Stupid Capture Question

[derspiess]

Newbie here; I've lurked for quite a while & am still amazed by the sheer amount of info available.
Anywho, to my question: I've been fooling around with uploading my Digital 8mm footage & burning to DVDs ever since I got my DVD burner a month ago. I've noticed that the sound is much, much better when I simply play back my Digital 8mm than when I transfer it on to DVD. I've used several different capture programs & 4 different editing programs (ULead Video Studio, Pinnacle Studio 9, Roxio, and another I can't remember) & all have given me the same result. Is it an issue, maybe, with the editing programs not supporting AC3, or something else? I know I should probably give more info, but wanted to ask if it was a common issue before I wasted all the keystrokes.
Thanks in advance....

derspiess

[Almost Human]

What camcorder do you have?
If you plug the camcorder directly into the TV/VCR, is the sound still good?
Are you taping in SP or LP?

On my Sony DCR-TRV240, I have two settings to change; to High-Quality, and from 12bit to 16bit. If I left it at 12bit (44100), Ulead VideoStudio would re-encode to 16bit (48000). 16bit is DVD compliant.

[sacajaweeda]

If you're not happy with the sound try using the PCM instead of AC3. I usually have to turn the levels up a good bit when I'm capturing anything I'm going to convert to AC3 because it always comes out sounding really low. PCM takes up a lot of space compared to AC3 though so it will cut into the length of video you can put on a DVD a good bit.

[derspiess]

Thanks for the replies. My camera is a Sony TRV-320 & I record in SP. I have it set at 16 bit for audio. Sound is great playing into the VCR, but it seems to lose something either during capture or editing/authoring. Doesn't turn out low or anything, just not as clear.