I need info on a good cheap soundcard

[cTx3]

I need the card to be around $50 in price

I never upgraded my soundcard before so I don't know exactly what I am looking for.

I HAVE to upgrade my soundcard in order to capture anything without getting lots of audio sync problems.

I DO NOT need a 5.1 surround sound card for my PC cause I don't watch movies or play games that would need it and it would be a waste of money for me to get one.

I have tried EVERY program that lets you record in the 720 x 480 display and they all end up having audio sync problems.

I have an ATI TV Wonder VE and it worked fine till I upgraded to the latest MMC thing, now when I set it to the DVD standered the audio lags WAY behind and to catch it up the program puts in a VERY LOUD screaching sound (and it's almost louder then what I am capturing) the video records fine and looks great but the sound is always off.

I tried the Power VCR II and got the same problem (no screaching but the audio falls WAY behind the video after awhile).

The Settings I do are 8000kbps for the video bitrate and for audio it's usually like 224kbps (it rarely let's me change it) or 44.1kbps.

I close down pretty much everything that windows will let me before I start recording but the only thing that works properly is the program that came with the card and that only lets me record in god awful letterbox or 352x240 which ends up making it look weird on a dvd.

I would like to buy it OFFLINE if at all possible but am willing to buy it online if I can use something other then a credit card (I got scamed by amazon.com and never wanted to try again with anyone).

here's what I have looked at

Creative Labs Ensoniq PCI 16 Bit Sound Card

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 PCI Sound Card

SIIG Soundwave Pro PCI Soundcard

Creative Labs Sound Blaster PCI 512 (this is the one I am most interested in)

Note: You'll have to copy and paste the link or else you will get an error about your browser not excepting cookies, sorry.

[SaSi]

I didn't know the Soundblaster PCI 16 was still sold. Must be more than 6 years old in design.

My oldest card is a SB 128PCI. Sound quality is great and I believe the 512 should be equal or better. Even an older generation audigy card from your local computer store should be cheap ($50 range).

The big question is why you believe a new sound card will solve your audio sync problems.

Typically, audio sync loss happens either when you are dropping frames or when during editing or encoding, an incorrect frame rate or sampling rate is selected.

[cTx3]

Well, when I update to the latest ATI Multimedia center the audio goes WAY out of sync (about 15 seconds at times) and to gain it back it insters a very loud screachin sound then it will play normally again without problems.

So I'm guessing it HAS to be the soundcard cause the video is perfectly fine but the audio is all messed up (even when it's not recording the audio goes out of sync).

[Almost Human]

Like SaSi says, the SB128PCI reproduces sound very well. The SB512 is inferior in almost all aspects.

I have two Turtle Beach Santa Cruz's that I bought at Circuit City for $40. each. I think they are superior to all except the most expensive Sound Blaster's, plus you will not have the hardware incompatibilities that plague the SB's.

[mastersmurfie]

just my 2 cents...

I have a Philips AcousticEdge...got it off Ebay (OEM) for about 30 bucks...use it almost daily with my ATI AIW (not pro, not anything fancy...just a plain old AIW from a long time ago)...ZERO sync probs and...

I DO NOT need a 5.1 surround sound card for my PC cause I don't watch movies or play games that would need it and it would be a waste of money for me to get one.

even though this card will do 5.1 surround, (I don't use it) seemed like a bargain to me...

[SaSi]

Speaking of audio quality and prices...

I just read a sound card review on a computer magazine. The SB128 PCI is still sold, at the ridiculus price of 18 euro. Second cheapest card after a Terratec 128PCI at 16 euro !!!

Price is not the interesting thing here.

Audio quality tests on the SB products show that the SB128PCI has by far the best audio recording and playback quality. The 5.1 Live is by far the worst. More recent models are better than the 5.1 Live but inferior to my 128PCI.

So much about my plans to "upgrade" my sound card. I think I will buy a couple of SB128PCI cards, just in case mine fails. After all, it's already five years old...

Now, on to the sync problems.

I noticed when capturing a VHS tape that the audio suddenly went out of sync. By 14.850 seconds. Paying close attention I realized that the video had some problems during the sync loss. There was a small stutter and then audio went way off. Remained stable after that.

What I did was to load the video to VirtualDUB and from the audio menu, select a non-zero delay for audio. Actually I selected -14850 ms which brings audio forward.

Since the audio was shifted back after a frame, I saved the video in two parts, with part 1 having a 0 delay. Selected the next part with the mentioned negative delay and saved part 2. I then re-loaded both on virtualdub and joined them.

This step can be done with direct stream copy so it's ultrafast (400fps on my PC).

[sterno]

Things worked before, and you started having problems when you upgraded the software? Your problem could be the software. Do you need something added in the newest version? Going back to the one that worked would be a cheaper and easier solution, if it works.