Hi all--

Newbie here. I started capturing, encoding/rendering, and burning to DVD last week or so. System specs: Windows XP system, running a P4 at 2.8GHz, 1GB of RAM, plenty o' hard disk space. Video card is ATI AIW 9700, sound card is Audigy 2.

I used the Pinnacle Studio 8 to capture, edit, and encode the first time from a composite (VHS) source at a custom capture rate of 4288kbps in MPEG2 format at a resolution of 720x480 with sound encoded initially as MPEG Layer 2, 16-bit stereo, at a sample rate of 48kHz (these sound options in Pinnacle could not be altered, they were grayed out). When I initially captured the program, the audio was fine and everything was synched (I even have the source file on the hard drive now and have just checked its integrity against the edit). However, after I edited the program in Pinnacle and let the program render the edited version from the original, at the same bitrate as above, but altering the sound to 44.1kHz and a data rate of 224 Kbits/sec (these sound options CAN be changed), I suddenly got very brief, periodic lapses in the sound and, almost unnoticeably, some very minor video glitches (slowdown/slow-mo-ish that weren't there before). I burned to DVD and of course got the same glitches.

The sound is what bothers me and I am curious as to the cause. I hesitate to rerender the project in search of a solution when so many options potentially led to the glitch. Should I be capturing initially in MPEG2 as I have, or switch to AVI and convert back? Could the length of the program be a factor in inducing the glitch to occur? Could it be the rendering utility in Pinnacle itself that's the culprit? Should I try capturing at a higher bitrate and then, after editing, switch to my intended bitrate for the burn? I have also heard that it is possible audio incompatibility with the DVD, but that doesn't seem possible with my having problems before the DVD has been burned. (I know, I know, so many questions. Such are the mechanics of my problem.)

Also: While I use Pinnacle to capture and edit, I prefer creating menus and burning via ULead DVD Workshop for the time being. Any way to keep that program from rerendering the source I feed into it?

Any guidepath at all would be appreciated. Thanks a lot for putting up with me here!

A DVD requires audio to be 48khz not 44.1 44.1 is for VCD and SVCD only. Leave it at 48khz and I'm sure your sound problems will dissappear also.

If that's the case, then why is the sound screwing up on the MPEG file encoded from the edit? I could see it occurring on the DVD but not on the MPEG. I'll try what you say, definitely--just doesn't make sense to me seeing as I had the problem before burning to DVD.

The downsampled 48 to 44.1 khz is in the edited MPEg file. I would suggest that Pinnacle Studio 8 doesnt do this the best also.

I assume you have the original captured MPEG file, un-editted? How does that play and sound?

As I said in the initial message, the originally sampled, unedited MPEG file plays and sounds fine--no glitches or anything.

So the original MPEG with 48khz sound plays fine while the editted MPEg with 44.1khz does not, nor does the dvd with 44.1khz. Doesnt this suggest something or am I missing something?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the encoder with Studio isn't worth crapola and that I should probably look into editing the files elsewhere, in another video editing program.

That said, any suggestions on a good video editing program that's relatively inexpensive and won't cause me said glitch? Or are 'inexpensive' and 'glitchless' two words that just don't go together?:-D

If you are after quality, I would suggest not capturing straight to MPEG2. Capture to .avi with a video codec such as Huffyuv and uncompressed audio @ 48. Use VirtualDub (free) to edit/filter video. Then you can frameserve or use Avisynth to feed your video to a MPEG 1/2 encoder (TMPGEnc, CCE, Canopus, etc...)
You'll get much better captures this way.
But your sound problem is definately going from 48 to 44.1.

I have a strong feeling your right

I use Ulead Video Studeo 8 to do my capturing, but as Daemonicus said, I capture to AVI (Huffyuv codec & PCM audio) but expect a LARGE file. Any editing I need to do I can use VS8 but prefere to use free VirtualDUB. I then feed that into DVD2SVCD w/CCE to convert to a compliant DVD. See the Tutorial http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread....threadid=61142 on how to do that.

ChickenMan, I'll check out your link (above) to see if it helps me with a solution to my own problem that I posted on another forum and mentioned to you via PM.

EDIT: Checked out the link, CM, and guess it's dealing with an entirely different issue. I'll snoop around the forum for help with my problem before I post it in detail.