ATI capture gradual sync loss (huffyuv)

[Craig1394]

Since my system stats are in my profile, i'll just get to the point.During a one hour capture from my DirecTV receiver (720x480 huffyuv, 44.1khz stereo 29.97 fps), the video and audio gradually lose sync.The sync loss is less than one second, but it is very annoying because it is enough to let my eyes and ears know something is very wrong. I have no idea what is happening because there are no dropped frames at all.This effect does not manifest itself on short captures like music videos or cartoon shorts.I have two main questions:
1.Would using a different capture program or codec help?
2.Could my soundcard be at fault, like poor clock speed or something like that?
Any help would of course be appreciated.

[Sartori]

You have the same motherboard as me , have you installed the latest VIA drivers and other drivers ? what program are you capping with , the Ati one gave me sync probs so I stopped using it and I use VDub with no probs now at all , also the obvious other things to check are UDMA turned on for the hd(s) , no question marks in the device manager , er... and the latest ati drivers . I read somewhere that for the latest 8.81 mmc if you have an Audigy souncard then you require a different set of drivers and mmc I think (might not apply to you , but if anyone else is reading) .

[vivisimonvi]

I have a very similiar problem (this very hour too I might add as I'm posting). My captures worked perfect using MMC 7.7 until I upgraded to MMC 8.1 (I also installed DirectX9 and WME9) on my Radeon 8500DV. I ran into a lot of problems during my encodings with TMPGenc. The audio synch was off, and my uncompressed AVI files locked up whenever I skim through it through the Source Range window (I didn't have this problem before). The captures seemed to be in synch (though only for about 10 minutes of recording I haven't tested longer recordings), but during encoding that's when it's off.

I might just roll back to MMC 7.7 and go from there... I'm not sure if it's that or DirectX that might be causing this.

Craig... have you used the PC Check utility in MMC?

[Craig1394]

Sartori: I do not have the latest Via drivers, although mine are not too old.I will upgrade the VIA drivers and try using vdub instead of the ATI capture software.My soundcard is a Hercules Game Theater XP 7.1.I noticed that Virtualdub is making constant adjustments to the audio timing, I wonder if this is the key to why it fixed your sync problems?Everything else you mentioned checks out ok.

vivisimonvi: I am using MMC 7.5 with Direct X 8.1 I might try changing the MMC version and see what happens there.The system check revealed that my soundcard's clock stability varies more than it should, but everything checks out ok.

Thank you both for the suggestions and the quick response.

[AngusMacGyver]

Hi!
If you don't need to schedule your captures, try VirtualDub to capture. It has a sync correction during the capture. I've had the same problem with MMC when I captured to AVI.

[vivisimonvi]

I rolled back to MMC 7.7... Things seemed to be ok, the AVI files I created didn't lock up with TMPGenc through the Source Range window. But... the sound was WAY off synch with the video right after the capture. I reinstalled DirectX 9.0a to make sure it was working properly (I forgot I did a roll-back system restore that might have deleted this previously as the save point I created was before I installed 9.0a the first time). Restarted, recaptured... the audio was actually in synch and even during the encoding!!!

But now a new ENTIRELY DIFFERENT problem was created... the MMC cap program drops frames like CRAZY!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRR!! No matter what problems I fix, an entirely new one is created...

[Sartori]

Sartori: I do not have the latest Via drivers, although mine are not too old.I will upgrade the VIA drivers and try using vdub instead of the ATI capture software.My soundcard is a Hercules Game Theater XP 7.1.I noticed that Virtualdub is making constant adjustments to the audio timing, I wonder if this is the key to why it fixed your sync problems?Everything else you mentioned checks out ok.

vivisimonvi: I am using MMC 7.5 with Direct X 8.1 I might try changing the MMC version and see what happens there.The system check revealed that my soundcard's clock stability varies more than it should, but everything checks out ok.

Thank you both for the suggestions and the quick response.

If you are capping from vhs especially it will adjust the clock , some people say that vdub goes out of sync , but for me it put everything back into sync . (virtualvcr is another that dynamically adjusts timing) . Old MMC apparently doesn`t adjust things - these files can play back and seem in sync but aren`t really in my experience , MMC 8 seems better at it than previous versions - BUT there is a topic on this board about things going really tits up after upgrading for me this worked:

This is what I did AFTER I followed the ATi upgrade instructions to the letter and things didn`t work - the 42k problem .

1.uninstall control panel
2.uninstall display driver
3.rebooting
4.installing tv-capture-wdm-6-14-01-6178v1.exe
5.installing wxp-w2k-radeon-7-81-021218a-007192c-efg.exe
6.rebooting
7.install control-panel-7-81-021218a-007192c-efg.exe
8.rebooting
9.everything works (for me)

After all this , I still capture in VDub , cos its lovely .

[rayban]

This is what I did AFTER I followed the ATi upgrade instructions to the letter and things didn`t work - the 42k problem .

1.uninstall control panel
2.uninstall display driver
3.rebooting
4.installing tv-capture-wdm-6-14-01-6178v1.exe
5.installing wxp-w2k-radeon-7-81-021218a-007192c-efg.exe
6.rebooting
7.install control-panel-7-81-021218a-007192c-efg.exe
8.rebooting
9.everything works (for me)

After all this , I still capture in VDub , cos its lovely .

Do I really need to install the control-panel on my ATI AIW 128 Pro in order to capture or is this optional? I'm confused as to whether or not I need to load it since it would lock up my screen savers and would cause hangs on my machine. Thanks for any input.

[Sartori]

It was me that put in the instructions , the MMC8.1 is apparently for ATi Radeons only - I don`t know if older boards are supported at all .
The instructions refer to how I got MMC8.1 working after it fXXXXd up my capturing they`re not the install instructions - the ATi site has those on the front end page of the download page for the various programs . NB MMC8.1 requires DX9 and Window Encoder 9 as well BEFORE all the ATi stuff .

A big point of note on that list is that I reinstall older drivers and they get MMC8.1 working properly .

As far as I`m aware the control panel doesn`t need to be loaded to capture .

[Craig1394]

Wow, this same issue was causing another problem I was having.Both issues are fixed now that I am capturing with Vdub and NOT the ATI software.I posted about the first issue in the authoring section.https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=153034 I was incorrectly blaming Huffyuv for the trouble in both cases and I was in general way off on the true cause.Anyway, all is good now.

[Joseph Vigo]

I am going to try capping with VirtualDub instead now. Seems to have less Synch problems.