ALL captures fine with wintv-pvr-250 until modified, A/V syn

[Barnabas]

About 4500-9000 vbr. I did read a post from SHS once that drivers after 1.5 had this problem sometimes. Does not ever happen at any lower rez. As 352x480 is correct for video tape conversions, I normally use that.

[Tiribulus]

I've been experimenting with this sync issue all weekend and believe I've "discovered" some things. Maybe you guys already knew, but it's news to me. When I have more time to type it all I'll post it. Lotsa stuff I might have been sceptical about if someone had told me. For instance every source acts different when edited. Barnabas has been saying this, but to be honest I've been kinda thinking "what difference should it make? Once captured it should all take on the properties of whatever the capture settings are." I stand humbly corrected on this.
Tiribulus

[Barnabas]

Tiribulus,

What you were overlooking is that while you are correct that once captured, it's up to the presets and other settings used for the cap, there is lots of stuff going on WHILE it's being captured, and from video tape, that many times means the dropping of many frames. Videotape is not that great to begin with, so problems abound.

I like capturing from Laserdisc the best, as LD is not compressed to start with, where as capturing from the poor quality that Dishnetwork sends, the images already have some blocks in high motion scenes to start with.

[donpedro]

I just captured 2 hours of movie (6GB-DVD quality) and I am trying to get rid of commercials in the middle. On the end my movie is very little bid of sync. I believe that it might be because of some dropped frames. Now how it can be fixed ? I am cutting with TMPGEnc. Will different tool fix this ? And yes... it is in sync if I play original file too. How come that it is OK with original and after cut it is not ? Capture is done with Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe.

[Barnabas]

If you were dropping frames, there is really no good way to fix your file. It IS possible to demux, then compress the audio, re-encode the audio,then re-mux, but if you dropped too many frames, all this will do is have your file in sync at the end, but will usually be out of sync in the middle.

Try some other cutting tools on the original file and see if that helps.

[Tiribulus]

Here's some of the stuff I found out over weekend through many non stop hours of experimentation. May be old news to you guys, if so forgive me.

1> This will speak to what Donpedro is asking: There does not appear to be any reliable, SIMPLE way to cut or edit mpeg2 captures that have been captured using the DVD setting regardless of what else is done. Maybe some more stalwart folks than myself are willing to jump through the hoops necessary to make this happen, but seems a LOT of work and hit or miss results.

2>I thought m2-edit had solved all my sync problems until I discovered that while the clips were in sync they would begin stuttering a certain distance into most, but not all of them and this behavior would be different on different machines with the same clip and on the same machine with different players, but would happen unavoidably.

3>The degree the clips would go put of sync regardless of the tool used. matches the degree it would be out of sync at the same point whether you remux the whole thing or just a clip. Meaning that if you take a 2 hour capture and cut it in half producing parts one and two that are now smaller than two gigs, part one will be in sync at rhe beginning, but drift out as it goes and part two will start out of sync and generally get worse as it goes. If you take that same 2 hour clip and cut ten minutes out of the middle that ten minute clip will be roughly out of sync to the same degree the same section was in whichever of the two parts it appears in the two part edit. The original 2 hour uncut mpeg2 piece was in sync from beginning to end.

4>I have had a high degree of success using the Program setting and various cutting tools when after any cutting I do a simple multiplex on the cut clips in mpeg tools with Tmpegenc. For example. My wife and I love the old corny whodunnit series Columbo and have a comprehensive collection of vhs tapes containing every episode. If I make individual clips of each segment minus the commercials using m2-edit they are in sync, but stutter a few minutes into each segment. If I do the same using mpgvcr or tmpeg they don't stutter, but are out of sync. If I cut the segments using M2-edit and then run each segment through a simple multiplex in tmpegenc using the mpeg2 program setting they are both in sync and do not stutter.

5>If I take out of sync clips cut with mpgvcr and run them through a simple multiplex using the Mpeg2 program setting they are returned in sync most, but not all times, though if I just cut the same piece with tmpegenc in the first place it's out of sync and doing a simple multiples doesn't get it back. M2-edit has made universally in sync clips for me, but they also universally stutter.

6> All of the foregoing and it's variables seem highly dependent on what the capture source is. Old vhs recorded from analog cable, old vhs recorded from an old analog camcorder, vhs recorded from digital cable and hi8 all behave differently when edited from mpeg2 captures. What's more, old analog only movies/tv shows, old classic cartoons, computer generated cartoons and combos like Titan AE all appear to behave differently from one another as well and even more differently still depending on which of the above sources it was captured from.

7>The two step process of editing in one app and remuxing in another looks to hold a lot of promise as far as a RELATIVELY painless process with a high success rate though details probably vary from project to project. Tmpegenc is my key at the moment for the final remux regardless of cutting, though doing the cutting with it doesn't usually work.

8>Imperfections in the source will definitely affect how the edited clip turns out. Glaring example. One of the Columbo episodes has a wrinkle in the tape right after a commercial which produces distortion and audio warble. We've all seen that. If I began a cut out of the capture during that wrinkled point in the tape, that cut would be out of sync from beginning to end. When I made the starting cut mark after the wrinkle had cleared up the clip was in sync from beginning to end. I think there's a lot potential in whatever this exactly means. Probably huge frame droppage during the distortion.

WHEW!!!!!

I'm sure there were a few more details, but this is all I can remember at the moment. Also I have no doubt that protions of this will not hold true for everybody with differeing systems and all. I'm only offereing as information that I hope will be useful in maybe pointing someone in the direction of further discovery. Sorry for the rather longwinded post, but you can see it was necessary to get all this said.
Tiribulus

[q1aqza]

Thought I would share with you all a really strange MPEG2 cutting issue that I encountered yesterday and it is related to the problems in this thread.

I had an MPEG2 file (originally encoded by CCE not my PVR) and I cut about 3 minutes off the end using TMPG and the resulting output MPEG2 file had the fast forward / stuttering problem mentioned in this thread. I played this file in both PowerDVD and WMP8 within a minute or two after the output file was generated, both had the problems.

I got annoyed, deleted the file off to the recycle bin and and shut my PC down. Later in the day I was back on my PC and I thought I would take another look at the MPEG2 file to get an idea what parts were bad. I restored it from the recycle bin, loaded it up with WMP8 and it played perfectly and also in PowerDVD!!!

I can only assume that maybe TMPG was somehow still heavily using PC resources even after it had been closed down after completing the output file. The reason for adding it to this thread is that I guess most people test their output files soon after they are created i.e. no shutdown and restart. I'm going to try it again just to see whether it was a one-off but I'm sure glad I hadn't emptied my recycle bin!!

[donpedro]

Tiribulus, long text but shortly... there is no guarantee that it can be done (cut without sync issue) even with big effort and a lot of (expensive) tools. Am I right ?

Also... I still don't get this. Original mpeg2 file doesn't have sync issue. So why is it there when you cut ? I don't get it...

[Tiribulus]

In my case I tried the clips on different machines and different player programs and they still skipped.
Tiribulus

[Tiribulus]

Tiribulus, long text but shortly... there is no guarantee that it can be done (cut without sync issue) even with big effort and a lot of (expensive) tools. Am I right ?

Also... I still don't get this. Original mpeg2 file doesn't have sync issue. So why is it there when you cut ? I don't get it...

The first and most essential step is to do the capturing using the program setting instead of the DVD setting. Also lower horizontal resolutions work better so far for me as Barnabas says. I'm not positive why this happens when the original is in sync, but I've been having some real success overcoming it though it's been rather exhausting hammering it all out. When I said that it would speak to your question above I was only referring to the part about using the DVD setting. That's a nightmare try program, some lower bitrates and lower horizontal resolutions.
Tiribulus

[lennyt]

After reading All the posts on this subject, I did not see one mention of a very important thing. DEFRAG THE HARD DRIVE BEFORE YOU CAPTURE!.
I was told by Microsoft a long time ago that when the computer is saving a file to a hard drive it is always looking for free space to store and if the free space is scattered all over the HD there are going to be problems with dropped frames, out of sync, etc. I only capture video with the PVR-250 because no edit program can. I captured the movie "French Connection". Took out the commercials with TMPGen. Burned the DVD with DVD Movie Factory. I had to disable the DLA process so DVDMF would find my HP DVD burner. Good Luck to all.

[Tiribulus]

That is a good point. However at least in my case I use a seperate drive on my capture machine just for that purpose. It never has more 2 or 3 files on it and I defrag the freespace once a day. This appears from what I've seen here and other places to be an innate characteristic of the non edit friendliness of mpeg2 files in general. If you're not having any problems, God bless ya, but don't get too comfortable, you will.
Tiribulus

[Fede Pede]

Capturing from video tape can sometimes cause MAJOR sync issues.

Hi Barnabas..

There is a way to keep in Sync, but it's alot of work, but if you need the contents of your tape, time dosen really matter..

1. Don't Re-Mux.
2. Use FlasKMPEG 0.7.8.39 to make an Avi file.
3. Reencode Whit TMPGEnc or what you prefere.

It should now be in sync. It works for me.

Fede Pede...

[Tiribulus]

Capturing from video tape can sometimes cause MAJOR sync issues.

Hi Barnabas..

There is a way to keep in Sync, but it's alot of work, but if you need the contents of your tape, time dosen really matter..

1. Don't Re-Mux.
2. Use FlasKMPEG 0.7.8.39 to make an Avi file.
3. Reencode Whit TMPGEnc or what you prefere.

It should now be in sync. It works for me.

Fede Pede...

Are you able to also cut clips out of it like this? My problem hasn't been with the originals, they're fine. It's after trying to edit them that the sync issue was happening for me.
Tiribulus

[donpedro]

Get MPEG2, convert to AVI and re-encode back to MPEG2 ? I think you will loose quality.

[Barnabas]

Converting to AVI and then encoding back to MPEG will mean a loss of quality. You can sometimes retain sync by simply encoding to MPEG-2 again. There is no need to convert to AVI at all. Both methods will cause a drop in quality.

[Tiribulus]

Even encoding back to the same file type affects quality ? Does it matter if the settings are the same? On something like a simple multiplex in Tmpegenc, does it just reproduce whatever settings were in the original unless you change to a different format?
Tiribulus

[Barnabas]

ANY time you re-encode, you lose some quality as MPEG compression is lossy. The lower the settings for your re-encode, the worse the quality.

Re-multiplexing is TOTALLY different. You are just putting the video and audio back together again, writing some header info etc. Remuxing won't change the quality, but can knock it out of sync, as you have found out.

[Tiribulus]

Excellent, thanks again man. If you're still here, on this prefilter thing. I ran the batch file, but it just runs, no interface or anything. Does it disable the prefilters simply by running it or am I missing something? What if I wanted to turn them back on for some reason? Could be psychological, but looks either vaguely worse or no change after running it. Seems like I'm doing something wrong.
Tiribulus

[Fede Pede]

The Problem is, then you capture and old VHS Movie And Remux, the clip will come out of sync.

i have try some programs, here a list of programs i have try.

Re-Mux with TMPGEnc .Out of sync
Re Encode With TMPGEnc .Out of sync
Re Encode With Vegas .Out of sync
Dvd2Avi Fram server .Out of sync
And some more....

So if you want to Capture you old Vhs-Film, and the are out of sync.
the only program i have found to work is Flaskmpg.

If you Capture in(480/576 8-12mb CBR) and save Avi(huffyuv-2.1.1), you wont lose much quality.
.

Are you able to also cut clips out of it like this? My problem hasn't been with the originals, they're fine. It's after trying to edit them that the sync issue was happening for me.

Yes you can clip in your film.

Btw: Flaskmpg can also use Premiere Plugin and Frame Server


Fede Pede....

[Barnabas]

Excellent, thanks again man. If you're still here, on this prefilter thing. I ran the batch file, but it just runs, no interface or anything. Does it disable the prefilters simply by running it or am I missing something? What if I wanted to turn them back on for some reason? Could be psychological, but looks either vaguely worse or no change after running it.

After you run the batch file, it *should* open a 2nd window that has checkboxes and sliders to enable, disable or tweak the following:

Median filter
Spatial filter
Temporal filter

I simply disable them all. Once you close the filter tool, they revert back to the default state that the were before you changed the filter.

[donpedro]

Just an explanation from TMPGEnc why we are out of sync after cut:

Q. There is gap between Audio and video when I cut/merge at MPEG tools.
TMPGEnc's MPEG tools officially supports MPEG files which were encoded by TMPGEnc. If the MPEG file is encoded by other software or captured from a device, there might be gap between audio and video. Or, there might be dropped frame(s) which is made up when playback. If this is the case, MPEG tools does not make up such dropped frame(s), thus there will be gap. If a gap is constant at any point of movie, it can be adjusted, however if gap is gradually increasing, it is very difficult
to fix.

[Tiribulus]

After you run the batch file, it *should* open a 2nd window that has checkboxes and sliders

I think I have a java issue that's preventing me from getting this next screen and Virtual Machine doesn't want to reinstall. I'll have to get that hammered out after my beloved Red Wings defeat the Blackhawks for the third straight time tonight
Tiribulus

[Tiribulus]

Just an explanation from TMPGEnc why we are out of sync after cut:

Q. There is gap between Audio and video when I cut/merge at MPEG tools.
TMPGEnc's MPEG tools officially supports MPEG files which were encoded by TMPGEnc. If the MPEG file is encoded by other software or captured from a device, there might be gap between audio and video. Or, there might be dropped frame(s) which is made up when playback. If this is the case, MPEG tools does not make up such dropped frame(s), thus there will be gap. If a gap is constant at any point of movie, it can be adjusted, however if gap is gradually increasing, it is very difficult
to fix.

This makes perfect sense and I guess we should be grateful that it actually unofficially does quite a bit more than it claims.
Tiribulus

[Tiribulus]

Ok, it appears after all these long hard fought weeks of combat computing that if you simply capture with the Wintv-PVR-250 using Wintv2000 set to program stream and constant bitrate you will not have any A/V sync issues with your edits from thoses files. Spent the last few days experimenting and no matter what else I do, if it's set to program and CBR. any other settings, all edit clips are in sync and stutter free!!! I'm just about to raise my flag on this hill once and for all. Thanks much to Barnabas and SHS over at the shspvr forums for their indespensible help on this.
Tiribulus

[donpedro]

Just to confirm.... Answer for this issue is "Use CBR and not VBR." ?

It still does not explain why original file plays just fine....

[Tiribulus]

It still does not explain why original file plays just fine....

I have a fair bit of computer skills, but am no expert in this area so I'm only guessing. I think when you use VBR the capture process compensates for the fluctuation in bitrate to keep the audio and video frames locked to one another. When you remux or reencode the piece I'm betting the act of seperating the audio from the video destroys that lock. If I'm ontrack and someone else can explain it better that would be great. If I have no idea what I'm talking about and someone can correct me that would be great too.
Tiribulus

[kitzj0]

I will try and capture in CBR. I too have had problems with A/V out of sync with program/VBR setting. Like Donpedro said, it doesn't make sense it will play on the computer fine, but when burnt to disc it is no longer in sync, 30 minutes into capture.

What bitrate do you capture in CBR?

[Tiribulus]

I use all different settings depending on the source and how concerned I am with the quality. Make a template with say 4500 cbr and program stream and see how it goes. Files are a bit larger, but I see no loss in quality. I have not had a single A/V sync issue when editing captures done this way. That's not to say there will never be any, but it's a humongous improvement over every damn file being a nose to nose showdown.
Tiribulus

[Barnabas]

I will try and capture in CBR. I too have had problems with A/V out of sync with program/VBR setting. Like Donpedro said, it doesn't make sense it will play on the computer fine, but when burnt to disc it is no longer in sync, 30 minutes into capture.

That's because it gets re-muxed before it burns to a DVD. Any problem with the file, like dropped frames won't show up so much when played on the computer via WinDVD or PowerDVD because of the padding, but once re-muxed, that's when the problems show up. If you have a file that's out of sync by the 30 minute point, it's probably out by about 1 second per 30 minutes.