Numerous capture problems..

[legionpc]

First and foremost is a very large amount of dropped frames. Not sure what percentage, but after about 5 seconds I'd dropped 149 frames.

Secondly is the bottom of the picture is cut off. A very large strip is simply missing, but theres no black bar in its place, the screen is just stretched to fill it.

Finally Virtualdub won't let me capture in 720x756, it will only go to a maximum of 720x480 - despite the fact my card should go to 720x576.

I was capturing in huffyuv originally, but I tried some other formats (uncompressed, DivX) and it made no difference. Source is VHS, but its a new tape.

My system should definitely be able to handle the capture... I have an Athlon XP 2000 (1.67GHz), 512MB DDR RAM, 40GB 7200rpm HDD and a GF4 Ti4200 128MB w/ VIVO.

I've checked DMA was enabled and rebooted the system, closed all background programs but no joy. What is confusing me though is that I've captured once before from an old video, same player, same system, same software and it worked fine. (In regards to dropped frames anyway, the bottom of the picture was still sliced off).

Any help?

[Nitemare]

Some tips and suggestions;

Try using an MJPEG codec. Watermarked trial versions are available for free, but worth the money to buy once you've tried one. Interlaced video is supported and low CPU overhead. You can find links on the left in the TOOLS section.

If using divx, remember that divx AVIs do not support interlacing. This makes it difficult to capture over 240 lines although you can make the width whatever you want. i.e. 720x240

Defrag your hard drive and reboot before capturing and turn off any running programs, including any TSRs like antivirus programs and the like.

I recommend capturing uncompressed PCM sound. Whenever I try to do anything "unusual" with my sound setting I drop frames galore.

Have you tried setting a "custom format" in Virtul Dub? This may allow you to make the size you want.

If anything else comes to mind I'll post it later but you could probably save a lot of time by searching the forums. There are multiple posts in there dealing with this issue and your hardware or software may have been discussed specifically in one of them.

Keep us posted!
Nitemare

[txpharoah]

Read this post: "Why does your system drop frames?"
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=157660&highlight=

[legionpc]

Hard drive has been defragged, system rebooted, still doesn't work. It isn't as bad now however - I get an average framerate of 16fps rather than the 10fps I was getting before.

System isn't overheating, made sure of that. I tried numerous codecs and resolutions to capture in, all produce the same poor results.

[legionpc]

Ok, this is odd. I just tried capturing using the bundled software with my card (Power director Pro) and it didn't drop any frames. The field order was wrong, but I assume I can simply change a setting in the software to fix that. Other than that, it was a perfect capture. (640x480, Highest quality AVI - 890MB per minute)

Why is Virtualdub giving me such horrible performance?

[txpharoah]

Use supported software.

[legionpc]

Well, how can I fix the cut off part of the picture at the bottom? The thin black border that should be there is still right around the image, but the bottom is just missing. Think of a watermark in the bottom corner of the screen - that is not visible on the PC. How can I fix this?

[txpharoah]

Well, I'd like a screen cap... just cannot imagine what you're talking about. Even a photoshop-drawn diagram would work.

The problem may not be visible on the tv. Remember the PC sees more that a tv ever will. The tv crops the video about to the 90% area in the middle. Edges gone.

[legionpc]

Here you go:



Notice at the bottom how it clearly looks cut off? That area is visible on TV, not on the PC in any software though.[/img]

[2fives]

Try different drivers because it sounds like your doing everything else right, or just say "oh well as long as my bundled software works good enough"

Here is a page with nvidia drivers http://bunny.xs4all.nl/software/nvidia.html

[txpharoah]

PAL or NTSC tv?
PAL or NTSC card settings?

[legionpc]

PAL TV, PAL card settings

[txpharoah]

To me it looks like a PAL-resolution signal being forced onto an NTSC-resolution screen. That's why I asked.

[Gazorgan]

It's a NTSC capture resolution for a PAL signal. I once had the opposite happen and I had garbage at the bottom. You need to re-install your capture drivers, you seem to be stuck with NTSC resolutions.