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  #1  
02-01-2019, 04:35 PM
colony colony is offline
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The AIW instructions are not clear on this (surprise!).I know the video and sound cards must be 'linked" for audio capture to also occur. What I have read:

1. AIW instructions specify that the audio mini-plug from the 9600 multi-cable be plugged into the sound card external "line in" port WHEN USING A TV AS MONITOR (I am not).

2. Turtle Beach instructions show in internal cable connection with some CD drives (not required with XP) but say nothing about connecting to video cards.

3. Forum Admin provided guidance some years back, affirming the need for connection between the cards, with PREFERENCE for an internal 4-pin cable between the two; but also discussing an external "loop-back' connection.

Does the connection in #1 do the job for video/audio capture? Even if so, is the internal connection in #3 better?

Is this connection already happening via the MB bus (and Windows XP), with no other physical connections required ?

Any help appreciated.
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  #2  
02-01-2019, 07:16 PM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
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No the audio is not carried by the Motherboard across to the sound card.

In this era it was a "major" thing to simultaneously "decode" both audio (and) video from the same signal. The video was captured by the card and saved through the card DirectX driver. The audio was simply offloaded through an internal CDROM four pin connector to the sound card internal CDROM four pin connector, or you could use the "outside" on the rear back slot panel, mini-plug to connect the audio to the "line in" port of the back of the sound card.

The thinking was that your "far more expensive" sound card with all its elaborate drivers and applications could do a far better job of sound "design" when capturing than the johnny come lately amateur "sound" decoder in you new video capture card. It was a division of labor and also made your video capture card "cheaper".. you already had that expensive sound card.. use it.

Motherboards back then rarely had "onboard" sound capture chips, maybe a mic in, or a squeaky noisy line in next to your power supply fan.. flinging oodles of electrical interference into that same "line in". So separate standalone sound cards were preferred.

The thing is when your capturing you'll be given a "choice" of where the sound is actually being captured from, a sound card could have "many" input sources, like the multiple sources on a DVD recorder, L1, L2, L3 ect.. so you have to select the one you "chose" to actually connect to the video card to capture sound.. be that the "internal CDROM four pin connector" or the "external rear Line in jack" or the "pink front Line in Mic jack".. it all your choice. But if you select the wrong one.. then you'll get silence and video only.

Sound cards did come with "more than one" internal "CDROM style four pin connector" the second one was often labeled AUX, additional ones went by lots of other names.

Windows "blends" all the sound inputs into one orchestra through a single unified "virtual software Mixer" with level controls for each "channel" and Left or Right sliders.. if that feature is made available by the sound drivers for that sound input.

You "can" tell your video capture app to use individual "sound card inputs" or point it at the singular unified "DirectSound windows mixer.. which goes by many names".. but that pipeline could be "long" and there might be a delay which could effect "lip sync" in your recordings.

Usually you "do not" want to "playback sound" while your capturing it.. because it clogs the pipelines and reduces resources on the computer and the sound card (increasing the chance of lip sync errors and possible frame drops).. an external sound board or "monitoring" method which by-passes the PC and breaks or "splits" out a separate jack for headphones or speakers at the input is preferable for listening while capturing. -- that is why an "external" mini jack is preferable in "good/minimal/lipsync problem/" setups.. because you (can) breakout a separate place to listen to the sound going into the video capture... otherwise.. if you don't care, and only capture "occasionally/casually" then connecting the sound out "internally" from video capture card to sound card ("internal" cdrom sound input).. is "okay/well/i/guess"..

really this also applies to video.. "playback video/while/capturing = bad".. if you were passing the video through a DVD recorder for clean up for example, you often have an "extra" set of outputs on the recorder replicating the video signal that you are trying to record.. and those can be used to "monitor" the video signal with a separate monitor without forcing the capture PC to also render the video to the desktop while your capturing.. there are other types of video "breakout boxes" but the reason is the same.. to minimize the burden on the capturing device in the PC and maximize resources to minimize lip sync loss and dropped video frames.. you also (don't) plug the audio into a video breakout device like a DVD recorder.. it can slow down the audio, or add noise to it.. normally the audio is passed around the video breakout device and into the audio breakout device or "splitter" that goes into the sound card.

all of this is inconvenient of course.. and how far you go.. depends on personal preference

Last edited by jwillis84; 02-01-2019 at 08:05 PM.
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  #3  
02-02-2019, 06:25 AM
colony colony is offline
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Thank you very much, jwillis84. This puts it into perspective. While I believe, from what you have said, that the mini plug connection already in place covers it, I may go for the internal card to card setup...if I can find one of those 4 pin audio cables. Although going back to x286/DOS days, this regime of PC usage never came up for me until more recent times. I appreciate the help.

Regards
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02-02-2019, 11:19 AM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
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Go to Amazon and type in ["CD-ROM To SoundBlaster Audio Cable"] into the search box, it will pull up several.

Its not that I think you can even "find" a DataVideo TBC-1000, but the "built-in" distribution amplifier which broke out the single input into four outputs, is another example of breaking out the video monitoring before the capture device. But in those days not only might you have a Video monitor, but also a Vectorscope, Waveform Monitor and capture device. Each had its purpose in adjusting the input signal without "loading" or disturbing the signal fed into the capture chain.

You might also decide to share the single signal source with multiple work flow chains, i.e. one VCR to feed more than one chain ect..

These days those "breakout" distribution amplifiers with their capacitors to manage the unbalanced signal inputs, are degraded and don't do their job properly, adding noise or softening the image. Like most things from back then, they need servicing after all these years. Simpler for the most part to just by pass the video amp and use it as one device with one input and one output to get the cleanest signal.

In the end though, its more likely a consumer level capture "artists" would be most concerned about the sound "design" and have their own component stereo setup with amps and mixers which they "might" want to feed into from the video capture card, and then route the result back into the sound card on the same system.

VirtualDub has a "timing diagram" strip that can be turned on under the Capture menu while in Capture mode, its only active while its actually capturing or 'test' capturing. You can watch that while not-playback listening and while playback-listening and (see) the effects of clogging the pipeline. Its rather dramatic for some cards, and not so much for others.. mostly its software and PC resource related. If the drivers are very good and the PC very fast, it won't jump around a lot while capturing with audio playback (on) but on "most" it will gyrate tremendously.

In general $1000 cards of good repute will "barely" gyrate.. trying to optimize the resource usage while struggling to keep sync and not drop frames. But less expensive cards from the day will just.. oh "forget it" they will look like ( a dance off ) with sparkling disco balls.. and lip sync will be worse than a spaghetti western.

.. if your curious.. its because a sound card is fairly "heavy duty" at resource usage, in general the less expensive the more it has to interrupt the CPU to run code to generate or capture sound. More expensive cards may offload tasks to an onboard sound card CPU, but eventually they have to use the shared resources like the hard drive and it catches up. And good vs bad drivers also factor in.. it doesn't matter if its a good card, if it doesn't actually "try" to minimize resource usage, or mishandles it badly. It can be a "middling" card and still have cheap drivers and be awful.. but that's what review sites are for.. its too bad rotten tomatoes doesn't cover sound cards.

.. video capture cards tend to have a little bit of onboard memory and a CPU/microcontroller so they can sort of work "offline" for a while.. but eventually have to use the computer bus to send or receive disk i/o and that's when it can run into a traffic jam with stuff the sound card is churning up. So.. best all around.. bang for the buck.. is to "not use audio playback" while capturing video.

Last edited by jwillis84; 02-02-2019 at 11:58 AM.
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  #5  
02-02-2019, 07:37 PM
colony colony is offline
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Thanks again, jwillis84. I also found and ordered one of those cables. Also appreciate the detailed background and discussion, all of which I do not pretend to grasp. But I get the main points; most definitely the audio playback issue. You've been a great help on these posts!

Regards
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