Why does your system drop frames?

Mobo · Member Joined: 12 Jan 2004 Location: UK

Will let you know about the SATA Sparkie
, as i'm raiding two drives tomoz for testing

vivisimonvi · Member Joined: 03 Oct 2000

Bad tracking on VHS tapes can cause dropped frames (this can be corrected by fixing the tracking of course, when auto-tracking doesn't seem to work). Some sources that appear to jitter will register as dropped frames in a capture program, even when you can't seem to adjust the tracking.

I notice this with some concert tapes I'm putting onto DVD.

Mobo · Member Joined: 12 Jan 2004 Location: UK

funkydude74. Asked
For those lucky people who have hardly any or no frame droppage capturing 720x576, could you's tell me what sort of system you's are using, what sort of captur card, what sort of RAM size, hard disk size etc.???
Sparkie Asked
Does anyone know or have experience with serial ata hard drives? Are they better than IDE controlled hard drives?

My SYS
GA-7N400 Pro AMD 2700XP
1 x 512 major ram 3200
MSI G4Ti4200-vtd8x
2 x 120 Maxtor ATA133
just set up 2 x 80 Maxtor SATA on raid
just done first capture from vcr to sata for a test.
Composite capture in Virtualdub
Audio 48-16-st-187
Compression huffyuv
Format 720x576
Frames dropped 31 from 138162
Conclusion about the same as ATA 133

SatStorm · Posted: Jan 21, 2004 17:20

I have no framedrops with all my PCs.
My lower combo:

CPU: Duron 1200
Chaintech via motherboard (don't remember, the cheapest one...)
256SDram (yeah, my old sticks...)
40 + 40 GB HDs (WD both, ATA 66)
Soundblaster PCI 128
Win2K/SP4
KW TV878RF-PRO capture card
VGA: Nvidia Geforce 2
Latest tweaked BT8x8 drivers
I Capture with Virtualdub and virtualvcr
No framedrops, even when I capture PAL60 720 x 480 at 29.97fps (a really difficult thing to capture...)

SATA HDs are O.K., but only few mobos support them right. Untill decent drivers / hardware / cheap products appear in the market, I gonna use PATA and only PATA. You don't need the best system for capturing. You need the best possible drivers and the most mature software !

Craig Tucker · Moderator Joined: 05 Apr 2001 Location: England

No framedrops here, check my computer details for specs.
_________________
Craig

Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way

Mobo · Member Joined: 12 Jan 2004 Location: UK

Nice setup Craig

SatStorm. My capture would not fit on one of your hard drive,

Let me see a piccy like this with no dropped frame

http://www.snipers-uk.co.uk

shdwsclan · Member Joined: 17 Jan 2004 Location: Chicago

The reason my system drops frames is:
Running Unecessary Tray progs
Having open connection
Possibly Audigy

I have configured my system so that on capture, almost all resources are free, so that any frame dropped are not the fault of the system the the media being transfered.

I wanna get a magnetic superdrive, with full format support and a diamond head.
D-VHS
BetaMax
BetaCam
VHS
NON-VHS others
in NTSC(ALL), PAL(ALL), and (ME)SECAM.

I run a 2G P4 and 2 seagates 120gb.
Usually you can try to repeat the capture.
I use Premier Pro 7
Ulead Movie Studio
and Virtual Dub

The VCR is a multisystem PanasonicNV-HD680, the cables are monster cable3, the capture device is Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge and the firewire unit is the Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX.
_________________
ShDwScLaN

SatStorm · Posted: Jan 22, 2004 03:25

That's why I said my lower system.
My top system, includes 2 250HD WD PATA drives, with XP 2600/266 (yes, 266FSB), an asus nforce 2 motherboard, and an asus 7700 card for capture. It is the oldest part of my system, but it does excellent captures, with amazing quality, so I don't wanna stop using it (In the matter of fact, I exect a second one to set it up to my second PC).
No frame drops with that PC also.

JohnTheDoe · Member Joined: 26 Jan 2004

Capture Card: Avermedia EZDVDMaker PCI - SAA7130 chipset
Rig: Athlon XP 2000+ 640MB SDRAM
ATA100 HD - 80 GB (OS and programs) and 160 GB (just for capturing) - on the same cable though - DMA enabled (Ultra DMA 5)
Windows XP - SP1a
Motherboard - ECS K7S5A (piece of $hit - now i know why)
Capture Program - NeoDVDStandard 4.1 (upgraded)
BTC 1008W (8x dual dvd writer)
generic 3 port firewire

I had 1ghz duron with 512mb ram with windows 2000 - other things remained same. The MPEG2 - BEST capture was dropping frames left
and right !!! So, I swapped CPUs from another of my system.
Exactly same problem again !! Dropped frames every minute or so. Sometimes more than once in a minute.

Then upgraded to Windows XP.

Got Pinnacle Studio 8.0 from a friend to try it out. The damn program will simply give stoopid "Capture Error". The preview window does show the video, but the capture will fail. Download the 8.12.2 patch, now the Capture Error is more "informative" but the problem remains. In 8.0, atleast there were buttons for Composite, SVideo. 8.12.2 is so f**ked up, it only shows a "Tuner" button. Even though there is no tuner in the damn card. So, I gave up on Abysmal Studio.

Went back to NeoDVDStandard 4.1 on windows XP. Same damn dropped frames ! I was going crazy. Have a dead line to copy 30 8mm cassettes before Feb 15th as my sony 8mm camcorder will be gone forever.

Wife has been threatening that she will copy all 30 cassettes to VHS and I'm going noooooooooooo.. (bought 8x DVD writer, 160 and 80 GB hard drives etc etc for this project .. not counting 100s of hours already spend swapping cpus, installing cards, drivers, OS, etc etc).

I've Panasonic GS50S Palmcorder. I captured a 2 hour tape via digital passthru using the Ulead Studio 7.0. When I tried to burn a DVD using Ulead 7.0 - it kept on saying "Converting" for like 6+ hours --- gave up on it. Tried to convert from DV to MPEG2 using TmpGenEnc - looks like it takes about 4 hours to convert a 2 hour video. Dont have time (see 30 tapes to convert). Also dont have space to store all 30 tapes and convert later. 1 hour DV is about 7-8 GB. I've to copy about 50 hours. So, converting is not an option.

Went back to the crappy/jerky/skippy NeoDVD capture and copied 1 more tape. More jerks and skips.

Then last night I was reading this thread and found out that crappy onboard sound cards are one of the reasons for dropped frames! So, I decided to just capture the video and unplug the audio. Captured about 5 mins of video and lo and behold !!!

Not a single drop frame !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you guys !!!

Now I'll get a PCI sound card - i read it can be cheapo also - as long as its a card and not onboard crap - will buy may be 3-4 different companies/chipsets and try one by one.

Will update later.

Thanks

MW

jneste · Member Joined: 12 Feb 2004

Just a quick addition to dropped frames problems with using firewire. A guy at work helped me fix my problem. I was losing about 1/3 of my frames and on here people were telling me to look at the DMA settings and make sure they were on "DMA if available" which I had it on but the IDE controller still said in the current transfer mode: "PIO Only" with no way to change it. I'm surprised no one on here told me to look at this. He said to look at the jumper on my HD and make sure it is set as a Master and not on Cable Select (CS). This fixed the whole problem with a 2 second fix. Not a single dropped frame for 1.5 hours of DV tape!

Jeff

VideoTechMan · The Captain Joined: 12 Apr 2003 Location: Michigan, USA

Now I find this odd...my current system has onboard audio, and I have captured from DV and analog and have not dropped a single frame during the entire process, and that was about 10-20mins of video. Of course now that I will be building my new system this weekend with higher end specs, that may run even better. Of course, I have always used Premeire to do my captures because of the deck control function for my DV deck and Sony TRV-350. Ive even setup batch capture with several clips from the same tape and I went in another room to take a nap while the computer did its chores. Came back, not a single dropped frame. It all depends on your system setup and configuration and making sure your settings are where they should be. Its usually good to have a dedicated system for mainly video work.

VTM
_________________
I have the staff of power, now it's up to me to use it to its full potential to command my life and be successful.

jneste · Member Joined: 12 Feb 2004

I thought it sounded sort of odd also. This guy that helped me fix this problem is a professional in studio production. We work at a company where he works in the studio production dept. and has for 15 yrs. He started explaining why using the cable select can slow down your HD performance but I wasn't really listening as he was getting into way too much detail for me. It has something to do with when the drive in on cable select it takes more time to find the correct cable and IDE configuration. But, if you have it set on Master and have everything set up correctly (which most people do), the HD works faster because it does not have to figure out the configuration for itself. According to him, the cable select feature has been around for years (which I do know and remember this) and was an easier way for the regular consumer to set up a computer without having to mess around with boot sequences and such. Back then, it really did not matter if your HD ran a little slow, none of us were doing DV on it.

Jeff N

PaulMemoli · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2003

OK.. after months of capture problems with my ATI ALL IN WONDER 7500 CARD I read the "sticky" here and did everything that it said... and now my MPEG (vcd) CAPTURE RATE IS BACK DOWN TO <1 % FRAME LOSS.

For the record: I have a Pentium 3 computer and use the Windows ME OS. I have broadband with Charter Cable and McAfee Virus scan enabled.
I daily use AD-AWARE AND SPYBOT SEARCH AND DESTROY to keep my computer as bug-free as possible... (Sadly, I do not have the funds to buy a computer that is dedicated solely to video work)

My ATI ALL IN WONDER CARD 7500 worked great for the first year. Then the frame loss rate began to go all over the scale. Example,,, capturing a PBS show a week ago my frame loss varied from 2% to 6% to 4% all in the first few minutes. I couldn't understand it... I was not writing email, reading online material, or downloading anything... yet the frame loss rate sure seemed to fluctuate as tho I were doing those things...

I began to believe that thru heavy use my ATI 7500 capture card had begun to decay...

Then last night I disabled McAfee Virus scan, pulled the plug on my cable modem, shut down everything on my tool bar, and tried captured the Academy Awards... frame loss was <1%, and stayed that way for the entire time.

Guys, you are worth every penny that I paid for this site! (Oh, you don't charge, I forgot... funny that for free I can get better help and advice than I do calling a call center that I get billed for!)

zilog_jones · Member Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Location: PAL Land

Just a little update on the original post:

Wolfie! · Member Joined: 15 Mar 2003 Location: melbourne, australia

I have to say after reading some of the advice that a lot of it is rubbish.

In general, in my own experience [ATI] packed in drivers generally won't
do the job and you have to log in and get more... which also generally
don't work, either getting dropped frames or sound sync probs.

ATI admitted a fault with sound sync and released a new driver to get
around that, and to their credit, it worked *better* but didn't cure the
problem. I could capture at 640 x 480 which was nice, but not at true
PAL size... and the sound wouldn't noticably go out of sync for around
20 minutes [a lot better than the previous 20 seconds, roughly].

The stuff I was reading about copying VHS to DVD was a joke...
I mean, how can a computer tell the difference between a pristine
analogue tape and one that is old and full of fluff? it can't... input is
input folks, whether it's a clean signal or coming from mars.

In fact, on my brand spanking new machine, a P4 3.2Ghz using
WinXP, ATI Radeon 7500, 1G Ram, I decided to set up roxio videowave
and give it a go.

Using brand new drivers from the ATI website for WinXP which I had to
use [for the amazingly special "hyperthreading technology" in the P4]
I captured pure static with Videowave as a simple test.

After doing the 30min captures from VHS [as mentioned earlier] on my
P3 933 machine [384 Megs Ram, Same ATI card, Same SBlive]
I had expected a much more wonderderful result... however the system
skipped over frames like a spring lamb frolicking in the sunshine.

I have tested everything that I could, I took notes and checked everything
mentioned in the earlier posts, with no better result.

Analogue recording is a complete frustration, stuff seldom works and
I bet most of it comes down to sheer luck on anyones part.

On the other hand, my system also has within it's bustic innards a
wonderful card called a Vision DTV which is a digital terrestrial card.

It recieves digital free to air tv directly via it's single antenna port
and I can capture the most amazing video, it blew me away when I
saw what it could do.

The data from Windvd4 says this about the HDTV demo which is currently
playing on channel seven [Australia] (576p)
which I recorded to hard drive.

MPEG2
Bitrate 9,000mbps
Framerate 50,000hz
Res 520 x 756
Aspect ratio 16:9

Channel Nine, However, uses 1080i HDTV
and a recorded file reads like this:

Interlaced MPEG2
Bitrate 12,500Mbps
Framerate 25,000hz
Res 1920 x 1088
Aspect ratio 16x9

The sound in this case is DTS also!

My machine is struggling to play the file but it's not doing
a bad job. though my old P3 933 machine could easily
capture anything played on channel seven

Normal tv broadcasts are the same as the seven specs except
it uses a 25,000hz framerate.

All this was so easy to set up even an idiot could do it...
I installed the card, loaded the CD and then ran a search for
the stations. bingo! nothing could be simpler.

I didn't have to hunt for files that couldn't be found, there was no
frustrations anywhere.

Look, I sympathise with those who have stuff on VHS tape, I have loads
too and would love to comvert it to DVD and would, if it did what it should
but 90% of the time it's a losers game.

There are people here who only want to copy dvds, but there are others
here like myself who have copied funny or interesting stuff off tv over
the years, and also have camcorder tapes etc which we'd like to preserve
on dvd but cannot because people are too busy making cards for gamers
and the rest of us can take a running jump off a short pier.

Take my advice, go digital and give analogue the boot.

Here's to the future.

Wolfie!

lordsmurf · Posted: Mar 17, 2004 23:23

Wolfie! · Member Joined: 15 Mar 2003 Location: melbourne, australia

If I am wrong, that a computer *can* tell if it's being fed a signal from
a bad tape or a good one, then I would like you to tell me how this is so.

If You were feeding the system a digital source, then that is a system
which is compatible with what the computer understands.

But with a stream from a VHS machine, it's not even data...
it won't be data until the computer encodes it into something else...
it needs to encode it into some sort of digital system merely for viewing
even before you hit the record button.

The computer wouldn't know input from a VHS tape, a computer game,
Videodisc, a DVD antenna out [rca input or other non-digital means].

Don't be fooled, a computer is simply not that intelligent.

If you believe otherwise, prove it.
show me the money.

As for my digital tv card, I forgot to mention that it runs perfectly.
the sound is perfectly in sync even after hours of recording and there
are no skipped frames whatsoever.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. :)

Wolfie!

jneste · Member Joined: 12 Feb 2004

Sorry Wolfie, you are wrong. Even most digital cams still record onto an analog tape, but it is just recorded as a digital signal. When it is sent to your computer it is sent as a digital signal. The same with VHS, when it is captured from the tape is is saved as a digital format in one way or the other, no matter what you are using to capture it. Maybe you have a computer that can capture analog signals! If so, I would like to know what device you are using to do this. Digital capture has to read a "clean" signal, if you use some garbage tape (ie. old, worn out, etc.) or some old cheap VCR then you will get dropped frames and a bad recording. This is because of the conversion process being done either in your capture card, external capture device (Canopus, Dazzle, etc.). If the device is reading garbage then you will get garbage. But, since it is converted into digital, rather than just recording the garbage, it is dropped out. This is similar to taking a audio cassette tape and twisting up all the recording material and playing it. It will play, but sound like crap. If you take an audio CD and scratch the surface, it will sound perfect BUT will skip horribly. If you use 2 VCR's to dub a tape, the yes, it does not matter. You have to remember, you are converting from analog to digital. This is a very touchy process for a computer to do. Hollywood producers spend millions on this every year transferring old movied into crisp clear digital movies. As for the comment:" If You were feeding the system a digital source, then that is a system which is compatible with what the computer understands." This is sort of a rediculous comment. Like I said, unless you have some sort of device to capture analog onto your computer, it is all captured as a digital. You really need to look into this more.

JN

johns0 · killer muppet Joined: 05 Jun 2002 Location: canada

I think Wolfie is forgetting that the capture card sends the converted signal to the computer as digital and not analog.
_________________
Ben Johnson-I didnt take any stereos!

Wolfie! · Member Joined: 15 Mar 2003 Location: melbourne, australia

people always seem to get me wrong, that annoys me.

I said that a VCR sends stuff to the computer as an analogue signal,
it has to, it's an analogue machine.
yes, the computer *changes* it to digital... but before that happens
we're talking about an analogue signal.

I strongly doubt that it's going to make any difference, whether you use a good or a bad recording. I feel it's all in the computer whether you're going
to get a great transfer or a poor one. before you get a good result you'll
have aged about ten years and gone bald from all the stress anyway.
upload this, change that, bad driver, etc etc etc.

I would love to transfer my tapes to dvd, but I don't think that's going
to happen unless I spend some serious cash, and loose some more hair
and possibly my teeth and end up with a straight jacket in a nice padded
cell... such is the frustration of analogue transfer.

Bully for the producers of DVD, they've got millions to spend and can
afford the latest stuff and a house fill of Sony Aibos on the side.
(I once met a fellow with one in every colour!) also, they're dealing with
*film* that's right mate... good old celluloid, not some crappy videotape.
[or computer files if you're talking about pixar etc].

My digital tv card is a seperate issue altogether, you see, it works and
does the job well... and I can transfer my files to dvd very easily...
on a budget that even I can handle.

It means that I have now abandoned my VCR except if I want to play
some old tapes... but since I can record real widescreen content straight
to hard drive and there is *no loss* of picture or sound quality, well...
who needs analogue?

Trouble is we are in that transistion stage, there's the problem.
one I still have to tackle..

Anyone got a phone number for a hair restoring joint?

Wolfie!

Craig Tucker · Moderator Joined: 05 Apr 2001 Location: England

There are a lot of people here, myself included that can do good transfers from VHS to digital format without spending a fortune on hardware. And the quality of the tapes does matter, if this was not the case explain how with a good tape a capture can be accomplised with no frameloss, but with a poor quality tape you can drop frames like crazy, using exactly the same capture hardware and setup. The only thing to have changed is the tape, so it would be safe to assume that this is culprit for causing framedrops.
_________________
Craig

Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way

jneste · Member Joined: 12 Feb 2004

Thank you Craig. I like to see people that agree in situations. I think that Wolfie really needs to look into his assumptions and study his accusations before posting comments about what hundreds of people on here have been trying to figure out for years.

Jeff

dwiesel · Member Joined: 23 Dec 2003

Some other important items you can change to avoid dropped frames:

- download a free ad cleaner like "Ad-Aware" to delete sneaky internet installed programs, some of these ads/programs activate the hard drive randomly (enabling the firewall can help prevent this in the future).

- increase the virtual memory swap file size to maybe 2GB if you have the memory.

- if you can't use a dedicated hard drive for just capturing (or use a partition), make sure both partitions have a decent amount of free disk space.

- Run MSCONFIG and disable some of the systems that run automatically (I think the site "blackviper" will tell you what each does and if you should disable them). Also disable certain start-up options in you don't need/want them.

I'll recap other ideas mentioned:

- add more memory to your system
- always reboot and defrag hard drive before capturing
- lower screen resolution if really high
- run no other programs, kill any scheduled/unnecessary tasks (also run "Enditall")
- stay disconnected from internet and unplug connection cable
- test that the hard drive has decent enough read/write transfer rates

Good luck!