[Leaddog]

I am in audio mode attempting to digitize audio from tape via usb input. On my XP computer I cannot find the 2681 when in audio mode. I also do not get a choice of input in xp (I understand that I'm not supposed to get the input choice in Vista) On the Vista machine I get the 2681 displayed but when I select it, nothing. Both computers work OK in video capture mode. Also, when I input to 2681 from audio amp while in video mode everything works ok. Need help

[Jim_Hardin]

Not going to happen!

It is a Video Capture device and cannot be used to capture Audio…

Almost all PCs have a Line In for audio capture.

[JWL]

Not going to happen!

It is a Video Capture device and cannot be used to capture Audio…

Almost all PCs have a Line In for audio capture.

Well mine doesn't. I have a laptop. There is a mic in, but that is it. And I have heard that you should not use mic in for audio input as the line levels are different and it could blow your sound card.

This is very disappointing as I specifically bought Roxio Creator 2009 and Video Capture USB (together) for the purpose of copying my old casette tapes to my PC. The box said you could do this, and now I see that was very misleading.

Are there any other workarounds you can suggest? If I combine my audio with say just a solid blue screen video from another input, could I then extract the audio from that video and save it as an MP3 or WAV? Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

[d_deweywright]

Well mine doesn't. I have a laptop. There is a mic in, but that is it. And I have heard that you should not use mic in for audio input as the line levels are different and it could blow your sound card.

This is very disappointing as I specifically bought Roxio Creator 2009 and Video Capture USB (together) for the purpose of copying my old casette tapes to my PC. The box said you could do this, and now I see that was very misleading.

Are there any other workarounds you can suggest? If I combine my audio with say just a solid blue screen video from another input, could I then extract the audio from that video and save it as an MP3 or WAV? Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

Actually, yes. What you're suggesting should work. As long as the video input has a signal, it should capture, and whatever is connected to the Audio lines will go in as part of the video, which can be extracted later. Of course, you're going to chew up some extra drive space during the initial capture, but you can set the video quality to a low setting since you're not going to use the video portion. I don't recall all the settings now, but if there's an option for sampling the audio at 44.1KHz instead of the default 48KHz, you should use that. Otherwise, you'll want to resample the audio down to 44.1KHz to put it to CD (if that is the final destination).

Hope that helps!

This post has been edited by d_deweywright: 09 December 2008 - 10:41 AM

[JWL]

Actually, yes. What you're suggesting should work. As long as the video input has a signal, it should capture, and whatever is connected to the Audio lines will go in as part of the video, which can be extracted later.

OK thanks for that info. But my question now is HOW do you extract the audio from a video? I have been looking for that capability in Roxio Creator 2009 and have not found it so far.

Thanks.

[JCorbett]

In the LP & Tape Assistant, Recording Setup, the diagrams clearly show the possible use of a USB Audio Device. Is the 2861 not a USB video AND audio device? You state, "It is a Video Capture device " so following your logic, the audio from a VCR, for example, should always be connected to the PCs audio card line input and the 2861 would only be used for video signals. Audio is audio regardless of whether it comes from a VCR, a stereo amp, tape recorder or amplified record player etc. If I had a USB turntable, would it correct to assume that I could not use this device to capture?

I should be able to connect the amp's headset out into the 2861 and record. In fact, in the video capture screen mode I'm sitting here listening to the radio through the PCs speakers so I know the 2861 works with audio without a video signal. What I cannot do is to record because the SOFTWARE is expecting/checking for a video signal.

What am I missing?

[ggrussell]

Roxio audio recording will use a USB AUDIO device that has the proper drivers. The 2861 USB device driver will only show up in Windows as a Video Capture device. It should not show up in ANY application as an audio capture device.

USB Turntables should show up in Roxio because the driver should be listed as audio capture devices.

This post has been edited by ggrussell: 09 December 2008 - 11:29 AM

[d_deweywright]

In the LP & Tape Assistant, Recording Setup, the diagrams clearly show the possible use of a USB Audio Device. Is the 2861 not a USB video AND audio device? You state, "It is a Video Capture device " so following your logic, the audio from a VCR, for example, should always be connected to the PCs audio card line input and the 2861 would only be used for video signals. Audio is audio regardless of whether it comes from a VCR, a stereo amp, tape recorder or amplified record player etc. If I had a USB turntable, would it correct to assume that I could not use this device to capture?

I should be able to connect the amp's headset out into the 2861 and record. In fact, in the video capture screen mode I'm sitting here listening to the radio through the PCs speakers so I know the 2861 works with audio without a video signal. What I cannot do is to record because the SOFTWARE is expecting/checking for a video signal.

What am I missing?

You're missing nothing except that it does not show up as an audio only device. You can use a USB Audio device to record with, as I've done just that, but with a different, audio only USB device. The 2861 simply cannot be used as an audio only device, sorry. I wish it could too.

As for the statement you make about connecting the audio from a VCR to the PCs audio card, no. The audio portion of the 2861 works fine during video capture, as was said. Some things simply don't work the way we want them to, and this device doesn't work as an audio only capture device, regardless of how much we'd like it to. (At least not with the drivers we have... I would think that maybe some tweaking of the drivers by the manufacturer could make it work as an audio only device.)

[JCorbett]

I agree with one other comment that the package is misleading customers in thinking audio can be recorded using the included device. The misleading part is that most customers would "assume" the statement is talking about the capture device that comes with the package which is not true.

Having been in electronics for 40+ years (both radio and computer maintenance) the only reason I could think of why the manufacturer limits their device to strictly video capturing is because the signal amplitude out of a VCR, camcorder, etc. is a known entity and cannot be varied by the end user. Connecting the headset out jack into the device could cause distortion, destoying the device, and/or poor customer relations. It doesn't take much to put the signal in a overload mode.

[jerrypar]

this discussion answers a lot for me. I also bought Creator 2009 with a USB capture device to record audio and couldn't. I contacted tech support, got new drivers, explained the problem and was never told that it wouldn't work as advertised. I've wasted 2 weeks and numerous hours (not to mention the wasted weekends of frustration).

It sure would be nice if the manufacturer would create the correct drivers or Roxio opened up the Creator 2009 so the audio portion of the video record would record on the audio functions.

This thing now seems pretty silly to me now that I see what happened.

[JCorbett]

My last pet peeve is the compression ratio. I captured a 45 min VCR tape the other day and the resulting file was over 12GB! I should be able to fit it on a DVD disk so is there a setting I'm missing?

This post has been edited by JCorbett: 11 December 2008 - 07:46 AM

[ggrussell]

You captured in AVI so don't worry about it. MyDVD will convert and compress that to fit with no problem.

[Jim_Hardin]

My last pet peeve is the compression ratio. I captured a 45 min VCR tape the other day and the resulting file was over 12GB! I should be able to fit it on a DVD disk so is there a setting I'm missing?

You are missing any understanding of Video

You are capturing a file in either compressed or uncompressed format.

You have to use a DVD Authoring program to make a DVD.

[JCorbett]

You are missing any understanding of Video

You are capturing a file in either compressed or uncompressed format.

You have to use a DVD Authoring program to make a DVD.

Thanks for your candid reply. It has been some time since I last captured video and the hardware/software I used completed the task in one step. Thanks for jogging me out of a senior moment.