Audio Capture--does it have to stink?

[mhadick]

I am using an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 to capture using the ATI supplied software (MMC, etc.) and the audio stinks. Cranking up the volume makes it unintelligible, so I have to leave it way down low. I suspect the problem is that I'm using the sound card built into the system. When I capture, I select the highest available setting: 22K, 16-bit stereo. When I inspect the file information from VirtualDub, it reports back 44K audio. I have no reported problems burning to VCD, but the sound on the TV stinks, as you might expect.

Am I better off with a separate card, or will better audio codecs improve things? Can someone recommend better product?

Here's my situation:
ATI AIW 128 video
Shuttle Spacewalker MB, AK31A
--AC'97 Audio (2.1 compliant)
Athlon 1700+ CPU
256MB Ram
40GB harddrive
Using MMC to capture

[BJ_M]

that audio on that system isnt to great but are you sure you are not inputing into the mic input ?
22khz sample rate doesnt sound like the highest setting and would make it sound like a phone as the upper limit of the freq of the audio would be 11.8khz ... i would think if that is the highest setting you would be better off to cap in mono at a higher sample rate ...

anyways you can pick up now days a cheap sound card pretty cheap that still is alright audio...

[mhadick]

It's in the line-in. So is the consensus for me to buy a separate, better sound card than what is built into the motherboard?

There are no codecs that would improve this?

[Barnabas]

You could buy a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz audio card, but if you are just making VCD's you would be better off to buy a ProVideo PV-231 capture card which does hardware MPEG-1 compression. Both audio and Video are done by the card. These cost about $85. An All in Wonder 128 is getting pretty old I know, I have one.