Posted by raida4life on 06/02/06 16:21

David Matthew Wood wrote:
> > I recently had some people helping me out with some video recordings.
> > Some tapes I got in 8mm and have always been able to transfer these to
> > VHS or DVD via RCA cables. Similarly I got some that were Digital 8 and
> > I was able to do likewise.
> >
> > Recently I got some Mini DV (not Mini DVD) tapes and discovered after
> > the fact that all of these recordings were done in such a format that
> > the Audio is not reproducible by any other means than from the guy who
> > taped these for me. The video always comes through fine, it's just the
> > audio I am having trouble with. I tried a couple of iterations of
> > swapping out the audio cables and made sure they were properly
> > connected.
> >
> > He left a few untransfered to DVD for me and now I am stuck with Mini
> > DV tapes that I can not get the sound out of. I suspect these were
> > recorded in 16 bit Audio, because all of the 12 Bit recordings play
> > back just fine. I have tried in vain using other camcorders and even
> > messed with every combination of audio setting on the camcorder with
> > the RCA jacks, but the Audio just does not come through. I have only
> > tried using RCA jacks, I am not familiar with other technologies.
> >
> > If someone can help me figure out how to recover the audio from these
> > recordings along with the video stream, I would be very thankful.
>
> Double check the audio settings on whatever it is you're playing back
> on. Since the audio on his tapes is in 16-bit 48khz mode, there will
> only be audio on channels 1 and 2 while 12-bit 32khz mode (even though
> there is a loss in sound quality this way) can have 4 channels of audio.

I bought 4 different players and had to return each as every time I
changed the settings either I got no sound or intermittent sound
playback. Each time I tried this I played them back and made sure the
cables weren't loose. I just wonder if this is all due to the fact that
I am using RCA jacks to try and retreive the audio and video from these
tapes. I am concerned that I may get other recordings like this from
Mini DV tapes in the future, and that the tapes may not be able to be
played back because this is a problem with Mini DV technology.

I have camcorder equipment that can playback 8mm, Digital 8 tapes and
even VHS C, but I have only experienced this problem with Mini DV. I
will try the firewire option as someone suggested. I guess it is time I
got with the times. One thing I noticed is that several camera manuals
indicate that you can only playback 16 bit audio recordings in 12 bit
audio mode.In many cases when I tried to change the settings on most of
these cameras they would not let me change the Audio to 16 bit.

Thanks again

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