Audio intermittantly out of sync at all phases of moviemaking

[Guest]

Hi,

We've read everything we can find on audio sync problems. Clearly this is a
bear to diagnose. Would any experts care to give us a top-3 things to try
first?

Situation: Brand new HP Media Center PC top-of-the-line Intel chipset.
Ancient analog video camera. We capture using the RCA inputs on the PC's
front panel for the Conexant Falcon II video capture card and with Sonic
myDVD on the HQ=DVD setting. Playback of captured video in WMM will
occasionally cause in-sync and out of sync playback of the same scene. Big
edit on WMM... huge file, music in the background, titles, the works and...
again, in the timeline, depending on when, where, how you click... sometimes
the same segment will be in or out of sync. Using the WMM's own create DVD
add-on (apparently a Sonic plug-in) we burned a DVD. And upon playback of
the DVD in our TV's DVD player, the audio was out of sync in certain scenes.
Check back at the project on the PC, and the same scene might play in sync.

Question: What's the best way to fix this issue? Is this a system
resources issue? Random sync problems depending on how heavy the system's
running? What can we do to guarantee in-sync audio?

 

[decoder]

Hi,

We've read everything we can find on audio sync problems. Clearly this is
a
bear to diagnose. Would any experts care to give us a top-3 things to try
first?

Situation: Brand new HP Media Center PC top-of-the-line Intel chipset.
Ancient analog video camera. We capture using the RCA inputs on the PC's
front panel for the Conexant Falcon II video capture card and with Sonic
myDVD on the HQ=DVD setting. Playback of captured video in WMM will
occasionally cause in-sync and out of sync playback of the same scene.
Big
edit on WMM... huge file, music in the background, titles, the works
and...
again, in the timeline, depending on when, where, how you click...
sometimes
the same segment will be in or out of sync. Using the WMM's own create
DVD
add-on (apparently a Sonic plug-in) we burned a DVD. And upon playback of
the DVD in our TV's DVD player, the audio was out of sync in certain
scenes.
Check back at the project on the PC, and the same scene might play in
sync.

Question: What's the best way to fix this issue? Is this a system
resources issue? Random sync problems depending on how heavy the system's
running? What can we do to guarantee in-sync audio?

The issue of the audio in same clip that at times be either in or out of
sync
can be a codec and even a software issue, example being my pci DVB-T
digital card is hauppauge, who seemingly have done a tie-in with Ulead,
it produces Mpeg2's that will have an audio sync problem with any other
software other than Ulead.
But also in your instance is the capture via RCA inputs, audio is very easy
to capture without glitch, but video is CPU intensive and can be plaqued
by "frame drop", this can be a cause of audio sync problems.
You may like to consider a standalone device such as:
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html
Similar products by Pinnacle, cannopus etc etc.
These capture devices have their own dedicated onboard processor
and capture the analog signal and convert to Mpeg2 and than feed
via USB2 to PC.
You should check out this site, it is very comprehensive and with
browsing you may find solutions from others with same software
and set-up as yourself.
http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?howtoselect=9#9