VHS tapes to DVD - Pinnacle vs Hauppauge

janettaM · #1 (**permalink**) 12-02-2005, 09:46 PM

Any advice on a good video capture card to have for transfering old home videos (on VHS tapes) to DVD?
I currently have a pinnacle av /dv card and studio. It works great except for the huge problem of audio synchronization. In the beginning the audio and video matches but it progressively begins to go out of sync. 30 minutes or so into the tape there is a very visible difference which makes the recording useless.

I have heard of the Hauppauge PVR 250 card and am wondering if this is any better, or if anyone has tried both (or actually ANY solution).
I have read some mixed reviews about Hauppauge about horrible software and some reviews have indicated sync problems as well.

any advice?

Crusty · #2 (**permalink**) 12-21-2005, 11:48 PM

I use the Hauppauge PVR250 and it works very well. But one thing to be wary of is using VBR (variable bit rate) on the video mpeg-2 compression. This screws up just about any mpeg video editor. Record with CBR settings and your audio slip should go away.

You can use VBR if you don't make any cuts or make chapter marks since the audio timing will stay synced with the video. Make a cut though or a chapter mark and you'll be sorry. Even making cuts on GOP boundaries may not work. Both require decoding and reencoding the video before and after the cut and that's where the sync will slip. With CBR, it's not a problem.

The only alternative is to decompress the original VBR mpeg to DV then edit and recompress. This is bad. You'll use a ton of hard drive space and get bad quality video when you recompress.

Post edit: I forgot to add a curious factoid. If you record with VBR and watch/listen to the video at the same time, you'll notice the music audio will be wandering up and down in pitch. You don't notice this much with voice but I'm sure it's still happening. This is how Hauppage is keeping the resulting mpeg audio and video in sync.