problem while capturing vhs video

[ricardouk]

Hi everyone!

i just bought a capture card to put my old vhs videos on dvd, as i am on a tight budget i bought this one:
http://www.aver.com/2005home/produc...go7/tvgo7.shtml

from what i read in several forums its best to capture to uncompressed avi and then use a dedicated program to convert it to MPeg2/dvd since most editing programs handle avi better than dvd while editing and the video quality is better

when i set it to capture to avi the audio is not in sync with the video but if i capture on the fly to dvd it is in sync, since quality is important to me and capturing to avi first will improve it i installed trial capture programs (virtualvcr, mainconcept encoder etc) but it seems the card doesnt like having other capture programs installed on my pc, because it would give out an error when initializing the program.

my last chance lies with mainconcept pvr.

my question is has anyone got any suggestion on what i should do?, should i settle for a on the fly dvd conversion?

to capture vhs video is ithe best to buy an external usb2 capture "box" or an internal one?

thanks

Ricardo

[skeg64]

what is the error coming from virtualVCR? Have you checked windows device manager to see if all the capture devices are functioning?

[ricardouk]

virtual vcr doesnt is unable to display the video that is being fed to the capture card.

do i have to open the software supplied with the card to capture with other programs, i tried virtual dub and ulead and they only seemed to capture with when the card software was "open"

Thanks

[thecoalman]

Have you looked for any updates on the manufacturers website? For both the drivers and the software. As a general rule the software supplied with the card is usually the best software to use for capture.

from what i read in several forums its best to capture to uncompressed avi

Use either Huffy or a DV codec. Uncompressed is not needed. That probably won't fix any sync issues....

[ricardouk]

Have you looked for any updates on the manufacturers website?

im downloading the updates now, will try them when i get home tonight and post something back.

Thanks a lot

[mpiper]

I would try capturing to MJPEG using Morgan mjpg codec set at the max quality. This is an incredible space hog, but less than uncompressed. It is a CPU friendly codec, can compress fast, and the low CPU usage helps with audio sync issues. PicVideo's MJPEG is alse very good and only $14

The most common problem with sync issues is using a separate audio card to capture the audio while a separate PCI card captures the video, and the software multiplexes the two streams together. Since different card have slightly different clock rates, the streams do not match exactly.

My solution for the same problem was that I bought a PCI card with a separate breakout box (Pinnacle Studio Plus 700 PCI). I hate Pinnacle's software, but I only use it to capture, then Premiere to edit. Having a single PCI card for full capture ensures the same chipset clock and keeps the two streams in sync much better than other solutions I tried (Including an Avermedia card and two other brands).

Good luck and I recommend staying away from USB if you want the best quality on a realtime capture. Try dedicated PCI cards (like I did) or a firewire capture box. Their bandwidth is higher.

Mike