Capturing drop frames

[greeknl]

This is the thing.
When I capture from a vhs cassette which has a film on it copied from a videocamera recording I experience 0 drop frames. But when I try to capture from VHS on which a television program has been recorded than the drop frame rate grows unbelievably. But when I again put this through the TV set and capture from the TV output than 0 drop frames again????

All nice but I want to watch another channel when capturing from a recorded program without dropping frames

can anyone enlighten me

Thankz

[greeknl]

NObody

[FOO]

Nobody can enlighten you. It may come as a complete
surprise but nobody knows ANYTHING about your equipment,
methods, or software because you didn't bother to tell us.

[bottle-necked]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but I'll give it a crack....

I like to view the bitrates of my MPEG2 captured files and one way I do this is by watching them (on my PC) with PowerDVD. I turn on the file information deal and it displayes the recorded bitrate while it plays the video file. I have noticed that when my input source is weak, snowy, bad in general, the bitrate goes way up, but if my input source in clean and sharp the bitrate goes way down. My capture program can compress a good clean source better and the capture is always good. This may be some of your problem.... a difference in the quality of the source video when hooked up differently as you explained. If this is the case you might only need new wires or something.(?)

Capturing from VCR tapes can be fairly difficult expecially if the tapes are old, the video is weak, the player is old, or any number of other things. A Time Base Corrector would help if this is the case. A pretty good one is the DataVideo TBC-1000 Single Channel TBC. I hear good things about those. I don't have one.

Maybe by running the video through your TV it's being filtered or amplified. I don't know. Is there a difference is the quality of the input signal coming from those two sources?

Good luck.

[greeknl]

My system is win98 & XP, P4 1,7 256MB memory, using ulead mediastudio 6 and 7, PCTV pro capture card from Pinnacle, also tried several WDM drivers.

And the VHS tapes I use are new but as I said when capturing from a recorded TV station many dropped frames????

It doesn't make any sense that when I capture from VHS on which I have recordings from a video camera it doesn't drop any frame

[dphirschler]

Could it be that perhaps you are stopping the VHS recording and starting again in an attempt to edit commercials? I've noticed that VHS captures tend to drop frames at the "edited" commercial breaks. It's best to record straight through the commercials and do the editing digitally.


Darryl

[bottle-necked]

I've read many threads where people have trouble capturing from VHS tapes. I've had a few difficulties myself trying it. Ive seen and heard various results and most have been unfavorable. The people that are reporting the most success are the ones using the time base correctors (as I stated above). I don't capture from VHS tapes very much but what little I have done taught me just how difficult it can be, expecially with tapes that have problems of their own.

Good luck.

[snafu099]

I've read many threads where people have trouble capturing from VHS tapes. I've had a few difficulties myself trying it. Ive seen and heard various results and most have been unfavorable. The people that are reporting the most success are the ones using the time base correctors (as I stated above). I don't capture from VHS tapes very much but what little I have done taught me just how difficult it can be, expecially with tapes that have problems of their own.

Good luck.

I use ADS usb InstantDvd-2 to achieve 600+ vhs tapes of varing quality/age with not problem. achieve is as good as source-tape/vcr
Currently at 250+

I am amazed at the high user ratings of other devices, yet read posts of sync problems, etc.. WHile I only rated the IDVD-2 at 4, it is because of weak (poor) tech support, slow updates, however once working, the quality is suppureb and ALWAYS in sync !! IMHO

I did start with a new, cheap dvd/vcr player

[Alan69]

Yes there are good reasons your camera may be better:

Slightly slower timebase. This would make it easier to capture in time and a camera does it's own timing, rarely would two be precisely the same.

MUCH cleaner signal. It is a direct signal output not filtered and derrived from RF frequencies so doesn't have the artifacts.

Higher level. May simply have a slightly higer output level.


Same reasons any two VCRs etc may output different quality of video. Every design is slightly different.

And you are also not likely capping as long from a camera as a TV show. Plus your camera picture if you do a long cap is likely much less choppy. You don't do instant scene changes like an edited TV show. These require new full frames and more encoding time than a normal camera video.. A few quick scene changes like the intro for a show could easily back things up. Get a picture and aim the camera at a reasonably complex area. Now put the picture in front, and then raise it so the camera sees the normal scene. Interrupt with picture a few times a second and see if you can't make a few lost frames.. A full new frame every frame is loads more intensive than just normal continuous background video.