Poor audio sync with WM Capture

[mitrich]

Does anyone have experience with audio sync in WM Capture?

I did a four hour file. The first hour, everything seemed O.K. But after that, the audio and video went progressively out of sync.

Any help will be appreciated.

>>RSM

[Stream Ripper]

Hi

WM Capture uses A-LOT of system resources, you might want to try this:

To get the best quality video with WM Capture - try the following:

1. Go to Settings, and make sure you are using the MPEG-2 video format. Also, you may want to click on "Recommended Settings" at the top and select the most fitting option according to your pc configuration.
   
2. Try recording from a smaller video window by resizing your player to 1/4 of your screen, or no more than 480x640 pixels. This won't affect the video quality (since video is scaled UP from smaller sizes to fit a full-screen picture). This will require less computer power to capture, which will make for smoother videos.

Let me know if this works. :-)

[mitrich]

Hi, Yes, I already tried these things, I got this advice in the tech support site at Applian.

I think the problem is that four hours, which is what I recorded, is simply too long, probably for any screen-grab software. WM Capture is fine for the first hour or so.

Many thanks.

>>RSM

What video resolution and bit-rate to you use?

When recording open Windows Task Manager and see the CPU usage on the Performance tab.

I also suggest to defragment HDD and disable antivirus software when recording.

[mitrich]

my video default is 3000kbps.
my audio is at 256k, also default

i looked at Task manager.
I am using about 39 megs of DRAM, 39-42% of CPU.

I don't think any of these are really germaine to the issue. I do get a video with audio that is decent for about 1- 1-1/2 hours. Then it goes out. By 3-4 hours it is out too far to use.

Thanks.

>>RSM

This depends a lot on the computer speed and memory size. Usually a 2 1/2 hours recording and a file size less than 4 GB should be the high limits. A new recording should be initiated after this.

Recommendations from the developer of WM Capture for fixing audio/video sync problem:

WM Capture offers two video compression formats: MPEG-2 and Windows Media Player 9.

Both formats can be used to capture full motion videos (movies, music videos) or static videos (documents, pictures, browser windows) at high quality. MPEG-2 consumes less CPU power and is recommended for capturing full motion, larger size videos. Windows Media should always be used when capturing static videos.

Unless your computer is a dual core try to resize full motion recording windows to less than 1/4 of the screen.


If you use Universal Audio Driver :
The Universal Audio Driver should be used on XP computers if your sound card does not allow recording. Some of the XP computers purchased in 2007 and thereafter do not provide audio recording options.

Before enabling this option close the browser or any media players. Open WM Capture first, then open your browser or media player.

Universal Audio Driver has limited use and may require some manual tweaking when capturing the computer screen.

The audio and video cannot always be synchronized if the video is interrupted by commercials, buffering or other events that may cause the audio stream to stop. If these situations can be detected WM Capture will Pause recording. You should manually restart the recorder. To eliminate some of the audio interruptions disable the Windows sounds. Click "Disable Windows Sounds" and select "No Sounds" in the Sounds scheme.

In some cases, a user specified delay should be inserted in the audio stream before recording begins. Usually the delay should be set between 500 and 5000 milliseconds.



My additional recommendations:
1. Disable active scanner of your antivirus if you use one.
2. Close all applications that are not required when recording.
3. Disable "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" and any other Windows services that you don't use, but which eat lots of your CPU resources (Make sure you know what you are doing).

Also do you use a Universal Audio Driver?

[mitrich]

For "Audio In", I use the default "Microphone SigmaTel HD audio codec".
Of course, there is no micrphone. Poor choice of names.

For Playback, I use Total Recorder WDM audio driver.

Sorry I took so long to respond, I just got sick, probably pneumonia,
so , most of the time I am in bed.

When a dual core computer is used there shouldn't be any sync issues unless the computer has all audio recording options disabled and one has to use the Universal Audio Driver.

If you have audio/video sync issues, please specify what audio option you're using for recording and what is the computer configuration (single core, dual core, CPU speed). Sync issues can occur if the computer doesn't have enough CPU power to play full screen windows with a CPU loading less than 70%.

Press CTRL+ALT+DEL and see what applications use your CPU the most. You can try to disable "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" if you don't use it, because it can use lots of system resources.

WM Capture provides 3 options for recording audio:

• On Windows 7 and Vista the audio loopback is automatically setup. It fails (no audio is recorded) if the computer audio is set on surround sound and/or sample rates higher than 48000 Hz in the Playback Devices or the audio recording is disabled in the Recording Devices dialog. No sync issues.
• On Windows XP with Stereo Mix the audio loopback is manually set in WMCapture Audio Setup dialog or using the computer audio settings. It fails (no audio recorded) same as above. Possible sync issues on single core computers, or when full screen Flash or Silverlight videos are recorded (the video player loads up the CPU over 70%).
• On Windows XP with no Stereo Mix the audio loopback is set using the Universal Audio Driver. Sync issues are likely to occur.

[mitrich]

Thanks for the comment, this is now pretty much moot. I have moved to software which does just about everything I want on a direct download basis.