than my laptop's TV tuner capture.

My laptop Alienware M17 wqith Vista Home Premium 32 bit is powerful and uses Realtek High Def Audio as a hardware (and Realtek smth is used by my bro's PC). My Internal/Analog TV tuner is AverMedia A316/A317 Mini TV Tuner Card. The usual Volume is MAX, Recording Volume MAX, Playback&Microphone Volume MAX, all are maxed and I have no noise with my TV tuner. For software I use AverTV, I specially made sure the Output AUdio settings are the same as my bro's: PCM, 44100 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo, so from point of audio settings of the output all is like my bro's TV tuner. And notice - while my bro's tuner is older and doesn't get as good picture as my AverMedia tuner, heck my bros tuner can only record at 320x240, the picture is awesome with my laptop tuner, the only prob is the lower sound even tho it is clearer than my bro's PC sound it is lower. I even tried boosting the microphone from 10 dB to 30 dB and it has no effect on making it as loud as the PC Tv tuner.

The TV cable uses a splitter into 2 and one of it goes in my laptop, the other in his PC. So they basicly use the same signal from the TV. So can this be fixed somehow or maybe my laptop doesn't use powerful enough Tuner to produce louder sound? Or my bro's PC has better audio hardware? Or the Mini TV tuner is still worse in terms of sound? I see no reason why this is so when I use the same output settings.

[programm]

Can you at least tell me if this can be improved whern I capture the audio on my laptop from a TV to be just as loud as my bro's PC tuner? Or it really is the 'nature' of my TV tuner that although newer than the PC tuner and proividing better picture is not 'powerful' enough to produce loud music. I'm not saing it is unhearable but much lower and yes not just slightly but a lot more and wanna know if this can be fixed or is it the way it is, I can do nothing ?

[themaster1]

With a third party decoder like ffdshow you'll be able to increase the volume during the preview the matter being to find a software that support your card and ffdshow for the audio stream.I got a dvb-s card and use dvbviewer which support ffdshow decoding for the video & audio if necessary but for your card i don't know.

Anyway most likely your card is set wrongly or the drivers are buggy which could very well be a possiblity. I have reinstalled my pc recently and i had exactly the same problem for my analog card (cynergy 250 pci) and i got an option " use the WDM drivers" i checked this and everything is fine now.

if your card is built around the SAAXXXX Philips chipset you can DL the wdm drivers here and download the software aswell

[jagabo]

It's not clear to me exactly how the audio is being routed from the "TV" to the capture devices. It sounds like your brother is capturing via the microphone input and needs to enable the -20 dB attenuation option for line levels sources. How does the volume of your caps compare to other video files (not your brothers which are probably way to high)?

[programm]

I rly don't like other TV software like chris-tv or any random and prefer one with a big name like AverMedia. They told me their software woudn't work with my TV tuner as theirs is designed for their PC tuner cards, not my mini tv tuner card (which was strange considering my tv card is AverMedia too and tge averTv detects it). So I tried it and I'm very happy with AverTV. It offers not only output AVI,WDM, DVD, MPEG1&2 but you can cr8 your own profile with whataver resolution and format you want. It can even offer you to select what codecs you will be using for the capture in the custom profile.

The audio codecs for capture I can select in the settings are:
PCM, MS ADPCM, WM Speech Encoder DMO, WMAudio Encoder DMO, IMA ADPCM, CCITT-Alaw, CCIT-u-Law, GSM. I installed ffdshow but it doesn't appear in that list and it took my time to find that averTV software that I like, I just can't change it coz of that. Wondering if any of them can be set or even if the PCM can have increased volume. I can also change the attributes: 44100 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo which is the same as the my bro's settins for capturing but not sure if this will change anything and I think it is made to support up to 48 kHz.

And jagabo, the lower sound is only for captures done on my laptop. Videos already recorded sound with whatever settings they are recorded. A capture done on my bros PC would be just as loud on my laptop (much louder than a capture done with my laptop) and a capture done on my lap when played from my bros PC will still sound lower than the PC record.

I see I get you kinda of confused when you offer me to use ffdshow and I say I can't change that software, I already set up all channels, named them, I really love its options and settings. So if you know ways to increase the PCM volume, even some not so standard ways to do it, that would help, otherwise I'll just stay with the capture volume I currently have. As I said it's not like it is veery low almost unhearable, just not as loud as my bros and if there are ways to do it why not do it.

[jagabo]

Are you using the internal tuner (cable coax) for your caps? Or the RCA inputs?

[programm]

Yes, the M17 laptop comes with an adpater and I connect the TV cable to that adapter and the adapter to the coaxial of the laptop's tuner. The adapter is a small cable to make my cable fit into the Coaxial.

[jagabo]

As near as I can tell, the M17 has a coax input with an internal tuner. If the Avermedia software doesn't have the ability to adjust the audio volume while capturing your only choice is to decompress, normalize, then recompress the audio afterwards.

[programm]

Well, not sure if it matters, the TV software has volume which I also maxed, this is like TV volume. I also asked the AL support if they can help, if not, it's fine I can still record with audio that is loud enough even if not as loud as my bro's. Thx for your replies.

[Bjs]

The only true way of testing the capture is by converting and playing it back on non-pc hardware such as a dvd player.

Pc vs laptop = huge differences in audio hardware and driver support.

Laptops are well known for lower audio sound volume output when compared to desktops.

Other test would be to split the input and send audio via mike or linein on laptop and check if there is any change in the loudness of audio output being heard ... its better than sending both video and audio to the capture device as this can cause noise in captures.

[jagabo]

If you are capturing digital broadcasts you will have AC3 audio. AC3 audio is traditionally at a lower level than other computer audio sources. The AC3 decoder on your computer may have an audio boost to compensate for this.

[programm]

Pc vs laptop = huge differences in audio hardware and driver support.
Laptops are well known for lower audio sound volume output when compared to desktops.

Aha. Before I saw your answer I thought the same. What better explanation for how a recording volume on my bro's PC is almost none - 2nd dash above the 'no sound' (master volume is maxed tho), is still much louder than my laptop's record where I max not only the master volume but all volumes incl recording volume? And I use the same recording settings incl same frequency 44100 kHz, PCM. Note that for the tests made I clicked the 'Record' of the TV tuners at the same time so that I compare the same clip and the same show.

Thanks for your answers all, maybe it is what Bjs also says the laptops have lower audio and this may be the issue that I can't fix, it's the nature of the laptop.

I was looking for if you know if you can increase the volume of PCM other than the volume control. If not i'll be fine eventually won't be able to use that loud captures but meh.