I am in the process of capturing all of my old Mini DV tapes to my media server (for the purposes of easy viewing -- will hold onto tapes as archives). However, I'm having an odd issue with audio that has me banging my head against a wall -- hoping you guys can help!
I started with WinDV, basically default configuration, except I changed to type-2 AVI. I let it capture the whole first tape, splitting it into 25 AVI videos. Everything went well, at least it seemed, until I was reviewing all of my AVI files and came across two or three AVI files that had no audio.
These definitely have audio, as I heard it from the camcorder as it was being captured. I tried playing it in Windows Media Player as well as VLC, and both played the video without audio.
I tried taping only a few seconds of the problematic scenes, but still no audio.
I tried type-1 AVI, and these played back with audio. However, my Windows 7 seems to have a whole host of other problems with type-1 AVI:
- Media Player hangs when trying to close it after playing a type-1 AVI
- Explorer hangs when trying to rename/move/delete a type-1 AVI
- Explorer also doesn't show a timestamp or filesize for type-1 AVIs
Basically, it seems to treat it as a corrupt file, and it can't handle it correctly.
So I gave up on type-1, even though it seemed to be the only thing I could get the audio to work.
Then I tried other capturing software. I tried Windows Movie Maker, but it recorded in type-1 (couldn't find a way to change this), as the audio again was there, but so were the other problems above w/ type-1.
Finally, I tried Enosoft DV Processor. I got it set up to capture type-2, but once again, had the same results -- video fine, no audio.
Again, these are just a few select scenes -- about 2-3 of these 25 files. My tests are always with this one particular scene that's about 1.5 minutes in length.
So I tried type-1 again, just to rule it out -- sure enough, same results as before. Audio is fine, but bizarre problems in Windows.
I finally found something that was interesting: if I record in type-2 *without* using DV Processor's "Scene Detection" (basically record everything as one scene/AVI file), and record it starting from the scene right before this one, then the audio for this scene is fine.
*Only* when it is broken from the other scenes is the audio missing. And no matter if it's the full scene, or a piece of the scene in the middle -- if the file doesn't start with some other scene, this particular scene will not have audio.
Also, just to try it out, I did try capturing to Raw DV, and this worked wonderfully -- even with Scene Detection enabled, I was able to get separate .DV files that included audio. Of course, that's not the best format for viewing -- I need a format that most players will play, ideally AVI.
So my questions:
1) Any idea what is causing this, and just for these few scenes on my tape?
2) Am I better off trying to figure out the type-1 issues, or the type-2 issues?
3) What is it about starting with another scene that causes type-2 to work w/ DV Processor, and how can I configure it to "trick" it into doing this with Scene Detection enabled.
Ultimately, I just need to be able to somewhat automate capturing these files, splitting them by scene, with audio intact.
More info about my system:
OS: Windows 7 Pro SP1, 64-bit
Camcorder: Canon Optura Xi
Firewire Card: Rosewill RC-501
Enosoft DV Processor Version: 1.5.4
WinDV Version: 1.2.3
Movie Maker Version: 2012 (build 16.4.3508.0205)
If you need info about any video/audio codecs, let me know.
Thanks!
I started with WinDV, basically default configuration, except I changed to type-2 AVI. I let it capture the whole first tape, splitting it into 25 AVI videos. Everything went well, at least it seemed, until I was reviewing all of my AVI files and came across two or three AVI files that had no audio.
These definitely have audio, as I heard it from the camcorder as it was being captured. I tried playing it in Windows Media Player as well as VLC, and both played the video without audio.
I tried taping only a few seconds of the problematic scenes, but still no audio.
I tried type-1 AVI, and these played back with audio. However, my Windows 7 seems to have a whole host of other problems with type-1 AVI:
- Media Player hangs when trying to close it after playing a type-1 AVI
- Explorer hangs when trying to rename/move/delete a type-1 AVI
- Explorer also doesn't show a timestamp or filesize for type-1 AVIs
Basically, it seems to treat it as a corrupt file, and it can't handle it correctly.
So I gave up on type-1, even though it seemed to be the only thing I could get the audio to work.
Then I tried other capturing software. I tried Windows Movie Maker, but it recorded in type-1 (couldn't find a way to change this), as the audio again was there, but so were the other problems above w/ type-1.
Finally, I tried Enosoft DV Processor. I got it set up to capture type-2, but once again, had the same results -- video fine, no audio.
Again, these are just a few select scenes -- about 2-3 of these 25 files. My tests are always with this one particular scene that's about 1.5 minutes in length.
So I tried type-1 again, just to rule it out -- sure enough, same results as before. Audio is fine, but bizarre problems in Windows.
I finally found something that was interesting: if I record in type-2 *without* using DV Processor's "Scene Detection" (basically record everything as one scene/AVI file), and record it starting from the scene right before this one, then the audio for this scene is fine.
*Only* when it is broken from the other scenes is the audio missing. And no matter if it's the full scene, or a piece of the scene in the middle -- if the file doesn't start with some other scene, this particular scene will not have audio.
Also, just to try it out, I did try capturing to Raw DV, and this worked wonderfully -- even with Scene Detection enabled, I was able to get separate .DV files that included audio. Of course, that's not the best format for viewing -- I need a format that most players will play, ideally AVI.
So my questions:
1) Any idea what is causing this, and just for these few scenes on my tape?
2) Am I better off trying to figure out the type-1 issues, or the type-2 issues?
3) What is it about starting with another scene that causes type-2 to work w/ DV Processor, and how can I configure it to "trick" it into doing this with Scene Detection enabled.
Ultimately, I just need to be able to somewhat automate capturing these files, splitting them by scene, with audio intact.
More info about my system:
OS: Windows 7 Pro SP1, 64-bit
Camcorder: Canon Optura Xi
Firewire Card: Rosewill RC-501
Enosoft DV Processor Version: 1.5.4
WinDV Version: 1.2.3
Movie Maker Version: 2012 (build 16.4.3508.0205)
If you need info about any video/audio codecs, let me know.
Thanks!