Issues with editing

[fuzzypants]

hello I capture some shows from my dvr and no matter what program I use (mpeg video wizard, Avidemux 2.5). I capture in mpeg (via capdvhs) and when I edit the commericals out I get massive sync issues. Sometimes its good for 10-15 mins other times its straight off the bat out of sync. Ive been reading the forms and have a hunch to why I'm getting things out of sync so bad. Heres what I think

I'm working on an older laptop that my brother use to use so there's codec packs and standalone codecs
which I think is messing things up. Should I uninstall the codecs and reinstall the ones I need?

would this make a difference? By the way I capture it in HD virtual dub (and virtualdubmpeg2 or whatever its called) wont read the files at all

[fuzzypants]

anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

[aedipuss]

what format so you capture to? use mediainfo and copy and paste a text view of one of the captured files.

[redwudz]

Old codec packs can cause problems. Unfortunately they don't always uninstall cleanly. But I would remove them anyway. If you have the restore discs for the LT, better would probably be to start over with a clean install of the OS and programs. If the computer has had a lot of programs installed and removed in the past, there is likely a lot of residual 'junk' left on it that can affect performance.

But start by removing the packs. You may also be able to use some codec programs that can find and remove broken or duplicate codecs if they are causing problems.

Last question: What is the format of your problem video?

If it's a highly compressed format like Divx/XviD/H.264 it could have variable rate audio which can sometimes cause sync problems when editing or encoding to other formats.

Or the problem may be not be cutting on keyframes. If you cut anywhere else, you can have sync problems. Unfortunately, those highly compressed formats aren't really made for editing and only have keyframes about every 300 or so frames, so frame accurate cutting is very difficult.

You can get around that by re-encoding or using or converting to a more edit friendly codec. VirtualDub can also do 'Smart rendering' with some codecs where only the cut area is re-encoded. This saves a lot of time compared to a full re-encode.

[fuzzypants]

General
ID : 1
Complete name : D:\testtest.mpg
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 5.05 GiB
Duration : 1h 0mn
Overall bit rate : 12.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 1984 (0x7C0)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Duration : 1h 0mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 10.8 Mbps
Nominal bit rate : 38.8 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.174
Stream size : 4.54 GiB (90%)

Audio
ID : 1985 (0x7C1)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Duration : 1h 0mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Video delay : -509ms
Stream size : 165 MiB (3%)
Language : English

Text #1
ID : 1984 (0x7C0)608-1
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : EIA-608
Muxing mode : MPEG Video / EIA-708
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 1h 0mn
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Text #2
ID : 1984 (0x7C0)608-0
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : EIA-608
Muxing mode : MPEG Video / EIA-708
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 1h 0mn
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Text #3
ID : 1984 (0x7C0)1
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : EIA-708
Muxing mode : MPEG Video / EIA-708
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 1h 0mn
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

I uninstalled all my codecs and currently just have free divx and xvid..I'm looking to encode the mpeg into a h.264 mkv most shows are an hour and they come out to around 40-42 mins without commercials what would be a good size for the video?