audio capture problem

[Laurie]

I have an AVDC100 betweeen my JVC svhs deck and my comp. Everything was going smoothly until yesterday when I noticed pulsing in the audio as it was being captured. Pulsing in time with the counter in the bottom left of the MSpro capture window. I stopped the tape and it went away. Since I have cable tv hooked up to the vcr I could tell the sound was now okay but all I had to do was press the menu button on my vcr remote and as soon as the vcr menu came onto the capture screen the pulsing started again...without starting the capture or the tape.

I uninstalled the last two MS updates that I did two days ago... no result(grasping at straws). I can't remember doing anything that might have caused this. I surely don't want to install XP again but I will if I have to. That seems a last resort.

When capturing with the AVDC100 there are practically no settings to choose except for destination directory...braindead simple.

I'm stumped.

[Laurie]

Well I've just gone back to the first tape that I captured with the AVDC100 and the pulsing is not there or at least not very audible. But if I stop the tape and hit the menu button on the remote the pulse returns. It seems to be tape dependent. Some tapes pulse worse than others. So maybe it has been there from the start.

I have played the tapes on another vcr and no pulsing. Time to try another vcr I guess.

[Brian Ellis]

Are the tapes copy-protected? Try keeping the silver button on your ADVC pressed with the "pulsing" tape running for 20 secs and tell us whether this cures it.

[Laurie]

Brian, they're not copy-protected. Just home video tapes, some as old as 1985.

I spent some time thinking about how I had the sound connected from the AVDC100 to my comp. The AVDC100 has two rca jacks which I connected to one of the cables supplied with my AIW. In other words the sound is not connected directly to the input of the sound card. My hunch is that this is the problem.

A trip to Radio Shack to find a two channel rca to stereo mini-plug adapter is my first priority today.

[Laurie]

Little voice in head: "Hey, Laurie, you Bozo !! Don't you realize you need to hook the sound input directly to the sound card."

Laurie: "Why no. I never would have thought of that."

Little voice in head: "Well?"

Laurie: "Well what?... Oh, you mean did it work?"

Little voice in head: "Yeah"

Laurie: (wearing his best embarassed expression ) Um...Yes.

[magician]

ROFL

[Laurie]

This is getting silly. Now I have an echo so I disconnected the sound input altogether and I still have sound but the pulsing is back.

Really dumb question: Does the firewire cable from the AVDC100 carry video signal as well as sound?

EDIT: little voice again: "yes, sound and video are in the DV stream."

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by Brian Ellis
Try keeping the silver button on your ADVC pressed with the "pulsing" tape running for 20 secs and tell us whether this cures it.

Well?

Don't listen to little voices. Of course the DV stream is video + audio.

I have zero problems transcribing VHS tapes via the ADVC-100 to the computer. Hours on end with no drops, perfect sound and video. And I use MSPro 7.01 video capture module with a bog standard IEEE-1394 card almost given away with a packet of corn flakes.

Can't really help but I suggest that your problem may lie in the tape itself and/or the VHS tape transport. Old (>10 years) tapes are notoriously hairy.

[Laurie]

Brian, thanks for your responses. The sound pulses do seem to be tape dependent but even on the newer tapes I can detect the same sound. One old tape yesterday (my youngest and about 40 others playing ukelele with an orchestra...not all that musical...hehe) I had all but given up on, for some reason I finally managed to capture but another newer one exhibited the same problem intermittently.

When I connected the outputs from the AVDC100 to a tv and once tried to capture that ukelele tape the sound was perfect to the tv but the pulsing was so bad from the computer that I stopped the capture. So I assumed the problem was downstream from the AVDC. As I said persistence allowed a capture of the uke tape but I'm convinced that the pulsing is still there I just can't here it over the music(?).

The P4S8X motherboard I'm have is notorious for a multitude of problems. I am currently using its on-board firewire connector and on-board sound.

I have ordered a new board. It has become time to upgrade my wife's comp anyway. She will get the P4S8X as it wont cause her problems with the average use she makes of the comp. She has been having spontaeneous reboot problems ever since I gave her my last old MB.

So I know its an extreme attempt at a solution but it will at least eliminate this problem mb. It will be here later this week so I'll post again after install.

PS: Its an Asus P4P800 D which according the fellows over at the Asus boards forii has very few if any issues. It seemed the only problems anyone was having was with o/c...not something I'm interested in doing.

[Brian Ellis]

Ah, it's not a good idea to use on-board IEEE-1394, sound, RAID, modem, etc. I'm not saying that's the problem, but many of these were/are rubbish.

Personally, I'm blacklisted Asus. Had many problems in the past with half-a-dozen Asus computers, but they may be better now. My latest is MSI.

[Laurie]

Update:

Replaced the P4S8Sux with an Asus P4P800. Just tried capturing the first few minutes of the uke tape that was causing so much grief. What a difference! The pulsing and cutting in and out is gone and the sound is so much clearer its amazing.
Keeping fingers crossed that this will continue.


'nother update: pulsing is back.