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  1. Member
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    May 2007
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    Hello all. I have many video tapes that i've been attemping to transfer to DVD. It's a never-ending process. Sometimes i run into pitfalls, like my latest one. The audio has lots of clicks and pops, as well as loud scratchy noises. Are there any fiilters out there that i can download that will alleviate them, or at least minimize them? Please let me know. I was thinking an alternative would be to record the audio portion of the tape, and then after that, record the video portion, and then put them together using virtualdub or something. Like maybe the audio is being screwy because of my video capture software. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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  2. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Yes indeed, capturing (VHS, audio, analog, etc) tape to digital is a never ending process with many pitfalls. Sigh. Once I finally get it done, which is hopefully soon, remind me to never use the format ever again, even if I go back in time.

    I can't say capturing both audio and video at the same time is causing this problem unless you have a very slow computer. You may have a bad player, or doing something else wrong, or maybe capturing too loud and the audio is clipping, causing all kinds of bad sounds. VirtualDub is great software, and if you're using it right with a decent computer, you shouldn't have problems.

    But if you want to try it separately, capture the video with VirtualDub, and disable audio capture (Audio -> disable "Enable audio capture") and capture with audio separately with a tool like Audacity (in wave) and mux with AVI-Mux GUI. See if that helps.

    Or you can get a better playback unit. Maybe your VCR has bad audio output, or the settings are wrong (maybe you have Hi-Fi enabled for baseband?)

    If that doesn't help, you can try and tackle the audio stream directly by cleaning it. There are many things you can try, but for starters try Audacity.

    The key to eliminating hums/clicks/hisses/clicks/pops/etc, or any such nuisance, is finding a section of the audio that only has these artifacts, such as what would be a quiet few seconds otherwise. This way you isolate the noise, and tell the noise removal software what exactly you want removed, without removing anything else, such as music or voices, etc.

    With Audacity,
    -Load your audio stream.
    -Find as big a "quiet" space as you can (with only the noise).
    -Highlight it.
    -Effect->Noise Removal->Get Noise Profile.
    -Now highlight your whole audio stream (Control A).
    -Apply the effect to the whole stream now: Effect->Noise Removal (with your settings).
    -Click OK.

    Hopefully that works, or makes a big improvement. As for the settings - experiment. Try different combos. In my experience, you don't need very high values.
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  3. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Another thing. Maybe you captured the tapes with bad tracking, and it could be tricky.

    There was a situation where some of my tapes captured with bad audio. The original recording VCR was long dead, so couldn't use it. The video was fine, but the audio sucked.

    Played with the tracking. Fixed the audio, but the video sucked now.

    This was one case where I had to capture the streams separately and mux together.

    Try your tapes again with different tracking settings.
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  4. Member
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    Thank you, Puzzler!! I did capture the tapes with wi-fi enabled. Now i will re-capture with wi-fi disabled. it should work better, because it was a long time since i had last captured, and i forgot that l had to turn wi-fi off, as it's always worked fine that way. Thanks again!
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  5. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    Dec 2006
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    If you're out to do some major audio repairs, be they clicking, popping, hiss, crackle, clipping or even someone yelling "WHAT THE HELL" out of nowhere, check Izotope Rx. It's a great suite of very powerful filtering tools. Not free, but excellent.
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