Warbling Audio Problems with Hollywood-DV Bridge

[motoed]

I'm using a Dazzle Hollywood-DV Bridge and I'm having a weird capture problem. I'm using the bridge to capture from an analog (Hi-8) camera, not sure if that's contributing to this problem or not.

I'm ocassionally getting audio that has a sort of "synthisized warble" effect to it. At first, it was happening with clips that were REALLY overexposed. But now it's happening with "normal" exposure clips too. It's rather random and doesn't seem like there is a pattern to it so I'm not sure what might be going on.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to correct this? If I play the clips straight from the camera...the audio is fine, so the source footage doesn't have the problem.

I appreciate any advice anyone has, this one sort of stumps me.

-Ed

[Dragonsf]

Is this "warbling" effect accompanied with or after bad frames? And is this effect on both stereo channels or just one (always right or always left)?
If so, that's a sync/PC problem.
I'm having this problem in every footage, but with the new model not so often (about 1 per 5 Minutes on not so good quality input). My solution: cut them out, because normally they last just 1 or two frames.I recéntly wrote a program, which let me find all this audio errors and let the ULEAD viedeo editor cut them.

[motoed]

I belive the problem is in stereo... It's almost like it's a crackling.

I'm using a Hi-8mm camera to import and the clips look like really clean captures with no apparent bad frames and the audio lasts for the entire clip length. So my only choice is to not use the entire clip. I'll try a recapture and see if it does it again.

I'm using MainActor for capture and editting (yeah... I'm not pleased with it...but it's all I got until I can get Premiere.)

Thanks.

Ed

[Dragonsf]

First of all, use DVApp for capturing (free downloadable from Microsoft). Second, be sure to use all the hint from dazzle for capturing setup.
Maybe your HW model is the old one (which had in fact the problems you described).You can find a thread at the mainconcept english forum about this topic.

[motoed]

I tried to find DVApp on Microsoft.com and had no luck. Any clue on a link for it?

I'll be sure to check the HW model deal. I have that forum bookmarked.

I'm not sure what you mean about "all the hint from Dazzle" though. Could you be a little more specific on that? What hints do you refer too? I thought I was doing all I could, but perhaps I missed a few things.

Thanks for your help so far, I appreciate it!

Ed

[Dragonsf]

Here we go:
1. DVApp is part of the DirektX 8.x SDK. If this is too big for downloading (about 100MB), email me and I'll send it to you
2. Goto to www.dazzle.com, then support and look for the keyword (meta-id) 41:
http://scmmicro.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/scmmicro.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=YUzL1K...p_new_search=1

But first of all: look at the number on your HW.If you don't find any X, you probably got the old FW Version, which clearly produced such audio effects without bad frames.

[motoed]

I took a look at the Dazzle notes and I'll do that and try it again...

I also took note of my HW version.. it's HW1X2. So, sounds like I have the new one that.

I took close note tonight when capturing some new clips (using Premiere... I upgraded) The warble happens anytime something that's a bright white is in frame, no matter how small it might be. There could be a person with a white t-shirt, somwhat in frame, and the warble starts... person steps out of frame... no warble. Bright Sky, forget it. Massive warble. And of course, with the DV-Bridge, there is no correction settings prior to going into the bridge to white balance the source down a little.

Sounds like I'm stumped unless I get a mixer board of somekind. UNGH... I'm hoping there's anothe solution.

Thanks!

-Ed

(by the way, I posted this message on the MainActor board... got a reply that the message was replied to and when I got to the site, I found they'd removed the message for some reason. Odd... I must say, to anyone reading this, I've NEVER had as many problems as I have with this product.... Unless you count MSN and the software modem that came with my PC. I feel very fortunate that I'm very computer literate or I'd have been SUPER frustrated.)

[Dragonsf]

Ed,
could you please send me some seconds of your warbled audio as .wav?I'll look at it to see, if it's the same problem, that I had before the replacement.
Claus

[motoed]

I thought I'd share with the group.... I tried my captures again this evening using Premiere and it works fine now. No more audio warble on clips that I couldn't get it to stop doing in MainActor.

If you have the DV-Bridge and are at least half-way serious about doing any sort of quality editing. Get Premiere!

-Ed

[TechJunkie]

You've got company with your problem. Have a Hi-8 analog camcorder.

I called the problem "pixelized sound". It's intermittent.

Also, I've experienced frames dropping at scene changes. What happens is that the last frame of the scene I'm watching freezes and the sound from the next scene can be heard. Having lost many frames from the next scene, the picture suddenly appears and is perfectly synch'd with the sound.

Are you experiencing this as well as the sound problem?

[Dragonsf]

Yes, I experimented this problem with freezed frames before, but after cleaning my HD completely and setting the 3D acceleration 1 tick left, never again.Now I get "only" bad frames with zero audio "´frames" about 1/min (on good video source even direct from sat)