Hi Dave and welcome to the user to user forums.

Are your video clips from your mobile phone by any chance and recorded in an HEVC or an Apple codec?

If so, try recording in MP4 / H264 and see if things improve.

Ray.

 

 

Hi Ray,

Thanks for responding. No, I've got a Sanyo VCR playing a VHS tape to the Magix USB dongle over composite video.

I'd expected to hook it up and get a decent capture but the lip sync is really poor - it varies a lot, sometimes it's correct but sometimes it's seconds out. I used the Dazzle capture device before with Corel/Pinnacle and it was much better.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

Cheers,

Dave

@David-Roxburgh

Hi

. . . . I'd expected to hook it up and get a decent capture but the lip sync is really poor - it varies a lot . . . .

Sync issues can be caused by several factors:

• dropped frames during capture
• poor tape signal level
• loss of sync during capture
• the computer cannot keep up with the capture data rate
• incorrect capture settings

Is this with one tape or all tapes you have tested?

Can you post a screen shot of the capture settings you are using and what is the version number of the program?

John EB
Forum Moderator

@David-Roxburgh

Hi

. . . . I'd expected to hook it up and get a decent capture but the lip sync is really poor - it varies a lot . . . .

 

Sync issues can be caused by several factors:

• dropped frames during capture
• poor tape signal level
• loss of sync during capture
• the computer cannot keep up with the capture data rate
• incorrect capture settings

Is this with one tape or all tapes you have tested?

Can you post a screen shot of the capture settings you are using and what is the version number of the program?

John EB
Forum Moderator

Hi John,

Thanks for responding. I don't think it's the tape, the VCR or the laptop. I say that because I bought a cheap solution before I bought Magix, from Honestech (software & USB dongle). It captured the same video off the same tape played by the same VCR over the same composite cable with the same laptop and the lip sync was fine. The only 2 reasons I upgraded to the more expensive Magix equivalent was 1) the Honestech software preview feature didn't work - I had to capture blind and 2) the colour saturation was too high.

My capture settings:
Import source: MAGIX Video converter 3 (USB - DShow)
Composite
Recording quality: DVD
Driver: Conexant
  MAGIC Video converter 3
  7.0.122.72, 6-8-2015
  USB\VID_1D19&PID_6120&MI_01
Video standard: PAL I
Audio source: MAGIC Video converter (WDM)

The Magix Video easy software is version 7.0.1.12 (UDP3)

The laptop is less than a year old - a Dell Inspiron 5502, Intel core i7 2.80 GHz quad core, 24GB RAM, Win 10 Home.

Very happy to provide more info / screenshots if they are helpful.

Thanks,
Dave

'Upload file' failed - will follow-on.

@David-Roxburgh

Hi David.

In your second image, what other options are there for Audio Source in the drop down menu?

Most of us here do not use this program so most of your screen shots don't mean much to us (or at least me) so may need extra help.

Ray.

@David-Roxburgh

Like @CubeAce I also do not use this program but two questions arise, based on your screenshots:

• Do you have any other option for "Recording Quality"? If so, have you tried doing a short capture? With what result?
• On the screenshot of the "Magix video convertor 3 properties", have you tried ticking the option to "Link Related Streams"?

Jeff

@David-Roxburgh

Hi David.

In your second image, what other options are there for Audio Source in the drop down menu?

Most of us here do not use this program so most of your screen shots don't mean much to us (or at least me) so may need extra help.

Ray.

Hi Ray,

I've attached the Audio Source options. Previously, I had just left it on the default. Is 'MAGIX Video converter 3' likely to be any better?

Do you capture from composite/S-Video? If so, what do you use - I'd be happy to switch!

Dave

@David-Roxburgh

Like @CubeAce I also do not use this program but two questions arise, based on your screenshots:

• Do you have any other option for "Recording Quality"? If so, have you tried doing a short capture? With what result?
• On the screenshot of the "Magix video convertor 3 properties", have you tried ticking the option to "Link Related Streams"?

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

There is an option other than 'DVD', which is 'User defined'. I've attached a copy of the dialog which is presented when 'User defined' is selected. I do know a little about encodings, sample rates, etc. but if I was to play with these settings it would be pure experimentation. Any insights welcome!

I have tried ticking 'Link Related Streams' - if I tick that tick-box, click 'OK' and then bring that dialog back up again, I see that the tick-box has been cleared.

Thanks,
Dave

@David-Roxburgh

Like @CubeAce I also do not use this program but two questions arise, based on your screenshots:

• Do you have any other option for "Recording Quality"? If so, have you tried doing a short capture? With what result?
• On the screenshot of the "Magix video convertor 3 properties", have you tried ticking the option to "Link Related Streams"?

Jeff

Oh, Jeff, I meant to ask: Do you capture from composite/S-Video? If so, what do you use - I'd be happy to switch!

Cheers,
Dave

@David-Roxburgh

Hi

Looking through the screenshots - the recording format DVD is most likely the cause of the issue. DVD = MPG which can be notorious for losing audio/video sync, I do not believe Video Easy has the option to Create a new frametable after capture which usually fixes the sync problem

Try recording with the User-defined (MPEG-2) option with the default settings.

John EB

@David-Roxburgh

I believe @johnebaker has given you the answer to your problem. However,

Do you capture from composite/S-Video? If so, what do you use - I'd be happy to switch!

Yes, via Composite, but using Movie Edit Pro and/or Video Pro X or, sometimes, ScenealyzerLive, via a Canopus ACEDVio PCI card (which is no longer available, sorry!)

Jeff

@David-Roxburgh

Hi David. I haven't touched DVDs since Win 7 or encoded from a VHS tape since Win 98. 😂

So many people have internet now there are easier ways to distribute material to anyone that needs or wants it.

The quality of transfers from tapes recorded in the eighties would be close to being unusable now due to degrading magnetic flux or glue bindings between substrate and tape. I do have a fully working analog TV and two VHS recorders still in reasonable nick for emergencies as well as an external analog to digital convertor but I'd have to build a machine to work on Win 98. I still have the hardware somewhere, just not in a case.

I too agree that John has given you the most promising action to take.

Most of us answering questions on the forums here use either Movie Edit Pro or Video Pro X where altering such sync issues are fixable although the learning curve is a little harder I guess. They are just more flexible programs for those of a more enthusiast to pro nature.

We do not down-cry those using the easier to use programs but it can often be harder for us to find an answer that works due to the amount of automation and lack of choices for the sake of an easier to use program.

If Johns' suggestion does not work please come back and say and we will try to think of another solution.

Ray.

@johnebaker @emmrecs @CubeAce

First of all, many thanks for your posts... it reminds me of the '90s when the signal-to-noise ratio of the Internet was still high, before the rot set in. Thanks for your helpful, knowledgeable suggestions!

So it turns out that I bought Movie Edit Pro Premium before I bought Video easy but I decided to buy Video easy since 1) I wanted capture h/w and s/w that had been designed to be used together (as surely that would give best results!!) 2) I had no idea Movie Edit Pro could do analogue capture!

So I've ditched the Video easy s/w and moved over to my Movie Edit Pro Premium installation. It finds the MAGIX USB dongle fine. And I've tried switching the recording quality between DVD and MPEG-2 and it's made no difference. The CPU load varies between 8% and 14% with no dropped frames.

My mother gave me some VHS tapes I'd not seen for 30 years and when the VCR is hooked up to the telly they play really well... for VHS! Steady, good colour... and perfect lip sync!

So I'm now starting to wonder if my USB dongle is actually faulty. The s/w does seem pretty decent and you've all had good results. I guess I'll try and get Movie Edit Pro Premium to recognise my Honestech/Masster BR117 or my Dazzle h/w. Failing that, I guess I'll revert to my nasty cheap Honestech s/w and h/w setup - the colour was awful but at least it was watchable.

It's really disappointing to have so many problems when I've forked out so much dosh. I guess if either of my other h/w units work better I'll go for a refund on the Video easy.

Cheers,
Dave

@David-Roxburgh

Hi David.

If you put the video and audio onto separate tracks it is fairly easy to to nudge the audio into sync to the video.

Ray.

@David-Roxburgh

Hi

Switching to using Movie Edit Pro (MEP) actually gives you a feature that may fix the issue.

Capture to DVD format using MEP.

With the recording on the Timeline right click it and select Create (new) frame table and save the project.

Hopefully this will correct the audio sync.

John EB

@CubeAce

The quality of transfers from tapes recorded in the eighties would be close to being unusable now due to degrading magnetic flux or glue bindings between substrate and tape.

Ray, not true at all. Many of us are still happily transferring VHS in great quality.

@David-Roxburgh

Using MEP, try capturing into MXV format. It's not my preferred VHS capture format but it might help isolate your audio sync issue. MXV is the proprietary Magix video format and has low overhead system requirements (although your CPU info indicates yours isn't having any issues keeping up).

Re the colour saturation of your Honestech captures, it is just over-saturation or are the colours "off"?

Another option is to bring your captured Honestech video into MEP and do some colour modification there.

@David-Roxburgh

For capture, I would suggest you use S-video; better capture quality, I have found.

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks, I've now tried every combination of h/w. s/w techniques and encodings I can think might help. The only option seems to be to go through hours of scenes tweaking the audio backwards and forwards to try to achieve lip-sync. The trouble is, when the lip-sync is way off I can tell which way to move it but when it's closer but still unwatchably off, I can't tell which way it needs to be moved. Life's too short to spend hours trying to pull audio back in sync. And anyway, even within a scene the lip-sync varies so it wouldn't work anyway.

I think I'll resurrect my old Win7 laptop and re-install the awful old Corel/Pinnacle/Dazzle setup - it was awful but it worked.

Just gotta figure out how to get a refund on all the Magix kit I bought...

Hi David.

Sorry to hear that David.

Looking back over your posts you never said what generation your i7 processor was but looking up the specs for it and bizarrely it may be too new and not yet supported by the programs.

On the Video Pro X specs page it is still reporting that support for the Intel Iris XE graphics processor is still not supported yet and that is the flagship Magix editing project. So the lower end programs don't have a chance.

One last thing you could try in Movie Edit Pro (If you have the 2022 version) is to put all the Program Settings for MEP processing (Import / Processing / Export) to Microsoft WARP. That may give the connectivity you need and bypass the program trying to use the GPU.

Ray.

Thanks @CubeAce, I appreciate your time and efforts.

I spent today performing a factory reset on my old HP Pavilion g6, putting it back to Win8, installed Pinnacle and captured the same VHS tape I've spent weeks trying to capture with Magix. It captured perfectly first time with spot-on lip sync all the way through. Pinnacle also has a very nice 'analogue' jog wheel which makes it really easy to spool forward and backwards through content. So I'm all set up with Correl/Pinnacle/Dazzle. I've asked Magix for a refund on MEP and VE.

Thanks for all your help,
Dave