Sudden frame dropping problem?

[vertigoman]

If this is something that's been covered, please forgive the post - I've already tried the above "about frame dropping" post.

I'm using Adobe Premiere 6.5, an Adaptec FireConnect 4300 firewire card, a Panasonic PV-DV401 miniDV camera (for digital captures) and the Canopus ADVC-100 (for analog captures). My computer is a new Dell P4 2.40 gh, 1 GB RAM.

Here's my problem: It won't capture anything without dropping frames. If I select capture, it captures about 70 frames just fine, and then drops one around there, and continues to drop frames as it goes along; for a 300 frame capture, it drops about 20 frames. Oddly enough, I can play the source video and view it on the Premiere capture window, but as soon as I hit record, the problems start. Besides dropping frames, the video and audio being displayed onscreen stutters, freezes and shakes.

What's odd about this is that this is something that's just suddenly started happening. I've been using the same setup for two months without a problem, and then yesterday I went to capture something and this cropped up. I've checked all of the settings for Premiere and everything seems kosher, I haven't put in any new software that might cause a conflict. I did a virus scan and it's not picking up anything. I defragmented my hard drive, but that didn't help any. I removed all of the firewire drivers and reinstalled the card. I uninstalled Premiere and reinstalled it. None of this has helped at all. When I run Premiere to capture, I always restart the computer first, and I don't have any other programs running at the same time.

Again, what I find frustrating and bizarre is that this came out of nowhere after nearly two months of absolutely perfect operation.

Any suggestions?

Josh
vertigoman@aol.com

[feeras]

Hi,

FWIW (not sure if related). I had the exact same problem with a video tape I tried to capture with the Canopus ADVC50. For a day or two, I thought it was my system that was causing the frame drops and did not realise it was the video tape. The fact was it played fine as a preview in the capturing software but when you clicked on Record it would eventually drop frames. Also, all previous captures gave me NO frame drops whatsoever. So basically I tried all capturing software, tried disabling everything (USB, firewire, etc), and even reinstalled Windows XP again but still it would drop frames.

After pondering for hours on end, i gave up and tried another tape and thinking that it must the ADVC50 that is broken - somehow. It was then that I realise that it was the video tape - this was bloody odd. I am still under impression that it was the settings on the Canopus device that is causing it to drop frames (on this very video tape) but am too lazy to open up my PC to play around with the jumpers (ADVC50 is internal).

Hope that helps.
Cheers,
feeras

[mdtplus4]

I've had the same problem. Just out of the blue. Only I drop frames no matter what the source. I formatted and reinstalled everything, never did find the problem. The only thing i can think of is that my processor just can't handle it anymore. Or maybe it's my ATI card?

Where are the brainiac's of the video world???

[vertigoman]

I suspected it might be because of an old videotape, so I tried several others. I tried using the Canopus for captures using perfectly good new tapes, and I tried the miniDV camera instead; both didn't work. I even tried leaving my VCR on "line in" and just capturing the blue screen, but even *that* dropped frames. It always does the first 50-70 frames just fine, and then it starts to hiccup and starts dropping them rapidly after the 100 frame mark.

[FOO]

mdtplus4,
what ATI do you have ?
I have a AIW 8500. Sometimes it drops 1 or 2 frames
exactly every 1 second.
I have begun to suspect the Scheduler.
How much do you drop ?

[feeras]

vertigoman,

if you have access to another PC (with firewire) you can always test the ADVC100 (or other) on it and see it it works. I guess then you can come to some definite conclusion I can certainly say this though, my ADVC50 does work to perfection with no dropped frames except for that one video tape.

cheers,
feeras

[xsbs52x]

delete things you dont need on your harddrive...sometimes when my drive is really full i start to drop frames. run scan disk a few times on the drive. also, if you have cable internet or dsl, unplug your computer from the internet. before you capture, go into the device manager and uninstall your usb ports, sometimes the computer randomly uses the usb drives even if nothing is plugged in. if you have win2k or winxp, make sure in the processes tab of task manager is clear of anything you dont want running.

[spectroelectro]

I encountered a similar problem but it wasn't the ADVC-100. It turned out to be the hard drive to which I was capping DV video.
The previous poster may be onto something. If the drive to which you're recording your DV video is badly fragmented, this might conceivably cause dropped frames.
Here's an important question: are you saving the DV video you're taking in to the same drive on which your operating system resides?
If so, that could be your problem right there. You should N*E*V*E*R capture video to your OS hard drive. The reason is that the more you use a Wintel computer, the more junk you accumulate on your OS drive (the Wintel computer runs very quickly at first, then takes longer and longer to load, writes to the OS drive more and more often, etc.) This occurs as you add more programs to your OS drive and use up more system resources over time. Wintel incessantly and very inefficiently writes to its OS hard drive, and if you have been using your OS for a while (> 6 months) this could be source of your problem.
I have found the kidns of problems you describe when I try capturing video to a non-defragged Wintel OS drive that isn't a fresh install. However, I now use a separate 60 gig drive for nothing but video capture, and even with extreme fragmentation I've have absolutely no frame dropping problems with either a PCI video capture card or firewire from my Canopus ADVC-100.
This has to be something other than the firewire connection. DV isn't really "captured," it's just transferred, the Canopus does all the work in converting the analog video to DV.
One final way-out idea is this...other users have reported dropped frame problems caused by overheating on their outboard capture units. I've never had that problem myself, but my house is air conditioned int he summer.
Have you tried setting up a small fan and blowing air across the Canopus unit to cool it down?
I tsounds bizarre, but some folks have reported that this eliminates dropped frame problems when the cause is overheating.
This just might be possible inasmuch as your describe the problem occurring suddenly -- perhaps when the temperature rose in summer...?

[txpharoah]

Be sure to read my sticky in the capture forums. I'm pretty sure you fall under one of those reasons. Maybe bad source, maybe something else. But it's 99% one of those reasons.

[Luddite]

firewires data rate needs a defragged drive
turn off all background tasks too
scheduler...antivirus....everything

[Dragonsf]

What if you gíve your capturing task the highest (real-time) priority?will that help?

[FOO]

I have done rudimentary tests that prove increasing
the priority makes the capture more immune to
disturbances.
The problem is I don't know how to set the priority of
an application BEFORE it runs. Scheduled captures
would need this.

[Gazorgan]

No NEVER!!!! You set it to realtime and you will be pushing the reset button with a locked machine. Maybe above normal if your feeling adventureous, but nothing higher than that. You shouldn't have to mess with priority setings to keep from dropping frames, it never helps.

You can mess with priority settings to encode ( I set TMPG to LOW and encode while doing other things ).

[Dragonsf]

Ok, if priority setting doesn't help (I can second that BTW), than why are frames dropped anyway, provided:
- all unnecessary programs don't run
- HD is empty (fresh formatted)
- HD is capable of 30MB continuous write transfer
- no preview during capture

even with above conditions I can't get fewer than 1% dropped frames.

[xsbs52x]

i had a pretty old hauppaugge tv tuner that i used to capture with. i got tons of dropped frames and i couldnt figure out why. i recently got rid of it and bought an ATI AIW 9000 pro. it doesnt drop frames. i have a 1.6 ghz p4 and i capture to a seperate 40 gig drive that i use just for capturing. i did the same thing with my old tuner card. when capturing with my AIW , i actually tried to make it drop frames. even when i was doing other stuff and making the processor usage go up to 100%, i got about 1% dropped frames or less.

i know that it was capturing fine before, but maybe go out to best buy, buy a newer card, see if it drops frames and if it does, just return it. that way youll at least know its not your card.

[vertigoman]

I tried all of this, and it's still dropping frames. And, oddly, at the exact same point each time, even if the source tape is different. In other words, if I try copying from the Canopus, the frame dropping starts at the exact same number of frames each time, and the number of frames dropped remains consistent. If I instead use my Panasonic miniDV camera plugged into the firewire card, exact same thing.

Hard drive was defragmented, I always make sure that the capture is the only thing going on, and as I've mention, this never happened before. Two months of perfect operation and then out of the blue this started happening. I can't imagine the firewire card shorted out, and as I've mentioned, I can preview any video just fine for extended lengths of time, it's only when I hit capture that the problems begin. It's almost like the system freezes it, everything stutters and jumps, etc. almost as if some massive software was loading in the background (which, of course, isn't happening.) Do you think this could be a driver conflict or something like that?

[vertigoman]

I just checked out the FAQ above (again) about dropping frames, and saw something interesting:

It suggests making sure the primary IDE device is set to DMA mode.

When I open up the Device Manager on my computer and look under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" there are three options:
-Intel(R) 82801DB Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 24CB
-Primary IDE Channel
-Secondary IDE Channel

For the Primary, the advanced settings tab lists:
DEVICE 0
Device Type: Auto Detection (this is not changable)
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: PIO Mode

DEVICE 1
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Not Applicable


For the Secondary, the advanced settings tab lists:
DEVICE 0
Device Type: Auto Detection (this is not changable)
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2

DEVICE 1
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Not Applicable


If, in the Device Manager, I choose to view "Resources By Type", under DMA it lists:
-2 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
-4 Direct memory access controller


Might all of this be causing the problem? This is all in that tech language I don't really speak, so if anyone knows whats going on, your continued support is greatly appreciated.

Josh
vertigoman@aol.com

[FOO]

You should definitely set all your hard diks to DMA mode.
Windows should have done that though. Can you change it ?
Do you have weird drives. Were they made by Aggies ?

Looks like your D drive is OK if it's Device 0 in IDE 1

[vertigoman]

As of now, there's only one hard drive. (I know, I know, it's best to have two if you're going to be doing capturing, and maybe someday when I have some more money...)

I keep trying to set the primary to DMA, but it seems stuck on the PIO setting and I don't know how to change that if it won't change.

[feeras]

vertigoman,

Not sure if this is related to the DMA PIO problem. But with DVDROMs and ripping etc, Windows XP has an error count it keeps in the registry. When it encounters an error count of 3 (it actually starts from 3 and decrements to 0), it will default the DVDROM onto PIO mode. This in effect throttles the DVDROM read speed to something pathetic. It Pioneer 106 was affected by this and ripping speed decreased to only 2.1 speed. Now the only way to fix this with the DVDROM was to change the registry setting. Do a search on DVDROMs and PIO DMA on google and you'll get the registry item to change. I can verify that it works - the reading speed for my DVDROM is back to normal. In fact, someone out there wrote a program that did it automatically (fairly simple if you do a bit of windows programming).

In terms of hard drive settings in the registry, I wouldn't have a clue. I think everything (hardware, software settings) are stored in the registry somewhere. Here's hoping this could be a starting point for a solution to your problem.

Cheers,
feeras

[vertigoman]

Apparently there's a bug in either Windows XP or one of the drivers that sometimes will lock an IDE drive in "PIO" mode instead of DMA. I was pointed to the Dell website (since my machine is a Dell) that had a patch to fix this, I downloaded that, ran it, and now that my primary IDE has been restored to DMA, I'm capturing just fine.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to offer their advice - I never would have figured this out on my own.

Josh