Issues with video capture from camcorder? (Tevion USB)
 

I just begun my VHS transfer and I'm facing the following issues so far:
1) when I select USB 2861 in the 'Device' menu, it doesn't shown the picture, 'Microsoft WDM' does which has a bad quality.
2) When Microsoft WDM shows the feed, the bottom of the video is cut off (640x480) but I can see this part in my camcorder's display. When I set the resolution to 640x576, it says capture card doesn't support this resolution. My camcorder is Panasonic NV-VS70 by the way which has a 0.45MP sensor resolution.

Any help with these issues is appreciated.

Try Preview mode, not Overlay. Any change?

The Preview mode doesn't show anything either. The video cutting off issue seems to affect what I see on my monitor not the recorded file. It seems to be capturing for now. Some other questions:
1) since this camcorder was purchased from UAE, should I select PAL B, PAL G, or some other PAL version?
2) should I check the VCR Input box? will this setting affect the capture quality?
3) I am having the high pitched audio issue described here. How can I fix this?

1) It doesn't matter which of those PAL versions you choose. They only vary for RF tuner source.

2) On almost all devices I've tried, if you check the VCR Input box, it doesn't even stay checked. When you open the window again after clicking OK, the box is cleared. When the selection does work, I haven't seen it make any difference. But you may as well select it if you can.

3) Capturing -> Timing -> Do not resync.

Thank you for your response. By default, in Capture -> Timing, I had
- General options: both checked
- Resync mode: Sync audio to video, Correct video timing, Audio latency: Automatic
- DirectShow options: none checked

with these settings I had audio which was ahead of the video by about a second. by selecting 'Do not sync' the audio delay is greater, about 2 seconds. any ideas to fix the audio delay? (I am using the Lagarith compression)

FYI, TBC with DNR is on on the camcorder being used as VCR.

@lordsmurf
can you help?

Wait, so did choosing Do not resync cure the chipmunk audio or not? Setting aside whether the audio is in sync or not, is the pitch correct with that option?

Hopefully you've read enough to know that the camcorder line TBC is not a full frame TBC and will do nothing for audio sync problems.

I think 'Do not resync' fixes the chipmunk audio but the video and audio get so out of sync. The audio and video are totally in sync with each other when played back on the camcorder.

You might try AmaRecTV. I hate its menu system, but people say it's easier to get proper AV sync using it.

It's not suitable for perfectionist captures though. Sometimes it drops frames without reporting them.

Thanks. I'll give that a try. A few questions on Virtualdub:
1) does the compression algorithm, specifically huffyuv vs lagarith, affect the A/V sync? (I am using lagarith)
2) does selecting overlay vs preview affect the A/V sync or anything else?
3) should I select the 'Automatically disable resync when integrated audio/video device detected' option in the capture timing options menu?
4) In the same menu, what does Audio latency determination mean exactly and should I select auto or fixed and with what value?
5) In Video>Compression>Lagarith>Configure, should 'Enable Null Frames' be checked since in the timing options, insert null frames is selected?

I just tried AmaRecTV. The audio is too muffled with this software.

Really?? And you're using the Tevion audio input in both cases? Does AmaRecTV have a levels control for the Tevion audio?

1. Compressor choice can affect A/V sync, but only indirectly. Meaning: if your PC is too stressed by the compressor at any point during the capture, it's possible that it will cause a frame Drop/Insert that can lead to A/V de-sync. If this never happens, then the choice can't affect A/V sync.*
2. Overlay is preferred during capture, whenever possible. Preview can affect A/V sync indirectly for the same reason stated above: competition for system resources in realtime. If you have a card that requires Preview mode to see any image in VirtualDub, it's preferable to switch to No Display during capture if you want to ensure that none of your PC's resources are wasted. But ideally, you've got a fast enough computer that this should never be an issue. I've captured lossless 1080p60 with Preview enabled on a system that's now about 10 years old, and managed 0 Drops/Inserts except in very complex scenes that stressed the compressor too much and required more CPU speed than my system has (see #1). Note that to use the Histogram function and to see the effect of Cropping, you must use the Preview mode. But you should switch back to Overlay to do the actual capture.
3. I do checkmark the Auto disable resync option, but I also manually disable Resync just in case. It's not worth the tiny risk that the Auto function fails. :P
4. VirtualDub's Help file is silent on the topic of Audio Latency Determination. The last option in the Timing dialog that it explains is the one directly above it; "Automatically disable resync when integrated audio/video capture is detected." I've tried to research its effect myself. The idea is that VirtualDub tries to match the start time of video capture with the start time of audio capture so that there is no Fixed Delay in the captured file. If Auto doesn't do this successfully, you can try to manually set a value in milliseconds with the Fixed option. I almost always use the default: "Auto, 30" and have only rarely noticed problems over the past 10 years, using many different capture devices.
5. I do keep "Enable Null Frames" checked. If you hover your mouse over the checkbox, there is a Tooltip that pops up, wherein the developer explains that some programs are incompatible with Null Frames. VirtualDub is not one of those; they work properly in VDub.

* There is also the question of latency during decode, but this should only ever be an issue with temporal (interframe) codecs like x264vfw, and that one has several checkboxes meant to mitigate the problem. The lossless codecs we use are only spatial (intraframe) and should have no decode delay caused by predicted pictures.

Thank you so much for your response. It appears capturing multiple times results in different audio qualities. I tried a fourth time and it is much better. Also, it does not have levels control for the Tevion.

I saw in another post by @sanlyn in which he suggests 'Preview' instead of 'Overlay' for A/V sync issues. Will try that.

-- merged --

Another issue I faced with AmaRecTV is that the captured video (and thus audio) is jerky a lot of the time. This is not the case with Virtualdub capturing the same tape. Any solutions for this?

Sorry, I've never seen that.

Please attach a small sample demonstrating this. Compress it to H.264 (MP4 or MKV) for now. Maybe I would need lossless to diagnose, but lossy might be good enough so let's try to keep Lordsmurf's storage, bandwidth costs, and backup speeds within reason.

I attached a small sample. The captured footage is more frequently sped-up rather than jerky. This only happens with AmaRecTV.