Audio sync while capturing video from a Sony GV-D800

[acernotebook]

I'm using a Sony GV-D800 to capture 8mm and Hi-8 tapes to a laptop using WinDV. I have the GV-D800 playback setting set to play Hi8 tapes and the TBC and DNR are turned on. In WinDV I have the discontinuity set to 0, the max AVI size (frames) set to 1,000,000 and the Every-N-th frame set to 1. The audio setting is for type-2 AVI.

I thought everything was working great until I got to the tapes that were two hours long. The first group of tapes that I recorded were less than 1 hour and didn't have a lot of talking on them. I don't think that the shorter tapes have any audio sync issues but I'm not 100% positive. The first 2 hour tape that I captured seems to have audio sync problems later on in the capture. I could be wrong though. The audi sync problem could start right away. It's hard to tell because I think that the sync is off by less than 1 second. The 2 hours files are about 27gb.

I'm using a 1394 firewire cord from the Digital 8 VCR to my laptop. I would think that the audio sync would match up perfect because I'm using a firewire cable, but I'm not a video expert. One thing that I have noticed is that at the start of the capture, I can hear the audio start before the video comes on the screen. It probably starts 1 second before the video comes on.

I'm watching these videos on my laptop using mediaplayer, realplayer, or quicktime. So a possibility may be that the audio sync will be correct once I burn the files to blu ray or use a new computer with better software and memory.

The computer has no other software running during the capture and my wifi is turned off. I have unistalled most software. The computer has Directx 9.0c installed and the hard drive has at least 200gb free. I have newer laptops, but I don't know how to connect the GV-D800 to them. They really only have USB connections and maybe a thunderbolt 3.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[aedipuss]

sometimes minidv tapes get screwed up at the beginning especially if they have been reused. try starting the tape on the camera manually, then when the video starts press the red record button in winDV. also in the windv settings make sure type-2 avi is checked.

[smrpix]

Did WinDV report any dropped frames during capture?

[dellsam34]

Analog tapes do suffer from audio sync problems since the GV-800 is not built in full frame TBC/frame synchronizer, Digital tapes have a timecode built in the signal. You may need an external capture device like the ADVC-300 or other lossless capture alternatives via a USB/PCIe capture device/card. Otherwise just capture in small segments.

[acernotebook]

I just logged back in because I remember to add the dropped frames. There were dropped frames during each capture. Some had no dropped frames to start, but they all ended with dropped frames. I think the best one had 29 dropped frames and the worst was about 170. However, the audio sync was still only off by less than a second in the capture that had 170 dropped frames.

I recorded each tape twice and the number of dropped scenes seems to be similary each time.

The tapes that I am capturing having many "snow" scenes in between the actually video that was taken. My first camera didn't have a fade function, so I would start the next recording session a second or two after the previous scene.

[dellsam34]

Yes capturing in small segments avoiding noisy scene changes should prevent dropping frames, As I said if the tapes were D8 or DV the capture stops at the end of each scene and resume at the beginning of the next scene producing seamless video stream because the digital video has a timecode in it, analog doesn't.

[nesburf]

Use Type-1 AVI for capturing analog tapes with the GV-D800. This fixed my sync issues.

See this thread
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/381289-Digital8-TRV480-vs-GV-D800-audio-sync-issues

[acernotebook]

If using Type-1 AVI does help my audio sync, would anyone on here still recommend using an ADVC-300 for any other reason?

It seems like I might need an ADVC-300 for some old S-VHS tapes that I have.

Thanks.