Topic: DV > PC no audio issue

[ethan]

I've spent some time searching today and can't seem to either get the right query going or just can't find any useful information.

I need to transfer a MiniDV to my PC so I can transcode it to MPEG4 and burn a DVD.

I borrowed a Canon ZR800 camcorder and connected it to my firewire PCI card. The video transfers great but I get no audio. I've tried 3 different apps to capture (VirtualDub, Nero Vision and Microsoft Movie).

Now my understanding is the audio and video are interleaved in the IEE1394 stream so the fact that I get no audio means something isn't configured right on my Windoze box. It seems each app only has my Audiophile 2496 as an option for the audio input source.

Is there some way to set up another input source. I've visited the Control Panel > Sounds and Audio devices Properties > Audio section and my only options under "Sound recording" are the 4 inputs on my Audiophile.

Any ideas? Anyone gone through this? I can't rule out IRQ conflicts and/or the fact that my MOBO has a built in sound card that is not configured (which I did on purpose to avoid problems with DAT transfer).

Thanks,

-e

[saltman]

You are wanting to render to mpeg2 not mpeg4.  when you capture the file does it show up as .avi?  Are you saying that when you play it with say media player you get no sound?  The audio is interleaved.  I don't think the sound card settings have anything to do with a firewire transfer but I could be wrong.  I say that because the signal wouldn't go through the card.  I also don't think it's a global setting like you were talking about through the control panel.  I'm at a loss.  If I had to guess, I would say its a setting in the capturing program you are using.

[ethan]

You are wanting to render to mpeg2 not mpeg4.  when you capture the file does it show up as .avi?  Are you saying that when you play it with say media player you get no sound?  The audio is interleaved.  I don't think the sound card settings have anything to do with a firewire transfer but I could be wrong.  I say that because the signal wouldn't go through the card.  I also don't think it's a global setting like you were talking about through the control panel.  I'm at a loss.  If I had to guess, I would say its a setting in the capturing program you are using.

Well the way I know I don't get any audio is I load the AVI in VirtualDub and save the wav. The wav is a flat line. Additionally since all three capture programs I tried all dropped the audio I think it's a windoze configuration. Somehow the firewire stream needs to be configured as an audio source. All three capture apps only have my sound card as an audio source. I understand the audio interleaved which is why it's really weird that I don't see any audio unless of course the reason I don't see any audio is I need a codec to get at it.

[coloartist]

Did you have an external mic on the camera, such as a shotgun, that plugs into an external mic plug?

I have had a Rode shotgun give me a flatline wav file.

Besides that, I can't help you Ethan. Good luck.

[ethan]

Did you have an external mic on the camera, such as a shotgun, that plugs into an external mic plug?

I have had a Rode shotgun give me a flatline wav file.

Besides that, I can't help you Ethan. Good luck.

No that's not it. The tape plays back fine with the analog A/V out.

[sabre]

I borrowed a Canon ZR800 camcorder and connected it to my firewire PCI card. The video transfers great but I get no audio. I've tried 3 different apps to capture (VirtualDub, Nero Vision and Microsoft Movie).

Try using WinDV - http://windv.mourek.cz (free) or Scenalyzer http://www.scenalyzer.com (free trial) to transfer your DV footage from your miniDV cam to your computer. Your sound card is not used during the transfer process when capturing DV-AVI files.

Once you've finished transferring your footage, you will have a large (13 gigabytes per hour) .AVI file. You can play it using Windows Media Player or any video editing software (Vegas Video, FCP, Premiere, Windows Movie Maker). VirtualDub has issues opening an playing DV-AVI files. There are ways around it though.

[ethan]

I borrowed a Canon ZR800 camcorder and connected it to my firewire PCI card. The video transfers great but I get no audio. I've tried 3 different apps to capture (VirtualDub, Nero Vision and Microsoft Movie).

Try using WinDV - http://windv.mourek.cz (free) or Scenalyzer http://www.scenalyzer.com (free trial) to transfer your DV footage from your miniDV cam to your computer. Your sound card is not used during the transfer process when capturing DV-AVI files.

Once you've finished transferring your footage, you will have a large (13 gigabytes per hour) .AVI file. You can play it using Windows Media Player or any video editing software (Vegas Video, FCP, Premiere, Windows Movie Maker). VirtualDub has issues opening an playing DV-AVI files. There are ways around it though.

Thanks for the info winDV was my next try. I've used tmpGENnc to transcode video in the past. Any idea if it will support transcoding DV-AVI's?

Edit: I forgot to mention I looked at the AVI with AVIcodec. AVIcodec reports 0 audio streams so I'm definitely losing the audio. What I believe is happening is Windoze recognizes the IEEE1394 stream as A/V and tries to direct the audio. I'm wondering if I need some kind of configuration for the Microsoft Sound Mapper to properly recognize the camera as an audio input source. I don't know though I'm just grasping for straws now.

-e

[ethan]

Problem solved!


winDV == MONEY!

Only problem I have now with winDV is there's no way to set a capture time duration so I can just grab a certain chunk of time off the tape. Left it running just now we'll see if it fills my drive.

-e

[sabre]

Thanks for the info winDV was my next try. I've used tmpGENnc to transcode video in the past. Any idea if it will support transcoding DV-AVI's?

Yep, TMPGEnc certainly supports encoding DV-AVI to MPG2.
I'd recommend checking out the following sites to get some tips on how to use TMPGEnc correctly:
http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html    <--- explanation of all the settings in TMPGenc
http://dvd-hq.info/Calculator.html        <--- bitrate calculator (enter in the length of your video and your audio bitrate and this will give you a min/avg/max video bitrate)