Creative Labs - Video Blaster DVCR - Audio/Video Sync Solved

[LanceStoltz]

I recently purchased the Creative Labs - Video Blaster DVCR. I was looking for a capture card that would transfer my old VHS tapes/VHS-C/Hi8 tapes to SVCD. I cam across the DVCR at and liked the idea of the onboard Mpeg-2 Encoder chip. The TV options were also intriguing as well for the price. On the box it claimed the card could capture at the highest setting, 640x480. I would have preferred DVD res but this would do for my intents and purposes.

When I got home I installed it into my PC and had really no problems. I figured out the software pretty quickly, and was capturing almost within the hour.

Immediately I was VERY impressed by the picture quality, and the smoothness of captures at the highest setting ( I have a P2 500mhz computer, so I thought this might be an issue.) Unfortunately to my dismay I found the software only encoded the audiio at 32khz, and Creative Labs had there on proprietary Mpeg-2 format.

After completing a bunch of captures I began to experiment with -conversion from the proprietary format to a Mpeg-2 format my Apex-1200 could read. This involoved chaning the audio sampling from 32khz to 44.1khz, and creating a READABLE Mpeg-2 (Not just readable by Windows Media PLayer, which the proprietary format reads perfectly.)

This is where the problems began.... My first inclination was to load the proprietary Mpeg-2 into TMPGenc and encode it with my personal SVCD settings. TMPGenc would not read the file, and would say "Uknown file." So ten I decided to frameserve with DVD2AVI take the D2V file and encode it with TMPGenc along with the audio file. I noticed that the audio was offset. I put in the proper audio delay in the source range, in TMPGenc and the output file was out of sync. This confused my because the original DVCR encoded MPEG-2 played fine, with the A/V in sync. I was at a loss and began thinking about returning the card and getting the Pinnacle Studio card. I decided to give it the weekend and see if I could get the audio in sync. I read TONS of messages about this card all over the interernet and solutions on how to bring the audio in sync. One solution was to install the Ligos codecs, people were installing Uleads Movie Factory, and having luck. This didn't make much sense to me because I had purchased DVD Movie Factory awhile ago and had it installed already. Another solution was PVAStrumento.

PVAStrumento would analyze and correct the DVCR Mpeg-2 file, dropping tons of frames and putting the audio in sync. It worked but the Demuxed results encoded again by TMPGenc made the video choppy and all screwed up. However the audio was in sync. So this would NOT do.

I read an post saying that if you Demuxed the file and then uncompressed the MPEG audio to wav and then encoded the A/V would be in sync with DVCR files, this NEVER worked either.

I read a post that said that if you framserved the MPEG-2 DVCR file with DVD2AVI, then checked the audio offset with PVAStrumento's Info button on the origianl file, and compensated with that in Source Range in TMPGenc, and reencoded using the D2V and the MPA file with the PVAStrumento's audio offset (usually 80+ ms) then the A/V would be in sync. This did NOT work, I even tried decompressing and everything, still out of sync.

Now through my frustrations I FINALLY found a good way of making perfect VCD's SVCD's, Etc, with the DVCR! I stumbled on this a couple days ago by chance and it works EVERYTIME, I have about 20 captures of all sizes, from 20 mins, to 1 hr+ and the A/V is always in sync. What you need is an old copy of TMPGenc. I happened to have an old copy called TMPGenc12. I guess it may be version 1.2 not sure, but this works only with this version.

1. Capture Audio and Video with DVCR any setting

2. Output using DVCR conversion program to DVCR Mpeg-2

2. Use PVAStrumento to Demux into seperate Audio and Video files (MPV, and MPA)

3. Load the MPV file into TMPGENC12 under video, and load the MPA file under audio. Do whatever you want to the Video settings (You can put any Resolution any bitrate anything, NOTHING will happen to the video during encoding! It stays the same as the output file BEFORE even putting it through PVAStrumento (WIERD!)) The AUDIO is what will change, so change audio settings from 32khz to 44.1. Start encoding. The encoding process should FLY, because only the Audio is being changed! I don't know why this is, I think it is a bug in TMPGenc12, but it works to DVCR users advantage.

4. Take output file (which is IDENTICAL to the DVCR converted original Mpeg-2, except the audio is now 44.1k) and framserve using DVD2AVI making seperate Audio and Video files. Make sure you change the audio to MPEG audio in DVD2AVI

5 Take D2V file put it in Video in TMPGenc12, and take MPA file and put it in audio, and change video settings to whatever you are encoding to (VCD, SVCD etc) and ENCODE!

6. Output file is in perfect sync!


This sounds like a lot of work, but it really is fast, the final encode in TMPGenc is the lengthy. Everyother step takes seconds, to a couple of minutes.

I have NO idea why this works. I don't know what TMPGenc12 takes outputed PVAStrumento file, when the newer versions don't (Atleast for me). I have no idea why TMPGenc does NOTHING to the PVAStrumento outputted file, yet reencodes the MPA file?

If anyone has any idea's why this is, I'd appreciate it, if not I hope this helps people who are having troubles like I did with the DVCR!

[lupsa]

Where can I find this version of TMPGenc ?
Everywhere I look I only see the latest versions.

[depechemodeone]

which version is it? tmpgenc 1.2 has several variations, I found d & e, but it doesn't seem to work the way you specified.

please let me know
thanks!

[thxkid]

You mean TPMGE 12a, My personal feelings, its the best out there never had a problem with it.

[lupsa]

Has anyone else tried this method?

I cannot get it to work as expected in the original post.
The encoding takes 10 hrs and is out of sync.

The best luck I've had is to just record it, export it, and burn it.
The Apex DVD I have takes the resulting XSVCD just fine but any other method doesn't really work every time. I've tried about 17 different methods that have been posted.

Thoughts?

Steve.

[Barnabas]

I tried virtually EVERYTHING when I had the Creative Labs Digital VCR, but the ONLY thing that worked without losing sync was re-encoding the file in TMPgenc.

[hotwings]

As far as converting digital blaster files, try vidomi (www.vidomi.com), it will convert to Divx, MSmepg4 v whatever or any avi format without sync probs and it even upsamples from 32 Khz to 44.1. As far as creative's Mpeg2 to mpeg2 standard, get the latest version of TMpgenc and select creative's output file (when you use file exporter), make sure that you select enable multiplexing under the general tab of the environmental settings. Then select the source file as your video, then as your audio source (yeah I had to do it for both). Mux away, I didn't have any probs with my output file. Only thing though is that MPEg2 seems to be limited for about a month without registration on tmpgenc.

[hotwings]

actually, scratch what I said about mpeg2 to mpeg2 conversion, haven't had much luck yet, but mpeg2 to mpeg1 works just fine.

[hotwings]

actually, scratch that again, as long as you make sure to select some kind of vbr for mpeg2 encoding your output should be able to play in some capable dvd player software, ie powerdvd.