One for the Googlers:
My Canon Powershot A630 also records videos. Unfortunately the microphone catches the sound of the internal mechanism (I think it’s the screen) and the video it produces has an annoying ringing noise.
Using this tip on audio removal from the wiki for the software Audacity, I managed to figure out that the high-pitched noise has a frequency of 4290 Hz.
I extracted the audio from the video using VirtualDub, and opened it with Audacity 1.3.4 beta. Like the Wiki page instructed, I used the Nyquist prompt and the command (notch2 s 4290 50) (yes the brackets are necessary), and this removed the noise flawlessly!
All that needs to be done is now to reinsert the audio into the video file. I can combine this with re-encoding the video with a more size- (and web-) friendly codec.
Before anything, this tutorial is fundamental for those, like me, that do not have a great experience in this area: thank you!
Let me ask:the process involving Virtualdub and “…to reinsert the audio into the video file. I can combine this with re-encoding the video with a more size- (and web-) friendly codec…” is it necessary or, using Audacity, could it be avoided? Codecs… a bit complicate…
Thanking you again,
My best regards,
Eduardo
Hi Eduardo. Unfortunately, I think VirtualDub is necessary, it processes the AVI file, including extracting the audio into a WAV file and then putting it back in. Asking Audacity to be able to understand AVI files would make it too complicated.
In VirtualDub you can select Video -> Direct Stream Copy. This way you don’t need any codecs, because the video stream will be the same as the original file, just select Audio -> “Audio from other file…” and choose the audio file that’s been processed by Audacity. And after that File->Save as AVI as a new file.
But I do recommend compressing the video, for example with the XviD codec, because it can reduce the file by as much as 90%. It’s not that hard, here’s a tutorial: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video_Production_Basic_Virtual_Dub_Xvid (this one uses VirtualDubMod, and you don’t need the deinterlace settings). Or just Google the words “VirtualDub howto (or tutorial)”.
The one drawback if you use XviD is if someone wants to see the video on their computer they will need a player that can show XviD videos, like VLC (www.videolan.org).
I’m glad you found the tutorial helpful, I updated it to say the (notch …) command has to be in brackets or it won’t work.
Many thanks for your kind, clear answer; I will study all this stuff and I’m sure I will improve my family videos.
My best regards,
Eduardo