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  1. Hi everyone

    I'm posting as I'm hoping someone may be able to tell me what's going wrong with a very strange video capture problem I have.

    I'm trying to transfer a single MiniDV tape to a digital format and having problems, I can capture the video perfectly, but there's no audio. Here's where it gets weird though...
    • Audio DOES play on the camcorder playback screen, so the camcorder can read audio
    • I've tested with another MiniDV tape and that transfers audio perfectly.
    • I've tried two different computers, with two different firewire cables (lucky I have old tech laying about!), no luck, same problem.
    • I've tried two capture software suites, it's the same on both - no audio captured
    • I've tried playing the captured video on VLC & MPC-HD - no audio on either.

    And then it gets weirder...

    Mediainfo says (if I'm reading it correctly), that there IS audio there, but it's not playing. Here's the details:
    ID : 1
    Format : PCM
    Format settings : Little / Signed
    Codec ID : 1
    Duration : 33 min 30 s
    Bit rate mode : Constant
    Bit rate : 1 536 kb/s
    Channel(s) : 2 channels
    Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
    Bit depth : 16 bits
    Stream size : 368 MiB (5%)
    Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
    Interleave, duration : 280 ms (7.00 video frames)
    Interleave, preload duration : 280 ms


    I am absolutely stumped as what can be happening with this tape, I've never seen this problem before.

    My first thought was that it was incompatible with the camcorder in some way, but then it wouldn't play through the onboard monitor/speaker, so I'm completely flummoxed!


    Does anyone have any idea what could be happening?


    Thank you.
    Last edited by The Big Cheese; 20th Mar 2019 at 11:29. Reason: Updating the title with 'solved'
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  2. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Use WinDV, Never had a problem with it, Unless you have another device hooked up to your computer that taking audio priority for playback, Make sure whatever laptop speakers or external speakers are selected in the audio mixer properties.
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  3. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    sometimes tapes were re-used and the audio settings had been changed. if the very beginning of the tape was used in 16 bit mode and later recorded over at the 12 bit setting windv or other transfer software will start in 16 bit mode and stay there even if the recording goes to 12 bit mode.

    one way to get around it is to not start he capture on the computer until you hear audio from the recording you want. that way the software will start in the right mode.
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  4. Thank you both for your quick replies, that's really appreciated!

    dellsam34, good thought with WinDV. There was so much to put in my OP I forgot to mention, I have already looked on here for solutions before posting and did try WinDV, for some reason it was just showing the message error:error, I couldn't get it to work properly. I'll have to investigate further on that front.

    Nothing as simple as mixing up the audio outputs I'm afraid!

    aedipuss ah, that might be an idea, I'll give that a go tomorrow. The screen on the camcorder does say 16bit audio all the way through, so it could be something like that if it's got stuck there.


    I'll update the post when I've checked in the morning. Thanks again!
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  5. Hi everyone

    It's been a while since I've been able to relook at this problem, thankfully I've got a bit of time now.

    Previously I couldn't get WinDV to work, I have now got it working after finding advice on here to download the ACE codec pack, that worked perfectly.

    I've captured a different MiniDV tape using WinDV and it worked normally.

    I've captured the problem tape after checking the setup and still the same problem - no sound!

    I have now tried:

    Two camcorders
    Two computers
    Three software types
    Two firewire cables

    Everything has been swapped over and on both cameras the audio plays in the camera, but won't play back on the recording.

    I've attached a picture showing what Mediainfo has to say about the recording. I just can't understand what's going wrong! Any help resolving the puzzle will be greatly appreciated.


    Thank you.


    Image
    [Attachment 48336 - Click to enlarge]
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  6. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    that mediainfo says the audio is 32kHz which is 12 bit. 16 bit audio would be listed as 48kHz. something is wrong with the audio it can't be 32kHz and 16 bit.
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  7. Hmmm, I see. The view screens of both camcorders list the audio as 16bit.

    Do you think the error is in the capture software setup, or could the camcorder be misreading the tape do you think?
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  8. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    first make sure you have windv set to type-2 avi. second, what can happen with capture programs is that they only look at the first frame they receive and set the audio type for the entire file from that. i'd try not starting a capture until the audio on the tape has played on the camera for a few seconds and see how that comes out. only capture about 10 seconds and upload it here for others to check and see if they can figure out what's wrong.

    here are the settings i usually use for windv captures


    Image
    [Attachment 48343 - Click to enlarge]
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  9. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    Here's the thing: ON THE TAPE, 32kHz is always 12bit, 44 & 48 are 16bit. When it gets transferred, computers don't like non-Mod8 bit structures, so it pads it to 16bit. Under the hood, it's still 12bit. So ignore MediaInfo in that regard.
    The other thing is that 32kHz is also always 4 channels, not 2. However, not counting the audio stream embedded in the DV video, just about ALL transfer apps (WinDV, Scenalyzer, PremierePro, etc included) will ONLY transfer 2 channels at a time. So if you have ch1,2 set to transfer, but the sound is primarily/only on ch3,4, you get nothing in the resulting separate Audio stream.

    Scott
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  10. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    I agree with Scott, Also what are you playing the files with? Did you try VLC and/or MPC-HC ?
    Edit: Never mind, I re read your first post and I see that you used both.
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  11. Thank you guys for your continued help!

    aedipuss - apart from the max frames, my settings are the same as yours, unfortunately no luck.

    Cornucopia - that's a very detailed reply, and I have to admit I don't understand all of it!
    I have had a look for a setting for channel 1/2, and channel 3/4 but can't seem to find anything, either in the capture software, or on the camcorder. I have found a setting to change between 12 and 16 bit audio. I've tried both, but no success, it's still silent.

    Can you tell me what I should be looking for and where I should be looking to change it?

    Good that two of you agree dellsam34, ha ha, yeah, I tried some basic troubleshooting!

    Looking forward to hearing from you guys. Unfortunately I can't upload a sample of the video as it's home movie of his kids and wife in a dressing gown, I can say for certain I wouldn't live to see the Sun again if I uploaded it lol! Thanks for the offer to check it though.
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  12. Ooh, just as a quick update to this.

    I have tried the trick of playing the tape and then pressing record, doesn't work either. Tried on Premiere, Vegas and WinDV. No luck on any of them. Drat.
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  13. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    If it is just one tape that is giving you a hard time, send it out to a professional transfer service, They usually have those multi track pro or semi pro decks and they should be able to recover the audio, Another alternative is to capture audio from the analog output and use a software to dub the audio into the video that you have captured.
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  14. Thanks for the reply again.

    Ooh, that's an interesting idea with capturing the audio! I've just checked my camcorder and it doesn't have a headphone socket which would have been the easiest option for capturing audio. Can I capture just the audio using the AV connector (the one that splits into red/yellow/white connectors)?
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  15. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    If your camcorder has one single jack for video and audio then using just an audio cable is not going to work, Those video cables have sleeve/2 rings/tip while audio has only sleeve/one ring/tip, Those video cables are available though if you don't have one.
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  16. Sorry, I don't think I was clear with my previous message.

    I do have the 3.5mm Mini AV to 3rca Male cable, it came with the camcorder. My question is more, how do I get that audio to be digitised to a computer?

    At the moment of course the camcorder is connecting directly to the computer via Firewire and it's transferring that way. I'm not sure how I could extract just the audio and capture it digitally without using the firewire.

    Hmmm.
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  17. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    the yellow is video, red is right audio, and white is left audio. if your computer has audio line in you can get a dual rca female to stereo male 3.5mm. and then use something like audacity to capture the audio.

    Image
    [Attachment 48360 - Click to enlarge]
    Last edited by aedipuss; 14th Mar 2019 at 20:28.
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  18. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by The Big Cheese View Post
    Sorry, I don't think I was clear with my previous message.

    I do have the 3.5mm Mini AV to 3rca Male cable, it came with the camcorder. My question is more, how do I get that audio to be digitised to a computer?

    At the moment of course the camcorder is connecting directly to the computer via Firewire and it's transferring that way. I'm not sure how I could extract just the audio and capture it digitally without using the firewire.

    Hmmm.
    Yes you want to use the A/V cable that came with the camcorder, You don't want to use headphone out even if it does have one, You want line out free of noise not the pre amped headphone out which is susceptible to wireless transmission noise.
    You don't need to hookup the DV cable, But you need a video or audio capture device if you don't have one, Connect the A/V cable to the camcorder, Connect the red/white audio connectors to the capture device, Play the tape in the camcorder. Use an audio capture software such as Audacity, Set it to save as 16/48 not 44.1 because it is going to be muxed to the video and the audio standard for video is 48 Khz, Once you have the audio file and video file use a NLE software to assemble the video and audio tracks together after timing them correctly (You can post about this in the editing section).
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  19. Thanks for the additional help both of you, I've captured it!

    Thanks to your suggestions I suddenly remembered that I had an old Soundblaster with front panel sound card in an old machine (I have a bit of a collection of older tech). I plugged the AV cable from the camcorder into the red and white line in connectors and straight away managed to capture the audio with Audacity.

    Just a case of lining it up with the video then and sorted!

    Thanks again, this has been a great outcome.
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