HELP! How do I rescue DV footage recorded in LP?

[weshuang]

I stupidly paid attention to Sony's advertising, which attempts to justify the premium prices charged for their premium tapes by, among other things, stating that it is ideal for LP recording. What they don't tell you is how disastrous a mistake it can be to record in LP to begin with.

My problem is that I can't seem to do anything with the audio track recorded on a tape that I recorded in LP. I am desparately trying to save the footage, which is 90 minutes of home movies, by either archiving it to DVD, or archiving it back to DV tape in SP. However, when I try to split the avi file, the sound track gets very staticky, to the point of being unlistenable. Furthermore, when I try to encode to m2v+ac3, I get audio that is completely screwed up.

Can anyone suggest a way for me to save this footage?

[JEEPn]

When you play the DV tape to watch it does it play fine?

[weshuang]

When you play the DV tape to watch it does it play fine?

Well, it did, but the worst part of this is that I have since recorded over the original LP footage. I used it in one of my failed attempts to record back in SP. I figured since I had an avi that seemed fine, that I had no reason to keep the taped footage.

I believe that all I have at this point are:

1) a 90 minute .avi which seems fine but gives me problem when I try to encode it or split it.

2) the first 60 minutes of the footage on tape in SP, which I simply exported back to the tape in SP.

[troyvcd1]

you should be able to capture this ep tape on your computer. There should be no difference between the avi captured in ep or sp mode.

[weshuang]

you should be able to capture this ep tape on your computer. There should be no difference between the avi captured in ep or sp mode.

I think that I figured out what the problem was. I believe that the first few minutes of the original footage was recorded in 16 bit audio, while the rest of it was recorded in 12 bit audio. It is at that break that the wav file produced by TMPGenc gets screwed up.

This must be what is giving Ulead VS problems when I'm trying to split and resave the avi file. Is there any way that I can take an avi file, a portion of which is in 16 bit audio, and a portion of which is in 12 bit audio, and put humpty dumpty back together again?

[proxyx99]

Soundblaster Live has a feature called "record what you hear". You can play your footage and at the same time record it to a separate wav file. Then you are free to encode it to AC3. If you open the file in any NLE (even Pinnacle Studio) you should be able to save audio to a wav file or export it as a separate audio track.

[weshuang]

Soundblaster Live has a feature called "record what you hear". You can play your footage and at the same time record it to a separate wav file. Then you are free to encode it to AC3. If you open the file in any NLE (even Pinnacle Studio) you should be able to save audio to a wav file or export it as a separate audio track.

I am using Ulead VS6, which I'm assuming is an "NLE", whatever that is. It can indeed save audio to a wav file and use different sampling rate settings. The problem is, I think, that I created the entire avi file from footage that mixed 16 bit with 12 bit DV tape. I think it is essentially confused. No manner of fooling around yields me a decent audio on the portion that was 12 bit, so far.

[proxyx99]

Get Mainconcept Mainactor 5 and try again. Split into 2 wav and join them later (split the whole Avi into 12 bit and 16 bit sections along the change of audio format - as it was recorded - and you will have no problem).

[adam]

Just for your info, NLE means non-linear editor. It means its a timeline editor that lets you move things around in time and add transitions and such, rather than just cut pieces out here and there.