audio synch problems no matter what i do.......

[loco63]

im getting frustrated here. ive tried everything i can think of and keep getting the same audio synch problems, no matter what program i use.

im trying to convert my home movies from vhs to dvd. ive used my dv camera to get the files from vhs to my computer as really nice .avi files.

the .avi files look fantastic on my comp, i mean beautiful. as soon as i convert them to dvd, the audio is out of synch.

ive tried, ulead products, roxio products, nero express, dvd santa and tmpgenc express. i dont really care for the tmpgenc as its way to cumbersome for me.

this entire process has now cost me a good amount of money, tons of time and major aggrevation.

my computer should have plenty of power for this operation, its a pentium 3 with 512k ram and two 12gb hard drives.

any suggestions ?

i appreciate the help.....

[mats.hogberg]

If the AVI looks nice, take a read of some of the AVI to DVD guides found left. Stay clear of "black box" applications like most of those you've tried, if nothing else just because they make it nearly impossible to pinpoint what goes wrong.

/Mats

[wwjd]

loco63,

Are you sure the audio is in sync when it comes out of your camera? I tried exactly what you are doing a while back and I found that the audio coming out of the DV camera was not sync'd with the video.

The other thing that I have found is that if you are doing any editing of the video it is best to do the editing while it is still an .avi.

In the end however I ended up purchasing an ADVC-100 anolog to digital converter from Canopus. I have converted over 30 home video vhs tapes to DVD without a single sync issue. The ADVC-100 locks the audio and video in sync. It essentially does what your DV camera is doing BUT it locks the audio.

For editing and authoring I use Ulead Video Studio 8. Good user interface, easy to use, fast and with very little if any degradation of the picture.

wwjd

[mpojeep]

Hi,
I also had this problem until I visited a site (forgot where it was) that guided me into tweaking my OS for video editing.Basically this guide turned off anything that was running in the background and not essential to the integrity of the operating system.(Ex: screen saver,power management,etc..)
This system is not networked nor connected to any connection(be it broadband or dial-up)--just a standalone(just to elimanate anything that might contribute to any audio sync problems).

My system info for video editing:
AMD Athlon XP 2600+
768 MB of memory
Windows 2K with service pack 4(NT partitioned)
2 120GB Hdd(one used for OS and one used exclusively for video editing)
Studio Version 8 with the latest patch

Maybe someone here could point you a video tweaking site.
Good Luck!

[thecoalman]

loco63,
In the end however I ended up purchasing an ADVC-100 anolog to digital converter from Canopus. I have converted over 30 home video vhs tapes to DVD without a single sync issue. The ADVC-100 locks the audio and video in sync. It essentially does what your DV camera is doing BUT it locks the audio.

A dv cam works the same way the canopus does, there should be no sync issues at least as far as compared to the canopus. Of course if it's out of sync when it's coming out of the cam it would just be "locking" it in the wrong spot.

Quick question, are playing the out of sync video on a standalone DVD player or your computer. I've had occasional audio glitches when playing in the preview, media player etc. This never affected the sync on the final DVD in a standalone.

Another question, have you tried playing the AVI after you capture it to see if the audio is in sync? Never heard of an issue such as Loco63 suggested but guess it could be possible.

Third, does your capture software report dropped frames? DV is very easy to capture but.....

[wwjd]

I agree with thecoalman that the DV camera should work the same as the ADVC-100. However, I personally have experienced passing good in sync video through a DV cam corder only to have it be out of sync when transferred to my HD. Not all cam corders are equal or do all of them function as intended. I do not know if it is hype or what but one of the claims to fame by Canopus for the ADVC-100 is that the proprietory chip set insures audio sync lock.

One other comment is that you should NOT be capturing the DV
data. You should simply be downloading it to your HD. Make sure you are NOT re-encoding it before it is stored on your HD. I suggest using WinDV, a small simple freeware app that makes transferring DV data to your HD bullet proof.

wwjd

[loco63]

thanks for all the replies. im still working on this issue. ive spent most of my day so far trying to figure this out. so far, i have narrowed it down to the actual conversion. the audio is synced when on the dv camera and on the .avi file. i have been editing in windows movie maker and re-rendering a clean avi with no sync issues.

now, once i use a conversion program like roxio, nero express, ulead movie studio, dvd santa, pinnacle, tmpgenc express (yes, ive tried them all) the output is not synced. ive tried writing to my hard drive, then burning, and ive tried burning on the fly.

so, it seems to me, that something is allowing the audio and vid to come out sync during conversion from avi to dvd files.

id love to know the program mentioned by mpojeep used to tweak the os. im starting to think this could be my problem.....

[thecoalman]

id love to know the program mentioned by mpojeep used to tweak the os. im starting to think this could be my problem.....

Twekaing is only required when you have issues with dropped frames or wish to accelerate the rendering process. Tweaking isn't going to help your issue, least as far as I know.

Try this. You said you have Ulead, I'm assuming Video Studio 8. Anyhow whatever it is use that app for the entire process from capture to burn. You don't have to encode to AVI after you make your edits. The ideal way to do it is capture to AVI, use your AVI's in the editor as source files then encode or burn to disc. Don't use Movie Destroyer, it's a piece of crap.

[Matt D]

I will second Coalman's opinion of "Movie Destroyer". Delete it, it's useless.

As far as TMPGEnc, it's not cumbersome! Learn to love it's options!

How is it out of sync? Constant rate say 1 or 2 seconds or does it slip out farther and farther over time? TMPGEnc has a feature to offset audio which easily solves the first kind of sync problems.

I know these issues suck, but each time you conquer one it's that much easier next time.

[loco63]

thanks.

it starts off perfectly in sync. i get some very fast and hardly noticible jumpyness. from that point forward, the audio gets increasingly more and more out of sync.....

[loco63]

i had some sucess last night. needless to say, i was very happy !

i transferred an old vhs to my dv. transfered the vid using roxio capture, edited in windows movie maker, encoded using roxio dvd builder.

then i used my zone alarm pro to shut down all internet traffic. used the process manager to close all unused programs.

viola ! my first sucessful movie. all audio and video was in sync.

thanks to everyone for all the suggestions.