capturing video w/ATI all-in-wonder & MS Moviemaker - no sound

[BonRouge]

That's basically it in the title - I've put an ATI all-in-wonder RADEON (a few years old) into an old COMPAQ Presario 5000. I'm trying to capture video from a video camera with MS Moviemaker. I'm getting the picture, but no sound is coming through. I can choose 'Microphone' as the audio input option and use another microphone, but the volume is really low. I guess I should be using the 'video' option of the audio input bit, but that - or any other option - doesn't work. I'm not getting the sound from the video camera's microphone.

Any idea what the problem might be here?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[gsellis]

Don't quote me, but I thought the audio went in Line In. I plugged mine in more than a year ago, so I am not sure. Are you saying you tried that and it did not work? So now you are trying Mic in?

Did you open Volume Controls, click Options, Advance Controls and verify that Microphone and Line In are not selected as Mute?

 

[BonRouge]

Originally posted by: gsellis
Don't quote me, but I thought the audio went in Line In.

The manual has lots of pictures of RCS cables going from the special RCA adapter to the camera. Maybe I should try putting it into the line in, but I guess I'll have to get myself another cable to do that. As I said, it worked with the Mic in, but the volume was a lot lower than it is when I record to a DVD recorder in the same kind of situation.

Originally posted by: gsellis
Did you open Volume Controls, click Options, Advance Controls and verify that Microphone and Line In are not selected as Mute?

Yes, I did do that. When I found those controls, I thought I'd found my problem, but even with the mute unchecked and the volume raised on everything, I had no joy.

Anyway, thanks for the idea about the line in. I'll get a cable and see how it goes.

[edit]Sorry - I just realised that you said "Don't quote me" and I went ahead and quoted you. Sorry 'bout that. [/edit]

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: BonRouge
[edit]Sorry - I just realised that you said "Don't quote me" and I went ahead and quoted you. Sorry 'bout that. [/edit]

HA! No, I meant don't go around saying, "Well George Ellis told me that it goes in here, so it goes in here." I have some uncertainty as I cannot remember. But I think the mic in is left open so you can do voice over. Using the quote above was fine

 

[BonRouge]

Originally posted by: gsellis
HA! No, I meant don't go around saying, "Well George Ellis told me that it goes in here, so it goes in here." I have some uncertainty as I cannot remember. Using the quote above was fine

Yeah, I figured that. I was kind of joking... A lot gets lost in the translation, doesn't it? (The winky smiley has been duly added to the edit above).

 

[BonRouge]

Connecting the audio to the line in worked for me. Thanks.

 

[BonRouge]

Erm... I'm back.
I thought the line in worked - and it did - but not as well as I need. I'm just recording conversations in a quiet room. The recordings I made with the line in had too much background noise. I tried feeding the audio into the mic socket, with similar results.

I wonder how I could get the video card working properly so that the audio comes through with the RCA adapter box-thing.

I hope someone can help...

 

[gsellis]

This is something entirely different. You are probably using an omni-directional mic in a room. It picks noise in every direction. Either you put the mic in a foam lined box just in front of the source, or you use a shotgun or lav mic. Audio recording is its own science.

 

[BonRouge]

I'm already doing these recordings using a DVD recorder, and the sound is fine. After recording on the DVD recorder, I'm burning to a DVD-RW, importing the files into an editing program and converting them to .wmv.I have no problem with that. The problem is that it takes a long time to convert them all to .wmv files. I want to capture in Movie Maker to save myself a lot of time. I think that if the audio went in to the video card properly, I'd have no problem.

 

[gsellis]

You want Jay Rose or Douglas Spotted Eagle tutorials/books. Here is a Jay Rose link Text

 

[BonRouge]

Hey. I've just had a look around those sites, but I couldn't find anything related to my problem.

 

[gsellis]

? Now I am confused. Are you capturing DVD output through the AIW? Why? Go to videohelp.com and find tools for DVD to AVI. Keep it digital and no noise is introduced. I thought you were capturing voice over on a mic and getting noise. Sorry.

 

[BonRouge]

I have a video camera with which I record conversations. The signal goes into a DVD recorder, where it is recorded onto the hard drive. After that, I burn the recording onto a DVD and transfer the files to a computer and convert the files to .wmv files. I'm trying to take the signal from the DVD recorder into the AIW so that I can capture (the live video camera signal) as .wmv. I'm getting the picture but no audio. The audio is not coming through to Movie Maker. When the regular RCA cables into the AIW adapter failed, I tried feeding the audio in through the line in and then through the mic input socket. This is when I was getting strange noise.
I just want the video card to receive sound through the RCA adapter box as it's supposed to. I don't know why it isn't doing so. I downloaded the latest driver for AIW...

(Just to make it doubly clear - I'm not trying to copy DVDs with AIW - I'm just trying to capture live video).

Thanks for your help so far.

 

[gsellis]

Your workflow should be camera to tape. If DV, tape to WMV via Firewire. If VHS or Hi8, tape to WMV or AVI via AIW. Skip the others. This way, you get PCM audio. But this is where Jay Rose, et al comes in. When you are recording, you need to also use good recording technics to keep out all the other noise including room noise.

 

[BonRouge]

Why would I use tape? As I said, the recordings I'm making into the DVD recorder are fine. The sound quality is also fine (although perhaps a little quieter than I'd like). What I'm trying to do here is speed up the process. Tape would be a big step backwards in terms of speed.

 

[gsellis]

Because the DVDR is compressing it. You are then doing a compressed digital to analog to digital capture. You have created 3 distinct instances where you can add noise and destroy quality. The tape is digital to digital with less than .1% possible compression loss if you go to AVI and then extract the WAV/PCM. Add to that the noise from the room from the omni mic.

Compare what you have to this. This was a school project for my daughter to do a mock autobiography. I shot this in the dining room, 12x12, with a shotgun mic across a table. Direct into the PC via firewire. Of course, this has video too. But, you can hear the room but no extra noise. I did not have to noise gate the audio and I don't think I did noise reduction either. I have a X800XT AIW, but would not want to use it to capture because of the digital to analog to digital conversion and through about 3 devices (out, AIW, sound card). You sound card can also add noise based on the S/N Ratio and how good the processor is. While this is true with digital video through firewire, all the extra overhead of the analog just adds to the mess.

So, your way is faster, but the tradeoff is quality. Whichever works for you. You can use on of the free audio cleanup tools to reduce noise. There is a list at videohelp.com IIRC.

 

[BonRouge]

I appreciate the continuing input, but I'm not getting anywhere nearer to a solution. I have another PC (a laptop) doing almost the same thing as I want to do here and it's working fine. I have an ADS Video Xpress box to take the sound and video through USB. The quality is as good as on the DVD recorder recordings. For some unknown reason, the ADS box doesn't work on the machine I'm having problems with, which is hwy I'm trying to use the AIW audio/video input.
I'm not going to use tape as, like I said, the thing I'm trying to do is speed the whole thing up rather than slow it down. I'm making about four videos a day and I need the process of getting them up onto my server as .wmv files to be faster.