Poor audio quality with Arcsoft Showbiz

[moren...@mailinator.com]

Hi group,

I just installed my Hauppauge Colossus card, and I'm trying to
pass a S-VHS tape. I use WinTV to record, and it's all fine.

If I open the .TS file (the recorded/captured video), the audio
quality is excellent. Then, I use ArcSoft Showbiz (the software
that came with the video capture card) to create a DVD, and the
DVD comes up with the poorest (crappiest would be a better word
to describe it! :-) ) audio quality --- truly sounding like an
AM radio; it has absolute zero bass contents, it has no
high-frequency contents whatsoever (I estimate nothing above
6 or 8 kHz, as if the tweeter was disconnected :-\ )

The settings in the software for audio is Liner PCM (yes, it
does say *Liner* instead of Linear --- I wonder why I should
trust the audio quality in a product made by people that can't
spell "Linear" ;-) ), with 48kHz selected as the sampling
rate (hmm, maybe that was in the WinTV settings?? Don't
remember now). The bottom pull-down control for the quality
is set to "High" (it has options Standard, High, and Custom;
when I select "Custom", nothing happens --- I thought it would
open a dialog to allow me to set parameters).

Any tips?

I also have Pinnacle Studio HD Ultimate v15, but that one
fails to import the .TS file --- any help with this would be
equally appreciated (since it might fix the audio problem,
if it is indeed a software issue with Arcsoft's Showbiz).

Thanks,

Carlos
--

[Paul]

Read the customer review section on Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116065

One person, contacted Hauppauge, and got another software CD.
If you're on a system with 64 bit Windows (like say Vista or Windows 7),
that CD may help.

There are so many problems with the product, it is hard to say whether
you'll ever be satisfied with the thing.

There are basically three products, with roughly the same capabilities.
The BlackMagic Intensity Pro PCI Express card was one of them, and
that card had limited capture compression options. The next card to
come along, was an Avermedia card. One difference was, some DRM protected
recording options could be worked around with the Avermedia (this is a vague
recollection on my part, when reading the reviews a while back).
The Hauppauge Colossus appears to be yet another one of these cards,
using the same front end.

They use the same Analog Devices capture chips, which capture from HDMI
or component video. But then the cards diverge, in how the digital output
is processed, before being sent to the computer bus.

The Hauppauge card looks to be using a proper compressor chip, with the plus
of reducing the data rate, and the minus of "softening" the image a bit (high
compression can do that).

http://www.vixs.com/briefs/XCode_3111_v2.pdf

Your problem is relatively trivial (some kind of audio sample rate issue,
like sampling at 8KHz instead of 48KHz or 44.1KHz (CD rate)). If the sample rate
was 8KHz, that reduces the pass band to below 4KHz (like maybe 3.4KHz), and
should sound "like a telephone call on a land line".

Buried somewhere in that software, the sample rate setting must be incorrect.
But, where ?

There have been hardware devices, where the sample rate menu was reversed,
and selecting one option, caused another option to be applied.

You have other options for recording software, such as Windows Media Center
(presumably installing Windows media Center drivers), but a disadvantage of
that is the DRM enforcement might be different than with the Showbiz software.
(It's unpredictable.) For example, the Analog Devices chip probably has
Macrovision detection, and if you popped a Disney VCR tape in the VCR, it's
possible it could be protected with Macrovision. If done properly, then the
software would refuse to record it (after a few attempts, where the video
washes out a few times, until the chip concludes there is something wrong
with the sync).

On HDMI, if you connect to a set top box with digital output, there
is an equivalent "do not record" bit in the HDMI stream, and the Analog
Devices chip likely detects that as well. Analog Devices must play by the
rules, to stay within the DMCA laws, so it doesn't have much choice in the
matter. It was only in situations of "clumsy implementation", where some
of these protection options could be bypassed.

Considering the hardware design, I do not expect you can bypass the audio
issue, by recording the audio separately. The Showbiz software is unlikely
to offer an option, to record the audio track, using the microphone or
line in on your computer sound card for example. The compression chip on
the Colossus, would combine the audio and video into one logical stream,
and there is no reason for the Showbiz software to consider optional
methods of audio input. In the past, software from the WinTV era,
might have offered the ability to record from alternate audio inputs,
but I don't see a reason for the software to offer those options now.
If such an option existed, you might work around the audio sample rate
issue that way (by plugging the VCR audio, into your computer sound card).

You could try plugging the audio signal, into both the Colossus and your
computer sound card, using a "Y" cable, and using something like
the free Audacity program, to record stereo audio, while the
Showbiz software is recording, like this. This means running two
recording applications at the same time. Audacity can record to system
memory, or record to disk, as far as I can remember, and I think on
my computer, I could record well over 2 hours of audio without a problem.

Y-cable
VCR --- audio ------+----------> sound card ------> audacity.sourceforge.net
|
+----------> audio
Colossus --------> Showbiz
VCR --- video -----------------> video

After the movie is finished, you're left with a two hour compressed file
from Showbiz, plus a two hour audio recording from Audacity. In a video
editor, you'd then replace the audio track from Showbiz, with the
audio track from Audacity. Due to sample rate differences, the
sync could slip between the two recording streams. You might have to
record in small sections, or "stretch" the audio track to make
corrections or the like.

That's an alternative, but a poor one.

Good luck,
Paul

[moren...@mailinator.com]

> Read the customer review section on Newegg.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116065
>
> One person, contacted Hauppauge, and got another software CD.
> If you're on a system with 64 bit Windows (like say Vista or Windows 7),
> that CD may help.
>
> There are so many problems with the product, it is hard to say whether
> you'll ever be satisfied with the thing.

> [ ... ]

Whoa!! Thanks for such a detailed post!! It's good to have an
idea of these additional details on what's going on behind the
scenes (no pun intended!!)

I'm just finishing some additional experiments to investigate
and find out what may be going on.... A bit of a strange issue:

The recorded DVD does sound perfectly good when I play it on my
computer, on Ubuntu Linux with the default Media Player. The
sound in here is essentially the same as when I play the .TS file
recorded on the Windows machine.

Now, before you jump to conclusions --- the speakers upstairs,
where I have the DVD player and the stereo, are quite better
than the ones in here (I have the computer connected to a
Stereo amplifier with a pair of reasonably nice speakers, not
the standard "computer speaker" --- but still, the ones upstairs
are considerably better).

I double checked the Receiver, to see if it was setting itself
in the wrong mode (e.g., playing as if it was Dolby 5.1 when
the audio comes from a stereo track, or something like that).
I manually tried all the settings --- it does sound better
when I set it in STEREO mode; but that's the "crappy" sound
I was referring to --- it's definitely not a 3.4kHz band-limited;
sounded *perhaps* like a sampling rate of 16kHz... I think
definitely worse (less high-freqs) than a 22.05kHz sampling
rate. But the thing is: it also lacks *low frequencies*,
which made me originally discard the possibility of simply a
wrong sampling rate issue.

But again, the thing is: the actual audio data on the DVD seems
to be ok --- I mean, it has to be ok, since it sounds perfectly
good when I play it on the computer with the software DVD player,
yet it sounds crappy when I play it upstairs, through the actual
(appliance/hardware type of) DVD player, going through the
coaxial S/PDIF output to the Receiver/Amplifier, then to a pair
of speakers --- I don't have a 5.1 or 7.1 setup; just one pair,
to play just stereo). But I play music CDs, Data CDs with MP3s,
normal DVDs (movies, TV series, etc.), and they all sound
perfectly good.

Any ideas what could be the wrong setting that is getting the
DVD player or the decoder in the Receiver/Amplifier confused?

> After the movie is finished, you're left with a two hour compressed file
> from Showbiz, plus a two hour audio recording from Audacity. In a video
> editor, you'd then replace the audio track from Showbiz, with the
> audio track from Audacity. Due to sample rate differences, the
> sync could slip between the two recording streams. You might have to
> record in small sections, or "stretch" the audio track to make
> corrections or the like.
>
> That's an alternative, but a poor one.

Hehehehe --- I had already that one as Plan B. It's actually not
a movie, but a concert (old one, never released on DVD), and I
already did the recording of the audio alone (using Audacity, of
course --- what else would I have used?!! :-) ), and recorded at
24bit/96kHz (not that it was necessary --- a S-VHS Hi-Fi is
essentially a little above than FM radio quality --- probably
70dB SNR and I guess 15 or 17 kHz bandwidth).

But yeah, it worried me that the synchronization of audio and
video might prove to be painful if going with plan B ... Maybe
the issue of the audio coming out crappy would be avoided, since
I would do the maneuver with Pinnacle Studio HD Ultimate, so
maybe that one won't screw up the audio... Do notice that
that would require a double-transcoding of the video, since
Pinnacle Studio does not read the .TS file generated by WinTV;
so, I would need to generate a DVD or an AVI file with ShowBiz,
and then feed that video to Pinnacle Studio, while composing the
audio from the track I recorded the other day through the sound
card....

I'm hoping it will be simpler than that??

Thanks,

Carlos
--

[Paul]

Well, in terms of a theory, the only thing that comes to mind, is
perhaps the produced DVD has both AC3 and PCM audio, the AC3
is poorly coded, and the "(appliance/hardware type of) DVD player"
upstairs is using whatever exists for AC3.

To remaster the video, you'd probably want an editing method
which does not recode the video track. I think some editors or
tools make that possible. If you were stripping off the audio track
from the entire video, and not making any scene changes, it should
be that much easier.

For what little editing I do here, I used the poorest tools imaginable,
and I find it's better to "author" the DVD as manually as possible, for
best control. Some of these "fully automated" tools for doing such,
do a poor job. But then, when I wanted to do what you're doing (VHS to DVD),
it took me two weeks before I had an acceptable result. I had many false
starts, needed to do the capture over again, and so on. If I'd used a
proper video editor, that wouldn't have happened.

Paul

[Brian]

Do you need the software that came with the card to create a DVD?
Take a look at other video to DVD converters and see if they accept the .TS
format. www.videohelp.com
Maybe you can contact Arcsoft about the problem if they have customer
support.

--
Regards Brian

[xman_charl]

I notice the audio is not up to snuff on my colosus.

I capture from a direct tv cable box, from hdmi. The box has hdmi and 3 rca jacks, the 3 rca jacks are always live. 2 are stereo, 1 composite.

Previously had att boxes, which had rgb, att captures were the best for me, as I used rgb, and stereo for sound.

As for direct tv, tried several methods mentioned here. Put sound through my computer sound card, while recording the hdmi. Also put sound through an amp, separate from everything.


I find this...On HDMI, if you connect to a set top box with digital output, there is an equivalent "do not record" bit in the HDMI stream, and the Analog

Devices chip likely detects that as well. Analog Devices must play by the

****in my own case, useless info, but go ahead, spread it around, like peanut butter on your sandwich.

The video quality for me, direct tv versus att, att a little better, but still gorgeous video.

The sound issue for me, separate sound from video, fiddle with it using adobe audigy, or sony soundfore pro 10, course there is that sync issue with video, only do this for stuff really consider great, rest leave as is from colosus.

charl