Best VirtualDub2 capture timing options? (without TBC?)
 

My workflow: JVC S3910U (no tbc model) > ES15 > Diamond VC500 > Win10

In VirtualDub2, I get audio-video out of sync (audio 10+ seconds ahead after 70 minute transfer) from VHS TV recording. I used sanlyn's Capture Timing Options.

I also tried different Capture Timing Options based on a suggestion in another thread. These produce audio that was only 3 seconds ahead after 5 hours.

I have struggled with this and end up using AmaRecTV, which I know doesn't give you good stats, and ends up adding or removing frames or audio or video, but it just ends up working at the end. I don't know why I can't get the VirtualDub2 settings right. :depressed:

TBC acknowledgement: I hereby acknowledge that this problem would likely disappear if I used a Datavideo 1000 TBC unit and that Lord Smurf is 100% right. :wink2:

Are there any dropped or inserted frames shown during the VirtualDub capture?

For five hours, I take it that you left the capture unattended; what I do is (using the 32-bit version of VirtualDub, and for up to 1 or 2 hr captures) I tend the capture and if there are any excess dropped frames then I press Esc, F2 to write to another file (watch out, it will erase the recent capture if the same name is chosen), then F6 to resume capture. I don't know if these are the same keyboard shortcuts as VirtualDub2.

For really stable VHS tapes I get zero dropped or inserted frames, for unstable tapes I have to do this Esc, F2, F6 procedure several times to get audio sync; in my case I have to edit the footage anyway so I don't mind multiple files.

Do you use a second hard drive for the capture, or is there only one hard drive in the computer? (ie, the OS drive, which competes with VirtualDub accessing the disk, though with SSD is less a factor). If you do use a second hard drive for the capture, try reformatting it (which erases the contents, watch out) with a very large cluster size. Or defragment it if cannot reformat.

Do not use VirtualDub2 for capture. It has known capture issues, and actually causes dropped frames.

Use VirtualDub 1.9.x

When VD2 drops frames, does it at least tell the user and report that in the video info thing on the right?

I've not detected non-reporting drops with VirtualDub2, with the many cards I've used for testing it. But that's not to say some cards may confuse the reporting.

I'm not 100% anti-VirtualDub2, just mostly. There are a few select cards that actually cooperate better with it, as compared to VirtualDub 1.9/10/FM, but those are uncommon. In those cases, it appears to be more about the system in use, mostly the graphics cards (screw you, Nvidia!), than with anything do with VirtualDub itself.

BTW, timing options have nothing to do with TBC, or even flaws on the incoming signal. That setting is 100% about the capture card itself, and internal clock settings for audio.

Just to be clear, you must stop the VHS tape before stopping the capture, right? I mean, there's no way to automatically launch a second AVI on some kind of schedule so that you don't have to stop the VHS tape each time, right?

I'm capturing home videos so I just let the VHS tape run continously; I hit ESC in VirtualDub in scenes that I'll be cutting out anyway and then I restart the capture shortly afterwards.

There is a multi-segment capture feature that opens a new AVI file every so often. I haven't tried it but it might be worth looking into; I'm guessing it might introduce brief gaps in the captured footage though.

A couple of other things I was thinking about with audio sync: I connect the RCA cable directly into the sound card and not the capture card, and I also disable uneeded services in Windows that could use up CPU. By the way I regularly get 20% or so in CPU shown in VirtualDub during captures.