Capturing VHS with VirtualDub - audio and video out of sync.
 

Apologies for this long thread. The topics of this thread are:
1. My big disappointment: Audio and video not synced.
2. Hardware
3. VCR connection to computer:
4. Chain of events in VirtualDub
5. My VirtualDub capture settings:

After studying the subject for a few months, I have started capturing my VHS cassettes with VirtualDub, the cassettes date to the late eighties and nineties.
I bought a JVC SVHS HR-S8960 in a very good condition. This one apparently has a built in TBC/DNR, i.e. Time Base Corrector with Digital Noise Reduction. (From an earlier post: the HR-S8960 does have the desirable DigiPure TBC/DNR feature)
I also bought an Avermedia A323 Mini Capture card second hand. I have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 520.

VCR connection to computer:
I found that the image quality of the Composite connection was better than the S VHS connection, so I am using composite.
I also cleaned the heads of the VCR just to get the best result possible.
After capturing an hour on a very “much used” cassette, I had no dropped frames.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/imag...da4d8674-1.jpg

My plan is to capture all the video cassettes initially and then one after the other move from internal E drive to my external HD with direct stream copy in VirtualDub.

Chain of events:
1. Initial capture with Virtualdub.exe and Lagarith and save on my second internal HD. Big file ± 70GB per 3 hours
a) Clean: Avisynth will process the video and send the clean video to VitualDub 32 bit.
b) Open Virtual Dub 32 bit version and open the Clean VHS.AVS
c) From here insert Reverse Field Dominance and select Celocida Codec.
d) After ending will get a cleaned Dv file.
2. Save in second internal HD as a DV file. (Size now much smaller)
3. Edit this DV file with Pinnacle
4. Now saving for future use- encoding, converting to MPEG and DVDs
I plan to keep the original big AVI files, should I need it in future

My VirtualDub capture settings:
Capture AVI
Device >Avermedia
Video >Preview
Video Source>Video composite
Video >Capture pin: PAL N; Frame rate: 25; Color space:UyUy; Output: 720x576
Video >Capture filter: Video decoder>PAL N>OK
Video >Crossbar: 0:Video Comp In-Video Decoder Out
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/imag...0fb470e8-1.jpg
4:Audio line in-Audio decoder out
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/imag...af984ae2-1.jpg
Video >Compression> Lagarith
Audio >Enable audio capture
>Volume meter
>Audio source: Audio line
>Capture device

The problem!:
I captured a cassette yesterday, while at work. As the video stopped after 3 hours and Vdub kept on recording- I had a massive file (more than 100GB).
Getting home, I stopped recording, but did not look at the parameters in the sidebar.
I opened the file in Vdub to delete the unnecessary parts and then found that the audio and video was out of sync. (Up to 3 seconds at the end of the cassette)
I deleted this file and started again to record the same cassette. Values while capturing: 66 000 frames captured after 44 min, 0 frames dropped/inserted; sync: VT adj +0ms; current error: 0
It indicated while capturing that there were no dropped frames or sync issues. But, playing the same AVI file on Vdub- using the internal E drive, gave me up to a ± 3 second delay between audio and video.

I then used one of the AVI files that I have captured a few days ago- this file also has a delay. So, it is not this specific cassette.

What I have not done in the past, prior to capturing “seriously”, was to change the crossbar. (See the 2 screenshots).

I plan to set up both VCRs over the weekend - my Sansui VCR and the JVC S-VCR, connect it to the TV and see if the videos have an AV delay. (I have in the past, while playing cassettes, never noticed a sync issue)

My questions:
1. Is there a way to overcome this sync issue? I am sure that moving audio will still not be 100%
2. Is a setting wrong?
3. Is there another program that I should rather use to capture raw AVI?

the audio/video is entering the PC, out of sync.


so, best is to pass the signal through a TBC, before it reaches the PC.

a good TBC is the Datavideo TBC-1000

the TBC that is built into the video-player is not really a proper TBC, so avoid relying on that to correct any sync issues.

That sounds like it could be a hard drive issue, is your drive set to never cut off? Make sure that all of your hard drives are all in good shape and set to not spin down. Check the SMART information on the dives, as well as the Power Options. You might need to test it with only capturing to one hard drive leaving the others unplugged, it sounds like a pain, but it can help with narrowing down the cause by eliminating variables. The process of elimination would be good to do, slim the system down to minimal and test the hard drives one at a time.

-JMP

I had the same problem with VirtualDub and others, I tried AmarecTV and there was no sync issue. IMHO AmarecTV is the best capturing software.