Messages posted by radiocynic

Quote Thanks very much for the source clip and for all the additional information👍

The first thing I noticed is that for some reason, MovieMaker captured this at a 3:2 aspect ratio when it should have been at 4:3. I don't know if you'd want to re-do the capture but PD doesn't have a 3:2 producing option so you'll end up with black bars along one or both pairs of edges unless you take additional steps as listed in this discussion and this one.

As to producing with PD365, I have no problems with audio if I produce to WMV (I upscaled it to 720x480). I took out the blank section and produced the total 12:00 of content, and it took 2:20 on my very fast PC. Hardware encoding isn't available for the WMV format so your producing speed will entirely depend on how powerful your CPU is.

I then tried an MPG version (352x240). That only took 34 seconds to produce, but the video is lower quality. No sound sync issue here, either.

Next I used hardware encoding to produce to AVC/H.264 MP4 (640x480). That took 3:43 to produce and the file size is more than 3x larger than the other two versions, but the sound stays in sync the entire time.

I've shared my produced clips in this OneDrive folder.

In short, all my attempts resulted in synced A/V thoughout the produced clip, which seems to be the exact opposite of your experience. I only used default profiles and didn't make any customizations, so maybe try the WindowsMedia and/or MPEG-2 formats and see if you have any better luck.

Again, apologies for my delay in responding; a lot going on!

Thank you very much for all the help with this. Somewhat mysterious how your results were so different than mine. But since this particular cip is so short, I'll continue using it to experiment with all of the various things you suggested - seeing if I can get the different ratio - the upscaling and producing to wmv, etc., and see what I come up with.

Many thanks again! -- Randy

Quote The only way I can think of to understand what's going on would be to share the captured file here on the forum and/or with CL tech support. There have been various reports of issues like this over the years and typically PD has trouble working with some aspect of the recorded files.

If you're willing to share a recorded clip, people here can see what happens on their systems and possibly narrow down the issue or find a workaround.

You can upload the produced clip to OneDrive or Google Drive and paste a publicly shareable link to it here. See this FAQ for more details.

You should also update PD365 to the latest version, which is 20.3.2714.0

-----

Thanks very much for the reply; sorry it took me a couple of days to check back here.

I have now upgraded to the newer version, but haven't had a chance to check if that changed this issue or not.

Here's a Google Drive link to the files. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FOhZ9eCdGLUms0BRQB_t6tcc7wDt2MXb?usp=sharing

Old horrible-quality (and boring) corporate training video from the 1980s. Checking at roughly the 8:00 mark makes the sync apparent.

The wmv is the original capture (to Windows Movie Maker) - That's in sync, though unedited.

Produce.mp4 is the produced version by PowerDirector - (only the simplest of editing - removing the blank spaces). Note that it starts in sync, but at the 8:00 mark, way out of sync.

Produce.m2ts was another PD producing attempt (following up a solution from years ago that I found elsewhere on this board to try the different format). - Still out of sync.

The other mp4 is a test using the free version of NCH's VideoPad - for whatever reason, that one stays acceptably in sync. (I had also succeeded earlier with simple editing of other videos through WMM itself; that stayed in sync, too, so it's only PD that makes it go out of sync.)

Thanks for any help or suggestions! -- Randy

Good morning, folks -

Revisiting this project a couple of months later, and finding even more widespread audio sync problems. Giving this forum one more shot before giving up on PD completely.

Using PD 365 version 20.1.2519.0 (64-bit) / HP Envy Core i5 / Win10

Long story short - Capturing video from old crappy VHS VCR. Even in the initial captures with PD, the audio was out of sync with the video on every attempt. So instead, tried capturing with old WIndows Movie Maker. Worked fine. Loaded that wmv file into PD for VERY simple editing. (Took out blank space at beginning, end, middle, etc.; nothing fancy.) Still seemed to be in sync in preview.

But after producing with PD - regardless of format or setting chosen - audio is out of sync again by the middle of the video.

If I do the same edits in Windows Movie Maker, or in a trial version of NCH VideoPad, audio stays in sync through the final versions.

(I first raised a similar question in February, about the initial capture sync problem, and senior contributer Barry was kind enough to give me a lot of advice, mainly about needing far better equipment. But at this point I'm only looking for a reason why the audio sync works fine with "lesser" programs like WMM and VideoPad, but consistently doesn't work with PD. Am I doing something wrong, or perhaps is PD too sophistocated / sensitive to glitches / etc. for my purposes?)

Thanks for the help! -- Randy

Quote
Unfortunately the S-video is for DVD only, so that's a no-go. I understand budget restraints, and recording something is better than nothing.
Even if you use RCA cables, you need TBC, and the cheapest solution is the ES series. It also works using RCA, not just S-video.
The thing about S-video is the video is "separated" luma and chroma, it's cleaner with little to no crosstalk which leads to color bleed and other artifacts like dot-crawl.

Yep! I stand corrected, again. (I was just about to post that correction to my earlier statement after looking more closely at the VCR's back panel!)

Regardless, thanks again for all of this additional info! Much appreciated! -- Randy

Quote "This old version of Movie Maker uses only wmv. Honestly it's good enough for these purposes, though its 1-hour time limit is a bit of an annoyance. Very old VHS-C tapes; not very high quality to begin with, and a little glitchy in spots, but a lot of sentimental value."

If it's of sentimental value, then you need to get better equipment before going any further. If it's worth doing, then do it well.
Are you playing tapes from the VHS-C camera, or is the tape in an adapter? Your adapter, if so, should be a metallic build, such as the JVC CP7-U
The Zenith is crap, sorry. No S-video. But it's what you have so use it. Preferable would be a budget JVC S series. Or Mitsubishi model in the 7 series. Late models, S-video, filters, better construction.
Your capture card, meh. It's what you have, so use it.
As for A/V sync...
Windows Movie Maker, using WMV, is very forgiving of tapes, but honestly gives a sub-par video file which will be depleted after you try and fix colors, or any restoration.
Much better off using PD365 and MPEG2 or MP4, though MPEG2 is closer to what is actually on the tape, interlaced.
Always capture 720x480 (NTSC).
A/V sync is often, most often, because of dropped frames during capture.
I would suggest getting a Panasonic ES-10 or ES-15 DVD recorder to act as a go-between (pass-thru) Time Base Corrector.
The ES will buffer the signal and pass-thru a cleaner (if not perfect) capture. Some side effects such as posterization may occur.
You do NOT record with the ES, you just pass your signal through it to your capture dongle.
One of the benefits is, if you look closely at your video captures, you may notice that door frames, windows, telephone poles, may be a bit wiggly and not straight as a straight line should be. Those are line timing errors.
VHS is CHAOS! It's old, stretchy, prone to all sorts of errors that muck up the video image.
You need some type of TBC in your workflow, and the ES units are cheap, under $150, compared to a DataVideo1000, such as mine, which I could sell today for $2,000 easy.
For the ES, you will need a proper remote to access the inner menu to shut off Noise Reduction, and alter the input gamma to input light/output dark.
S-VHS machines with TBC are difficult to find in good shape, and Ebay sellers lie.

You may best be served by reading at another forum, who specialty is TAPE! DigitalFAQ.com.

Thanks very much for the extensive advice, Barry! I already had in mind that I'd be trying to carefully preserve the original tapes in hopes of eventually getting better equipment and doing it again later. But I'm very limited on both free time and extra money at the moment, so I'm figuring on finishing digitizing so that I at least have something preserved, even a lower quality, even if I run into trouble editing it properly.

But indeed, you're right I'd like to eventually do it right as well. Realizing there's a time factor in the continuing degradation of the tape and all, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

If I eventually have more time and budget, I'll be very happy to have all this info from you to reference.

Just to answer you a bit more... The VHS-C camera bit the dust literally decades ago, so I am using an adapter, but it is indeed an all-metal Panasonic PlayPak, which is functioning well.

This old Zenith (XBV443) actually does have an S-video output, so I suppose the least I can do at present is get an S-video cable and use it!

Thank you again for all the great information. -- Randy

Quote Movie Maker, is that MP4 as well as WMV?
What is your capture format in PD?
Ripping is not really the correct term, it is capturing, though that is just trivial.
What capture device are you using?
What VCR?
A/V sync is important, of course, but if your capture stinks visually...

Honestly I rarely use PD for capture, but never have an issue anyway. I just use PD for final edits and delivery files.

Thanks for the reply, Barry! Yes, indeed, capture, not rip! The format I was trying to use in PD was mpg (MPEG-2, which it had defaulted to). I hadn't tried avi or the other available formats, but I had tried changing the setting to "DVD HQ" instead of the default "DVD HQ (fast)", and that didn't help. Same out-of-sync result.

This old version of Movie Maker uses only wmv. Honestly it's good enough for these purposes, though its 1-hour time limit is a bit of an annoyance. Very old VHS-C tapes; not very high quality to begin with, and a little glitchy in spots, but a lot of sentimental value.

I had wondered about the hardware -- cheap capture device DigitNow USB 2.0 Video Grabber - and VCR (only one I had available, but not terrible - ancient 4-head hi-fi Zenith) -- but that still wouldn't explain why, using the same hardware, the audio synced fine with the old Movie Maker, but not with the PD capture.

My plan is still to do all the cleanup and editing in PD. In the meantime, using Movie Maker to create the wmv files seems to be working okay.

So I was mainly just curious whether I had something set wrong when attempting to use PD for capture, since the audio was consistently, unacceptably out of sync with every single attempt, while it was always fine with the Movie Maker.

Thanks again! -- Randy

Hi folks -

Newbie here; third day using PowerDirector 365 - version 20.1.2519

I originally posted this in an old topic; moderator asked me to start new topic instead.

Currently converting old VHS-C tapes. When I capture from a VCR (using the Capture function as if it's a webcam but set to the usb video capture device instead) the resulting .mpg file has the audio wildly and unusuably out of sync with the video.

When I do the same thing with the older WIndows Movie Maker (still on my Win10 machine), audio is synced fine, so I figured it might not necessarily be a hardware issue.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!