Novice at Capture, using Diamond VC500 - Hi8 - need help with format, etc.

[BlackFive]

Hi all,

I've played around with Windows Movie Maker over the years - and finally have the confidence to try to preserve / edit some of my old Hi8 tapes. To that end, I bought a Diamond VC500, watched some videos and suggestions, and tried what looked best - but my results are less than optimal. Thus, I need some advice.

First off - what capture format should I be using? I have two desired end results:

1) transferring the tape to DVD so I can preserve it / watch it in the future, and
2) editing parts of it (and several other tapes) to make a single DVD to share with the Marines I served with in Bosnia back in the '90s.

The first recording I did, I used MPEG 4 - which did not come out that great; some artifacting and sound delay (although that might have been a Windows Player issue...). Should I have used 'DVD" or "AVI" instead?

Second - is my setup acceptable? - I have the VC500 in a USB 2.0 slot, and the capture location going to the external drive, and I hear it working... in fact, as the tape got long (its a full length tape) I noticed some 'pausing' or delay in what I saw on the window of the Sony cam compared to what I saw on the screen - this was intermittent and looked like buffering.

I notice there are ZERO transitions (loaded the file into Movie Maker and it was one really big scene.
Do I need to do these manually, or have I missed a setting (Do I need transitions at all?)?
Should I first capture to the C Drive SSD then copy/paste the video capture to the external drive?

Finally - I've lost the burner software that came with the computer (due to reformatting HD & New OS) - what burner software do you guys recommend? And, should I edit from the capture file or the DVD (once burnt)?

[JVRaines]

Regarding your first question, it's best to capture and edit uncompressed or losslessly-compressed video. (HuffYUV, Lagarith and UT are popular choices.) Don't use a lossy compressor (such as H.264 [MP4] or H.262 [DVD]) until you get to the last stage in your process.

[BlackFive]

Hmmm. Does the VC500 support one of those formats? I don't see them listed - are they listed under a different name?

[JVRaines]

These small SD cards send digitized but uncompressed A/V through the USB port. Compression happens in the bundled software (Ez Grabber, in this case). You'll need to manually install lossless codecs and use an app like VirtualDub (often buggy) or AmaRecTV for the capture.

[BlackFive]

Ah, so the initial problem is the bundled software, not the setup.

So, let me see if I have this correctly: I get a different capture program and use a uncompressed codec to copy the tape onto the hard drive via the VC 500.

okay, will look into those - what about my other questions?

[SameSelf]

...use an app like VirtualDub (often buggy)...

vdub "often buggy"? please elaborate.

[JVRaines]

Search "virtualdub audio sync." I have read every bit of advice and lore on the internet and still can't get VDub to capture audio in sync. It's always offset.

[SameSelf]

I suspected that was the problem after reading another post. Sounds like a deal killer, if you ask me. I hate to do an hour long cap test though just to see if the audio stays in sync.

[Tolwyn]

See my thread here:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/380255-Win7-Virtualdub-Capture-Issues-Diamond-VC500-USB-2-0

I can help or the thread can.

Use Virtual Dub and the Huffy codec for capture. THEN edit/recompress to final (if DVD, MPEG2, etc.).

[Tolwyn]

And yes, audio is always going to be off a little; but if you capture by changing the video framerate to match the audio stream, you only need to dial in some audio offset and you're good to go.

[SameSelf]

I saw your thread with the big SOLVED on it. In imho, that is more of a hack or workaround than a "solution" which in my mind means perfectly in-sync audio every time no matter how long the tape is, just like what my beloved ADVC300 produces.

I downloaded and successfully configured AmaRecTV as an alternative. Does anyone know if it has audio sync issues like vdub?

EDIT: And why huffyuv? Does the problem persist with lagarith or utvideo?

[Tolwyn]

Audio clock is fixed. Video captured over time in the form of frames are not necessarily "in time." It's not a hack, it's the reality of capturing video (hi-8, vhs, etc.) unless you are direct capturing DV (Firewire).

You have to choose whether or not to stretch audio to match the number of frames captured (or change the sample rate)
OR
change the framerate of video to match the audio.

It's pretty simple.

Unless the video is slaved to timecode and the audio is slaved to (the same) timecode, you will likely run into syncing issues. In a perfect world, they would MATCH, but in reality when capturing, there's no rule or law that would force them to.

A capture device is agnostic to timecode generally, it just captures and writes to your HD as it gets the data; but the streams are rarely in sync (unless you're capturing from a DV camera via firewire).

What is known is the number of frames in a captured clip.
A 20 minute clip at 29.97 frames per second would be ABOUT 35964 frames.

Audio isn't captured in frames. It's captured in samples at a specific sampling rate and bit depth. 48Khz
That same 20 minute clip for audio isn't measured in frames, it's measured in size.

48Khz sample rate * 16 bit * 2 channels =
1,536,000 bits per second or
1,500 bytes per second * 1200 seconds =
1757.8125 MB of audio data.

Two completely different timing mechanisms in play. Unless they are synced by a common clock.

[Tolwyn]

You can read another forum's post about your second question here:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/3548-best-capture-format.html#post17743

[SameSelf]

Thanks, that is a pretty dated thread. The reason I ask is because that huffman based codec hasn't been updated in more than a decade while utvideo is actively maintained, and I believe most have moved on to it for lossless encodes.

As for the audio sync issues, why doesn't the Canopus ADVC-300 have these problems?

[JVRaines]

I frankly don't have time to take every capture into Vegas and look for sync points in the audio waveform to determine the offset, then audition it several times to confirm dialog sync, then go back into Virtual Dub and remux it. That's just an insane waste of time. Now I capture with AmaRecTV, which, despite its somewhat weird Japanglish interface, gives me perfect audio sync every time.

[Tolwyn]

Obviously use what is right for your application.

[Tolwyn]

Are you able to even work with DV in Windows7?

[JVRaines]

There is no problem using DV-AVI in Windows 7. It comes with Microsoft's dvsd codec.

[SameSelf]

Now I capture with AmaRecTV, which, despite its somewhat weird Japanglish interface, gives me perfect audio sync every time.

Great, thanks. That is what I needed to know.

[Tolwyn]

There is no problem using DV-AVI in Windows 7. It comes with Microsoft's dvsd codec.

I'm afraid I do not believe you even in the slightest.

encoding and decoding?

Importing a captured DV stream say, from a Canopus ADVC100 device into Vdub?


Prove it.

[SameSelf]

There is no problem using DV-AVI in Windows 7. It comes with Microsoft's dvsd codec.

I'm afraid I do not believe you even in the slightest.

encoding and decoding?

Importing a captured DV stream say, from a Canopus ADVC100 device into Vdub?


Prove it.

Well, I believe what he was saying is that DV-AVI in Windows 7 is well supported among proper NLEs e.g. Vegas and Premiere Pro. As a long time PP user, I have never had a problem importing DV-AVI (one caveat q.v. my lossless workflows thread). Now, I have never used vdub as an NLE, but if it has problems decoding DV-AVI, then I would place the blame on vdub's developer(s), not DV-AVI. Have you tried Avspmod? It tends to be a little more stable than vdub IME.

[Skiller]

VirtualDub has it's own internal DV decoder which it uses if there is no other codec installed or if you force it in the extended open file dialog.