newbie question about video/audio synchronization

jtdrums wrote on 1/30/2004, 8:31 PM
hello!
I just purchased MS and the first video I'm trying to capture/edit is a video of a live performance of a band. I'm capturing using USB 2.0
When previewing the clip (about 5 minutes long) right after capturing it, the audio in the beginning is synchronized fine, but by the end of the clip it's not, it's off by a second or so. I'm just previewing it, I did not edit the clip, add any effects, etc.
Any suggestions?
thanks

Comments

mmreed wrote on 1/30/2004, 8:40 PM
when capturing, did you get any dropped frames?

what capture hardware are you using?

jtdrums wrote on 1/30/2004, 9:08 PM
No, I'm not getting any dropped frames.
As for the capture hardware, please excuse my ignorance here! I'm using the USB connection since my PC does not have a firewire card. How do I find out exactly what type of video capture hardware I have? It's a new Gateway 510x system.
thanks
JReed wrote on 1/31/2004, 4:14 AM
I would go buy a firewire card for your pc and capture via that...USB ports are a little slower and your sync problem may be due to that.
Ralph413 wrote on 1/31/2004, 8:26 AM
I agree with John, Probably a USB problem. Firewire is much faster during the capture process.

Ralph
Chienworks wrote on 1/31/2004, 8:37 AM
The USB capture is probably also an MPEG file, and real-time MPEG captures are notorious for sync problems.
ADinelt wrote on 1/31/2004, 9:10 AM
This may be a stupid question, but if there are so many problems with real-time mpeg capture, why do manufacturers even offer it?

Just curious...
Al
JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/31/2004, 11:34 AM
> why do manufacturers even offer it?

I would imagine its because people want it. Not everyone wants to edit video. Some people just want to preserve their tapes. The easiest and quickest way to do that is to capture direct to MPEG2 and burn to DVD. It’s not the public’s faults that the manufacturers build shoddy products. MPEG capture doesn’t have to be problematic, and in fact, there are products on the market like ADS Instant DVD ($169), that do this rather well. The problem is that people who are looking for sub-$100 solutions are finding that at that price point, they are getting junk. In addition, a common problem with USB capture is bandwidth. If you plug these devices into a hub instead of the USB port on the motherboard you could have problems because the hub is sharing the bandwidth of a single port.

~jr