I'm soooo tired - Audio/Video still out of sync

[Baltazar]

Well, I'm trying to capture some old VHS PAL recordings to my MSI G4 ti-4400... I have recently upgraded my PC from P2 400MHz to a new motherboard (Abit IC7-G), P4 2,4GHz and from 384mb SDRAM to 512mb DDRAM. Earlier I had no problem capturing with both VirtualDub and iuVCR. But now when capturing with PICVideo MJPEG codec I have hundreds of frames dropped for one hour in VirtualDub (but perfect audio/video sync though) and audio/video out of sync in iuVCR (even if I checked "sync using stream offset" which worked perfectly with my old P2 computer, iuVCR droppes no frames though, guess it's because of the native WDMdrive which my graphicscard and iuVCR uses).

I'm capturing in 640x480 because I'm going to encode it with DivX 5.0.5 to DivX format. Capturing PCM sound. And I'm only using 20% of the CPU capacity at max.

Any ideas? I'm going bananas...

Please don't tell me to split the audio/video into two files, I have much to many hours to capture to have the time to do that. Besides, my P2 managed to capture without any audio/sync error or dropped frames issues.

[tito13kfm]

Sounds like the old computer forced your h/d back to PIO mode.

Go to your device manager (right click my computer.. hell if you upgraded your computer you can find it)
Go down to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. Delete those entries, reboot, when they are reinstalled on reboot right click on them, properties, Advanced settings, make sure DMA if available is checked.. also make sure that it isn't forced off in your bios or anything strange like that.

Um.. make sure you also have the newest mobo drivers installed.. Assuming VIA chipset.. you need the newest 4-in-1 drivers from their website.. I know this can make a world of difference.

You don't say which cap. card you are using (EDIT: Yes you do), but of course make sure newest drivers are installed (or try older ones..) If it's based on the Bt8xx series of boards try the WDM Video Capture drivers ( btwdmdrvinstaller5.3.5.zip ) (those made a world of difference for me, went from 5000+dropped frames per hour to about 3.)

Um.. defrag, scandisk, reformat.. send your PC plus $500 to my address and I'll fix it for you

I'm running out of ideas.. but one of these might work for you.

[Baltazar]

Thanks for all your suggestions


- IDE1, Primarychannel is already set to UltraDMA (my harddrive)

- "newest mobo drivers installed" - I've installed the latest drivers for my motherboard here: http://www.abit.com.tw/page/se/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php?pMODEL_NAME=IC7-G&fM...RODINFO=Driver
Except for:
* The USB 2.0 driver which was only for W98/ME or W2k servicepack 4 (I didn't install thoose extra ports anyway coz I have no need for them).
* Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition v3.0 which is only for XP.
* Onboard LAN (Intel CSA Gigabit) v7.0.11.0 no need for it.

- I have tried both the old drivers (which worked fine earlier) and tried with upgraded drivers for my graphiccard, no difference.

- Defrag - Can do that but I have a NTFSpartition so I don't think it'll help. Scandisk - Sure. Reformat - Hopefully I won't need that.

I don't think my problem is a hardware issue but a software issue.
Any other thoughts?

One more thing... In VirtualDub there's something called Audio/VT adjust when capturing. I'm positive this is the one making the audio/video in perfect sync when capturing with VirtualDub. Is it possible with iuVCR?

[Baltazar]

I just captured 1 hour from a bought videotape and lost only 10 frames with VirtualDub and perfect audio/video sync so I guess the loss of frames also depends on the sourcequality... STILL I CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY I'M LOOSING ANY FRAMES AT ALL CONSIDERING I'M ONLY USING 20% (AT MAX) OF THE CPU!!!

Dunno why iuVCR can't sync the audio/video though...

Is 300 dropped frames for 1 hour acceptable or does that show in a capture?

[Baltazar]

Hello? Help?

[fmctm1sw]

I guess the loss of frames also depends on the sourcequality... STILL I CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY I'M LOOSING ANY FRAMES AT ALL CONSIDERING I'M ONLY USING 20% (AT MAX) OF THE CPU!!!

Dunno why iuVCR can't sync the audio/video though...

Is 300 dropped frames for 1 hour acceptable or does that show in a capture?

Yes. Do a search on TBC (time base corrector). I am beginning to believe it is a necessary piece of the VHS capturing puzzle.

[spectroelectro]

The TBC suggestion is excellent. Many VHS capture problems can be solved with a TBC. That said, some m'boards simply cause VirtualDub to misbehave. In fact, somewhere around 1/3 of the total cries for help on this forum come form people who are having problems with VirtualDub -- usually during video capture.
Because VirtualDub is so prone to misbehaviour during video capture I would not use it capture video. Use some other program. Ulead Media Studio 6 works very well, Adobe Premiere requires lots of horsepower (but you have it now with a P4 2.4) and works great also, and AVI_IO works very well too. VirtualDubMod seems to work flawlessly when opening AVI or MPEG-2 files but none of the VirtualDub mods seem to work reliably across a variety of m'boards/OSs for capturing video. This is due to the unfortunate legacy drivers: Avery Lee originally wrote VDub for VFX drivers and now Windows uses WDM, and this has caused endless complications for VirtualDub video capture.
I have a cheap-o LeadTek video card as well as a more high-quality Canopus ADVC-100, and I always capture video from the LeadTek with the built in LeadTek PVR software. No frames ever get dropped. When I capture with VDub or virtualVCR or any of the other freeware cap apps I typically get dropped frames, sync loss, and other problems. Your mileage may vary.

[lordsmurf]

Maybe its time for a better card.

[Baltazar]

Time for a new card? Nah!

TBC?