Attn: AWM

I have used HyperCam since '02 and its always been easier and even better quality than any other capturing software I have tried. I always capture in either 24 or 30 FPS uncompressed.
My video is always 2/3 the length of my audio. Its easy enough to fix it but I was wondering if you experience the same thing with your system.


Side note.
I Also Use Sony Vegas Pro9, as of 6 days ago. I have had Sony for a few months but was used to Nero 9. Sony is a far superior product. I wish I had used it when I first bought it but the learning curve and laziness got the better of me.
I am learning more about the UI with Sony and hopefully will become proficient enough with it that editing takes 1/3 the time it does now (I can edit at a madding pace with Nero but rendered quality sux.)

If your audio is not synced with the frame capture rate, that would do it... It can be one of two ways this is happening, at capture, or editing.
Make sure your audio timing is set to the same as your video timings (see the metronome setting for audio, and ruler/settings for video in Sony).

One small point I noticed: 'I always capture in either 24 or 30 FPS uncompressed', PAL is 25fps and NTSC is 29fps, unless you render at the same fps, that will drop frames or tween new ones.

Personally, I do not capture audio and video together, for this very reason. However, most capturing/editing programmes favour the audio stream over the video, which it will drop frames in place of any audio.

What about you edit in Nero, output to AVI format, and the audio a seperate output, bringing them back together into Sony for rendering?

Sorry for the delayed reply... I just noticed the date you posted... been a wee bit distracted launching our own platform.

I stopped looking here for a couple of days, thank you for the reply.

I am recording with sound on. I'll mess around with using a sound recorder separate from my video capture and see what kind of results I get.

The '24' was a typo I record in 30 or 25 fps. I've always seen NTSF as 29.97 FPS hence the 30 FPS capture.

"What about you edit in Nero, output to AVI format, and the audio a seperate output, bringing them back together into Sony for rendering?"

I've since gotten better with Sony and doubt that I'll be using NERO much at all anymore.
NERO will only output HiDef if I render as archvid. I use it to make blu-ray disks of my home movies.

I'm a FRAPS user personally, through and through.

Using this screen recording software, I've never had any sync issues -- it records in high quality, with or without sound, and has a few extra settings to tweak the size of the files on output. Unless you have a registered version of Hypercam (I think I've seen the demo/trial with the ugly watermark,) then I'd suggest trying FRAPS out. The demo version leaves a less offensive branding on the video, and it allows you to record in 30 second intervals. Very easy to use, and I've never had a reason to switch programs.

Seeing as you just changed from Nero to Sony 9, maybe it's time for a complete program overhaul and follow suit with some new recording software.

Good luck !

I think you will find the transition has already been made... HyperCam is everything Fraps is, and it has a unique feature which makes it a greater tool... the ability to select a capture zone anywhere, to any size, on the screen.

Assuming you are using SL for both screen capture and voice... both are run on seperate processes, and at different bitrates. If you are capturing at uncompressed AVI, that takes a lot of CPU cycles, followed by HD controller databus bandwidth. If you have enough system Ram (4gb), why not setup a ramdisc for sound capture?

Personally I have 4 Sata II HD's (total 1.5tb) in a Raid setup for capture streaming... I have not had any issues with syncing.

I have used FRAPS in the past and HYPER Cam is my choice for capture because of the screen capture options. I have a 22" LCD set at 1680X1050 that allows me to run SL in a window with HYPER Cam always up to the side. I draw a 1280 X 720 capture window on SL and keep the graphics preferences, environmental editor, debug settings, and chat windows positioned outside of the capture area so that I can change settings on the fly and keep chat and IMs from borking my video.

I am recording video to my main array and setting up my voice to be streamed to my E-SATA WD Velociraptor. I'm pretty sure that my mobo has enough bandwidth to handle this configuration. I like the ramdisc idea, I hadn't thought of it but might give it a go.

I originally built my system to handle the HD Video from my cam-corder and started SL machinima only a few weeks ago. I have a lot to learn when it comes to capturing high quality material.~~~

StrikerII Extreme MoBo

4~500GB WD SataII in raid 0 giving me 2 TB of main disk space running XP Pro SP3

1TB WD E-SATA for back up

E-SATA WD velociraptor for XP-Pro page files and WIN7 duel boot (I found that I get about a 7 to 10% performance increase when moving page files off of the drive that I'm running XP on)

4GB DDR3 1333 E.P. SuperTalent RAM OCed to 1600Mhz

NVIDIA 9800 GTX 1GB DDRG3 OCed 20%

E8400 OCed 20%

Ooops, logged into Zessinthal's account and it changed the forums too, I always forget about that.

Absolutely.. and a key fact I also use.. I run SL on one HD channel (IDE as master), the OS on another IDE channel (again as master), both having their caches on their respective discs.. and the capturing is on the SATA II Raid system.

/me takes notes.
TY

Whilst it may seem somewhat strange the fps between PAL and NTSC, especially as NTSC is broadcast at 29.97fps, this is not to be akward lol.. its the calculation derived using the Hertzs rating of the electricity, as a basis. In the NTSC countries it is 60 hertz, in the PAL its 50 hertz.
Useful information for those silent/akward moments at a party... LOL..

However, whilst video is driven by this rating of fps, audio isn't, so its important you capture and render both streams at a mutual rate. In Vegas, you can increase/decrease the timing/tempo of audio using a built in feature, without altering the pitch, within reasonable limitations.

Another driving force, would be decompression. The video 'stream' is delivered at different compression rates to the audio, by virtue they use different codec.
As nothing SL related is 'mission critical', syncing audio and visuals are not monitored beyond a few seconds at quality levels. Depending on what codec is being used to deliver by SL, and what codec you are using to store the stream, this can alter the audio tempo. Not over a couple of seconds that is noticeable, but over a period of minutes, it would accumilate.

Are you inserting the audio into Vegas as wav files, or compressed in mp3's etc? Again, if compressed, Vegas has to decompress the stream, build peaks to the audio settings you have, and determine the keyframe setting for timing.

Are you using HyperCam to capture the audio at the sametime you are capturing video? If not, you might try that, as it will internally sync both at output stage. If you are, look at the capture codec settings for both streams.

On a last note, I won't go into deeply here, Audio and Visual are delivered over different ports and protocols through the internet, some are slower than others, depending on how your system is using/monitoring ports, firewall settings etc. UDP for instance is commonly used for audio, but under certain circumstances, it can swap to TCP. There are a lot of variables in the big picture.

I was capturing both through HyperCam and you were right about the frames being dropped in favor of recording sound. Its easy to compensate for in Vegas by stretching the vidoe to the sound's length then slowing the video play back to .67.

I have played with some different capturing formats and have found that recording video only in Hypercam and sound with Sound Forge to another HD is the best way to go for my particular set up. The video in the resulting file is the correct amount of frames and length for the time I was recording. I am saving the Sound Forge Files as wav.

As you rightfully say, you can stretch and compress the video by Ctrl/Dragging the end frame of a video clip, in Vegas... did you know you can do the same for audio? It will, within certain limits, speed up/slow down, the tempo without increasing pitch.

There are several audio FX's that come with Vegas, quantity depends on which level and version you have, that can help with controlling tempo, pitch, volume etc etc. I particularly like the audio and video envelopes. Audio you can control directly, pan and volume. Video opacity. In the Audio envelopes, I like that the preview will play the whole clip and loop, so you can work in great detail.

If you bring in video with a audio attached, selecting either and pressing Ctrl+U will ungroup them, so you can work on their timeframes/keyframes without effecting the other. Once complete, you can reattach by selecting all the relevant elements, Ctrl+G and you are done.

I group elements that I have constructed over many layers, its easier to move a group for alignment, then each component, especially as the highest amount of layers I had components grouped over was 26 layers..... you cannot see that many layers on screen at the sametime. Groups can include a mixture of Video, Audio, Backdrops, Pictures, Special effects etc, so very flexible.

Yeah, I have used the time dilation with rendered sound clips from Cinescore to slow down or speed up the tempo. I have yet to do it with any captured sound though.

I'll loop 5 or 10 seconds of video while I'm adjusting the FX, getting to see the results in real time is pretty cool and it makes editing and sound track syncing a breeze. I'm just getting into the video overlays and opacity settings.

I bought the Platinum Pro Pack(Vegas 9.) It comes bundled with a butt load of FX. I am currently playing with the Cinescore plug in. After I learn as much as I can about what I already have I'll buy the NewBlue ultimate Pack.

WAX is compatible with Vegas 4 but will not work with Vegas 9. That kind of sucks because WAX has 100s of free video FX. I tried working with video in WAX and its very awkward.

If you goto my YouTube channel there is a video called "When Boy Meets Girl." All of the music for that vid was generated with Cinescore. It has a lot to be desired as far as the score matching the video but it was a test cut to see what is possible with the program.

NM the channel here is the vid...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkjr6rqKOp0

This is gold. I could not figure out how to do it so I ended up muting the original sound track and working in the other audio tracks.


I was wondering how deep the layering system can go because you only have three visible sound and video tracks to work with.

ETA~ I just figured out that you can add more tracks simply by right clicking and inserting a new track Obviously I should probably be watching some tutorials but what's the fun in that?

The next thing I want to play with is Soundforge's voice isolation. I have a couple of home movies that have background noise in them that distracts from the the dialog.

I believe CineScore is going out of production... if you want some of the Themes, you had better grab them soon.

In CineScore, you can set the tempo, increase tempo, volume, pitch even the composed instruments used.. creating a crescendos etc. to match the movie. It can be quite involved, but results vary from mediocre to very good, depending on the theme chosen. It is a pretty good programme for a couple of reasons.. you do not have copyright issues, saves composing sound bytes into a full composition.. has enough variation to get a fair bit of life from it. Downside, use it too often, it may become samey.

Good to know that it might not be supported anymore. I'll look at some new themes this evening.

I started playing with some of the settings and the ACID thing and stopped after just a few minutes. I realized that I could get way too involved on the music score and I decided to concentrate on the visual aspects. I'll play with CineScore a little at a time.

Between the three programs that came bundled together there is much to learn.