I'm using my VHS player with av leads plugged into svideo, into my GeForce4200 graphics/capture card, using PowerDirector Pro to capture uncompressed avi (which at this stage looks and sounds great), encoding using TMPEnc into m2v and wav files, and using DVD workshop to author my dvds. I am finding my audio track is not synchronised with the video (up to 5 seconds delay after 1 minute of footage), and its driving me nuts ! Please please please can someone please share their wisdom and help me get this right???
Sync Problems with analogue capture cards is Extremely Common ,It is actually more Common than Haveing Good Sync...The Sync Problems are Usually due to the Time Lag between your Capture Card and your Sound Card..Your Capture device as it"s own Internal Clock and so does your Sound Card for Captureing Audio But these 2 Clocks are Rarely ever the Same so after a certain Period of time you will Notice that the audio and Video will Slowly Drift appart...Many Capture programs have methods for trying to overcome the Time Lag between the 2 Devices...the 2 Methods for Trying to Keep Sync are that the Software will Adjust the Frame rate while you are captureing so that the audio and Video stay in sync , This is Not a Good Method and it is Probably the Method that Power Director uses to keep sync..The Captured AVI will be in sync when playing back on your PC but when you encode this File to Mpeg useing the Correct Frame rate it makes it go back out of Sync...The other method for Keeping sync is that the Software will dynamicly resample the audio to match the Video, this is the Proper Method that should be used for Keeping sync...Another reason for Bad Sync is Dropping Frames which is More than Likely when the Sync Problem is as bad as yours, You should Try captureing useing a codec, this will Make the Data Thuroput to your HD a Lot less so you Drop less Frames, The Best Capture codec is called "HuffYUV" this codec is Freeware and is a Lossless codec meaning the Quality useing this codec will Be as Good as Uncompressed AVI....Another thing you should do is NOT use "Sower Director" because it uses a Crappy Sync Method..a Better Program and a Free one would be something like "Virtual VCR" ,and choose the "Sync to video" option which will Resample the audio to Match the Video to stay in Sync...You could allways use a Mpeg2 Capture Program Like "WinDVR 3.0" which is Probably the Highest Quality Mpeg2 Capture program available and it uses a Proper Syncing Method and you will then not have to do any encodeing and you can also Capture the Audio to Dolby Digital which is the Best audio format for DVD"s...well Good Luck
Thank you so much, Minion, for your reply. I had almost given up hope, so I will give it one more big effort using your advice. I must say that I have been eyeing up DVD Recorders and it really seems so much simpler (not cheaper tho - good ones around $1800 here in New Zealand). I just wonder if the quality will be better/worse than the computer method...
