Pops & clicks on audio capture, please help
 

I am getting terrible pops, clicks, and hisses in my audio after DV capture.

DV:
I am capturing full quailty DV AVI via a Pinnacle Linx 1394 card from from a hardly used Canon Optura Pi, using brand new Sony Premium tapes, and the camcorder has never used anything but this exact brand of tape. I have used the Sony headcleaner, and recaptured, to no avail.

Computer:
My computer is a Dell Precision Workstation P4 2.4, which is one their very best non-server machine they sell. It has tons of memory, tons of fast HDD, and I even defragged it but still had the same problem.

Software:
I have Windows XP Pro SP2. I have captured with both Pinnacle Studio DV 8.10, with the latest patch from November 2003, and with Vegas+DVD Version 4. The captures are the same in both: no frames dropped, perfect video, and good audio littered with loud pops and clicks throughout.

These noises do not exist on the source, becasue I can simply watch the tape on the camcorder and even with headphones the sound is crystal clear and pop-free. This is ruining my home movies so much that I had to start using the Sonic Foundry Noise Reduction 2.0 plugin in Vegas (which costs $150), and setting the Vinyl Record cleanup tool to the max. This gets rid of about 90% of the pops and clicks, but of course degrades the fidelity of the movie as well.

What's odd is that with this same setup and camera I have capture several perfect movies in the past, with no sound problems whatsoever.

Please advise! Thank you!!

What sample rate are you capturing at?

Audio pop/ crackle is not that un-common it especialy happens when you are cutting from a loud source to a very quite source. This can normally be overcome by adding an audio cross fade at the point it happens.

Could you post a sample?

Cheers,

Ed

I am capturing at the default settings for DVD-quality DV in both Studio and Vegas, so I assume it's setup for the correct rate.

These sounds are random, and don't occur at anytime in particular. In one video, I have the camera on a tripod pointing at my child crawling around on the floor for like 15 minutes - POP, SMACK, CRACK, normal, normal, baby sounds, birds chirping, normal, normal, CRACK HISS POP, normal... Its like a friggin Batman cartoon.

I'll try to post a sample sound shortly...

OK,

DVD/ DV audio quality could mean 44100KHz or 48000KHz. If you have captured the audio at say 44100KHz and you are working in 48000KHz you will hear pops, crackles etc, and visa-versa.

Best to check what your audio settings are.

Thanks,

Ed

I'm not sure how to tell what sampling rate I am using. The capture settings are for DVD NTSC Full and the resulting AVI is in 48KHz. And since this is a MiniDV camcorder, I'm told it will always record in 48KHz. The only setting I see on the camcorder is for 16bit or 12bit.

Here is a sample wav which when viewed in the camcorder with headphones sounds perfectly clear but for my voice and my child's, but listen to these pops:

http://home.comcast.net/~hmeyne/Test48.wav

Umm that is annoying. Yes the camera will record in 48Khz, but you can down sample in post. Just wondered whether you might have hit a button which you should not have done.

I'm now a bit baffled???!!!??!?!

If its doing the same on 2 seperate applications, it would normally point to a hardware/ installation problem. However I have never known these to be the cause.

Does someone else know???

Cheers,

Ed