Audio noise WinDV but not on analog?
 

I'm archiving a minidv tape using WinDV. I'm going into an XP laptop via firewire.I'm hearing many audio artifacts in the WinDV capture but when I listen to the tape via the composite audio I don't hear them. I'm not seeing video artifacts as I play it. These are sounds that I usually hear when I'm playing a tape where the head was slightly off and I can see distortions in the picture but not here. I'm attaching the WinDV configuration and audio properties of the capture. I thought maybe I could just capture using the analog audio but don't see an option in WinDV? Thanks.

I just tried it again with Sony Vegas. It was worse. There was audio distortion although it didn't sound like the typical crackling I hear when a tape that's been made with a head that's off. This time as I was listening to the composite audio I did hear several drop outs. When I listened to what was captured it was 10 times worse. After this I adjusted the guide screws and it helped. It's a very tedious process but I've been able to archive a number of my old tapes this way. I imagine something was slightly off on the original camcorder when the tapes were made.

miniDV is digital, you either get the sound or you don't, messing with the video heads is going to affect everything. You should set type 2 audio not type1 in the WinDV app.

Interesting. WinDV is simply a data transfer of the DV file data from the tape to the computer. It should either "work" or "not work". If you have audio quality issues after a WinDV capture, I would think that the problem is baked in to the tape (as evidenced by the dropouts you are hearing when you monitor the composite audio).

You can't capture analogue audio with WinDV.

I don't know what program you've used for the audio info but Mediainfo gives me this for one of my DV-AVI files:

What I'd do:
-try another WinDV capture with the other audio "Type";
-try to access another MiniDV camera and try that (you seem to have had the same issue with all your tapes so it could be either this camera or the recording cam; a test with a third-party cam would confirm where the problem lies);
-record the analogue/RCA audio only (computer/Line In) and, in Vegas, match that with the already-captured video.

Edit: Saw Latreche's post after I posted.