Hello !

This my first time posting here

I have just acquired a new usb card with a spdif in which I want to use to capture digital audio streams ( PCM ) from Laserdisc in the future.

The soundcard I bought is the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD:

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/Sou...Fi-HD.aspx

The good thing about the card is that as soon as I connected my Laserdisc's digital output to the soundcard's spdif input the "Creative
Audio Control Panel" immediately recognized that there was a 44.1 khz signal at the spdif input.

However when I tried recording the file using the software that came along with the card it recorded the PCM stream at 48 khz.
It sounds great in my opinion however I would prefer recording it at 44.1 khz.

Can anyone recommand a specific software for this purpose ?

Does anyone have the US LD's of Halloween 4/5 that can capture, bit perfect, the Ultra Stereo from them? I posted this on OT as well in the Audio Preservation Thread.

Thanks

OK, it's not important as Google, but one billion Chinese people could find out our community quite easily... just search for "fan restoration" and we appear at the second place...

(if someone could think of searching "fan restoration" of course...)

Nice to be joining FanRes!

Because, while the title is the same, probably it is different... sometimes:

• DVD has different cut
  
• DVD has different color grading
  
• DVD has different aspect ratio
  
• DVD has different sound mix
  
• DVD has more audio and/or sub tracks
  
• DVD has extras while BD has not, or less, or different
  

In theory, every lossless codec should be the same - same output as the input, bit-for-bit perfect... this is true, but there are some reasons to use one over another...

HuffYUV - one of the oldest, good compression, and still works well also with old PCs, even in real time, but as it works only in RGB and YUV, I reccomend to use it to capture analog SD video.

Lagarith - newer, very good compression, quite fast, works with RGB, YUV, YV12; I used it everytime, until yesterday... I tried to encode with x264 a file encoded with Lagarith, and it gave up, too much errors... thought maybe I encoded with too many opened software, re-encoded it... same problems... I tried four times, always the same...

MagicYUV - newest, good compression, final size bigger than Lagarith, but faster, and when I play the encoded file, it's possible to jump to every point without waiting, plus VirtualDub plays it in real time without stuttering... I should test it further, but I think this will be the only lossless coded I'll use in the future!

What's your experience with these, and other, lossless codecs?

I hope this is in the right place. Anyhoo......what would I need to make really sweet disc art. I don't mean labels, I'm talking about top notch hi-rez, printed right on the disc kind of thing.

When I run out of HDD space, usually I don't do the so-called "digital intermediate" (read: lossless version of the project that will be converted in a lossy version); this let you save A LOT of space, but if something will go wrong (read: you discover some wrong frames, blackouts etc.) it will take A LOT more time to do a unprocessed->processing->encoding task, instead of lossless-processed->encoding...


Plus, if you have many processing filters, it's a wise choice to do several temporary intermediates, because it could save a lot of time...

Example (purely hypotetical, but reflects actual experience):

source->color regrade+denoise+upscale->encoding to final lossy version = 13 hours

source->color regrade->lossless intermediate 1 = 1 hour
lossless intermediate 1->denoise->lossless intermediate 2 = 2 hours
lossless intermediate 2->upscale->lossless intermediate 3 = 3 hours
lossless intermediate 3->encoding to final lossy version = 2 hours

a LOT of HDD space, that will be regained once the project is ready, but also a lot of spared time, in particular when you use a "vintage" PC like I do... of course, in newer PCs if you spare few minutes it doesn't worth the hassle...

What is your experience?

_,,,^..^,,,_ presents Waterworld [spoRv] - special project of Restored version



| PROJECTS: Released | In progress | Future | Mission & Setup |

Mission: to fix Waterworld best video and couple it with best audio tracks.
Video source: Italian HD-DVD.
Audio sources: Cinema DTS and laserdisc for english tracks, Italian HD-DVD for foreign audio tracks.
Subtitles sources: Italian HD-DVD for all the tracks.

Project info:
Waterworld is available on Blu-ray; despite the fact it has an higher bitrate of the HD-DVD, the latter is considered by many of higher quality, without DNR; but its color grading is a bit too magenta, so it's color corrected to display better blue gradients.
I also thought to add the Cinema DTS track, plus the analog english track from the laserdisc; foreign languages are from the HD-DVD Dolby Digital Plus track; they lack the .1 subwoofer track, so it's taken from the Cinema DTS, and is re-encoded to DD 640kbps.

Source Material

Video:

• Waterworld - Italian HD-DVD
  

• Waterworld - Cinema DTS audio track
  
• Waterworld - laserdisc
  
• Waterworld - Italian HD-DVD
  

• English, French, German, Italian, Spanish.
  

• AVC 1920x1080 1.85:1, 23.976fps, 19mbps
  

• English DTS 1509kbps 5.1 16bit 48kHz - from Cinema DTS
  
• English PCM 1536kbps 2.0 16bit 48kHz - from laserdisc analog track
  
• French AC3 640kbps 5.1 16bit 48kHz - from HD-DVD Dolby Digital Plus
  
• German AC3 640kbps 5.1 16bit 48kHz - from HD-DVD Dolby Digital Plus
  
• Italian AC3 640kbps 5.1 16bit 48kHz - from HD-DVD Dolby Digital Plus
  
• Spanish AC3 640kbps 5.1 16bit 48kHz - from HD-DVD Dolby Digital Plus
  

• English
  
• French
  
• German
  
• Italian
  
• Spanish
  

• Main animated menu, static soundtrack and subtitle settings menu, static chapters menu
  
• Blu-ray custom made outside and inside covers, plus disc label; chapters.
  

• DoomBot and Jetrell Fo for the DTS Cinema track.
  

...I mean, there are some movies that have alternate reality - that could be a dream, another dimension etc. - that are quite extensive (in comparison to the whole movie) and could be expanded and be used to form a "self-contained" movie, without the main "reality"...

Well, let's make some examples:

• Sucker Punch
  
• Pan's Labyrinth
  
• Franklyn