To Xtasy Everything owners or WinDvr users

[haubrija]

Hey,

Does anyone else's mpeg audio captures suck when using either the card or the software... they sound fine on my computer but when I burn the svcd and then play em through my dolby pro logic system I get a garbly background noise primarily through my rear speakers... has anyone else noticed this... I'm wondering if I got a bad cable or if the software just sucks. any advice would be cool.

Thanks.

[haymes]

I have a similar problem, but I am playing the disc on a sampo dvd player. I am just using a standard amplifier for the sound and it is garbled, even on vcd. What kind of dvd player are you using?

[haubrija]

haymes,

I sent you an email so you can disregard it... I'm using a Pioneer DV-525 I beleive... Now that I know you are having the problem too I know its not my audio wires... I'm gonna run some more tests later and see if I can pinpoint the problem... let me know what you've done to try to solve the problem so I don't make the same mistakes...

My problem seems the same as yours ... sound is fine on pc but crappy when burnt and played on my standalone... if anyone else has any help that would be great.

[haubrija]

btw haymes... what's your soundcard?

[bigmicka]

WHat setting are you doing your initial captures on?

[haubrija]

I'm doing my initial capture at 640x480 mpeg 2 with 224kbs audio. Here is my system:

P4 1.4 ghz
30GB ATA 100 Hard drive
Soundblaster Live 5.1 sound card
256 MB Rambus memory

Like I said before the video comes out perfect but the audio sucks when played on a standalone.

[Rc]

hi, i have the Xtasy Everything and a Pioneer DV-525. i'm running win XP on a 1.6ghz 512ram 80ghd. i have also had problems with "garbled" audio after capturing an mpeg. have you all called the tech support hotline??? i plan to talk with them tonight and hopefully get this resolved. the video captures are great but i cannot deal with the "grabled" sound. thanks!
-Rc

[simkiss]

I'm using the Xtasy Everything capture method and I got great results in VCD, SVCD, and DVD.

Maybe system problem or problem with Xtasy equipment.

My system:
Dual P3 550 Mhz XEON - 2MB L2
2GB RAM
4 ATA133 60GB Drives in UDMA MODE (very important)
SoundBlaster Live! Drive
Iomega 16x burner

When you compile the audio, make sure it's not encoded at 48kHz and it's it 44.1kHz. Programs like Adobe Premiere default to 48kHz which makes the audio choppy.

[haubrija]

Rc: Cool, make sure and come back and post what tech support tells ya... I've got a bunch of stuff I'm gonna try but wanna hear what the tech support says in case there's an easy solution

Simkiss: Give us some more information about what you're using... for example what standalone are you using to play your vcds ... do they sound good on the PC but bad elsewhere?

[Rc]

simkiss: when i captured directly from winDVR, the audio settings were layer II, mode stereo, and bit rate 224. there is no option to select 48khz or 44.1khz. i assume it defaults to 44.1khz??? i didn't reencode the capture either. i recorded the video with the standard VCD NTSC template and the resulting video was very good, with the exception of an underlying garbled sound. the live video/audio source sounded fine. any suggestions?

haubrija: i will definitely post any helpful (non-helpful) info after talking with tech support (if i can get through to tech support - which is supposed to be halfway decent compared to ATI's tech support).

[simkiss]

haubrija:

I'm using the discs on a Blaupunkt DVD standalone player. It's a mobile/home player, but I have it in my car connected to the Navigation screen for a monitor.

The (X)(S)VCDs and DVDs I burn also play well on Panasonic DVD standalone players but not on Sonys at all. I use 74/80 CD-R and CD-RWs on everything. The Panasonic DVD player even plays DVD-RAMs which is nice.

Are you guys connecting your sound from the green Xtasy module directly to the Line 2 input on your SoundBlaster Live cards with the 1/8" male-2-male stereo earphone cable (was included)? That's how I've got mine setup.

Also, make sure that your speaker setup is correct, make sure that "digital only" is not checked, make sure that there are no environmental effect on, and be sure to make the viewing image of the video very small on your screen while recording to reduce processor load. I don't know how my dual P-3 550 Xeons stack up against a 1.5Ghz when it comes to video, but I believe you shouldn't have any problems with what you've got.

[Rc]

simkiss: i've got the male-to-male connector plugged into the green Xtasy box and the line in jack (line 2 as you called it - it's the only line in i have). i'll have to check the effects settings as you suggested. any other suggestions are greatly appreciated (hardware, device settings etc.).

[haubrija]

simkiss: I don't have the audio going through the green box and that could be part of my problem... I initially had it setup but got a weird clipping noise... my green box sits on top of my tower so I figured I was getting some kind of interference.... I'll try it again later to see if that's the problem...

I don't beleive I have any of the audio enviromental effects on but will double check

[Rc]

simkiss: you said it's important to set the harddrive to UDMA. mine is set to DMA. don't see a UDMA mode. what significance is it to have DMA on? thanks.

[Rc]

I talked with techsupport last night, and after installing all the latest drivers, i still can't rid my captures of that underlying warbled/garbled sound that randomly shows it's ugly face. my soundcard is SoundMax Digital Audio and i'm using winXP on a 1.6 P4 w/ 512 ram. i have all environmental audio settings turned off and i've tried recording through the line-in and microphone inputs to no avail. please help anyone!!!

[haubrija]

Well, I found a tentative solution... Its not an end all be all solution we're looking for but it may help some of us.

Downolad DVD2SVCD

Get an IFO file from any dvd

When the IFO is loaded, hit the button in the coversion tab that looks like this ...

Take all the Vob's out

Load your mpeg 2

Convert

The Madplay, Besweet combination seems to take care of it... I encoded a short clip with not warbling. My problem with this is that I capture tv and dvd2svcd doesn't allow for any editing to get rid of commercials or whatnot...When DVD2SVCD add these new options such as source range, this will be great (and I sure the great author of DVD2SVCD will implement these soon) the could solve alot of our problems... Since this is a temporary solution, I urge us all to keep up the good fight to find a solution...

[haymes]

Sorry guys but I have had other hardware problems. However, here is the current status. I have a SB Live Value, P4, 1.5GHZ, 512 Ram. I am using the Xtasy Everything 5564. I have tried both the mic and line inputs and tried going through the green box and straight through. There are not setting for 44.1 KHZ vs 48. That is annoying because when I finally want to make DVD's I will have to user conversion software for the sound to be sure. Like DVD IT. Anyway, I am using Windows XP, the lates drivers for WINDVR. My brother's RCA Progressive scan play the vcd's with good sound out of the front speakers, but garbled sound through the rear speakers, so he shuts them off. Lately I have been using high capture rates, such as 1800 and 2048 but neither helps. I am under the impression that our sound cards may be at fault. My friend with a really high end sound card gets great sound, but he is using that USB capture device that tiger direct sells. His video isn't as good as mine in VCD. I am having other issues with my PC such as the case shorting out or something so I haven't been able to do much testing now. Keep me posted.

[haymes]

I think I found a solution. Up your audio bitrate to over 300, perhaps 324 or the default next setting. I did this and the background noise seems to have disappeared. Also, I think that if you are you using soundplaster live value or anything in that league, you are at a disadvantage. These cards are not optimal for this application. Get a FULL duplex card and use that. Perhaps the external one made by Crystal. I think this will cure it. However, upping the bit rate works on all of my dvd players and ALMOST rids the unwanted sound.

[haubrija]

Ok guys, I found a solution (a better one) days ago but the forum hasn't been online so i haven't been able to share

Now, when I do my captures, I later framserve with dvd2avi then encode at whatever bitrate I like or resize for svcd ... i figure this is what you all are doing too... if not you can still use this method, just demux the mpeg audio (.mpa) track using dvd2avi and follow the method.

1. Download BeSweet and the BeSweet Gui here.

http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Audio/BeSweetv1.2rc2.zip

http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Audio/BeSweetGUIv0.6b15.rar

2. Point the Gui toward your commandline BeSweet upon opening it.

3. Hit the input button toward the top and load your .mpa audio file you demux in dvd2avi.

4. Hit the output button right under it and specify and name and save it as .mp2.

5. At the main page, hit the check box for Use MPA Decoder

6. Under the 2lame drop down box seclect MP2 on the right.

7. Set your delay. For example if dvd2avi gave you a file that said:

Test.MPA T01 DELAY -85ms Then you would click the check box under OTA Options for delay and put 85 in the field.

8. Also Under OTA, check Gain and then Auto Gain.

Next On the far right (in the grey boxes) hit the grey button for 2lame and specify your bitrate, your encoding mode and add error protection.

9. You can also change your sampling rate if you wish with SSRC if you wish but really not necessary unless making a DVD-R.

10. Hit the BeSweet button in the grey box and then hit MPA to MP2 and it will convert your shitty MPA to an MP2.

This solves it. Lots of SVCD's created now using this with no garbling whatsoever. I thought of this as a possible solution when trying to play and mpa with winamp... I remeber it being very garbly and I wondered if my player was having a similar problem. I don't know if this is the reason, but I really don't care since this solves it. It really is an uncomplicated method, even if what I wrote above looks daunting... try it and I'm sure it will solve your problems.

Any questions post in this thread and I'll try to remember to check it from time to time