Major Frame Loss and Very Poor Capture Quality

[sharksfin]

DV Capturing Newbie here. Having major issues with capturing and frame loss. Current system – Dell 2400 Windows XP Home (SP2), Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.80GHz, 640 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 256 MB Video Card (PCI), Zonet ZUC2400 PCI Firewire/USB card.

Trying to capture from a Canon ZR60 DV Camcorder. After 2-5 seconds of capturing, I already start dropping frames at huge amounts (20, 50, 200 frames dropped after 1 minute of capturing). Have tried reinstalling Firewire Card to different PCI slot, tried 3 different DV tapes, tried capturing software Nero, VirtualDub, scenalyzer. Also updated Video Card Drivers. Playback on Camcorder is fine. After capturing to PC, video skips every 3-5 seconds with audio sync issues. I’m really at a loss here. Any ideas?

[canadateck]

try windv

[Tommyknocker]

Whoa. You claim to be capturing DV. Virtual doesn't capture in DV, only in AVI. Does your computer and camera have fire wire? if they do, try to hook them up together and use DVIO to capture video. The quality will be better and if your system is set up right, you will lose very few frames. Don't forget to study the manuals!

[thecoalman]

Aren't you splitting hairs there Tommyknocker? It's considered DV in a AVI container, realistically DV is correct because AVI isn't a video format. There's no difference in quality from "capture" programs because in reality your just transferring the video from the cam to HD, almost like copying a file from one HD to the other. With a correct setup there should be 0 dropped frames.

I doubt a different app is going to help you if your dropping that many frames, if it doesn't. Go to start>control panel>system>hardware> device manager>... Find the device labled IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, clicl the plus sign and right click on primary IDE and select prpoerties then slect the advaced tab from the top. Next current mode it should list it as DMA mode (or some DMA mode). Do the same for the secondary IDE Channel.

And whens the last time you defragged your HD?

[Tommyknocker]

Boy, do I disagree. I get much better quality doing DV transfers to my computer than using Virtual Dub.

[thecoalman]

Boy, do I disagree. I get much better quality doing DV transfers to my computer than using Virtual Dub.

It's always been my understanding that transferring video from a DV cam is lossless regardless of what app you use. The only difference is the options available such as splitting files by scene, file size etc.

[MpegEncoder]

Boy, do I disagree. I get much better quality doing DV transfers to my computer than using Virtual Dub.

It's always been my understanding that transferring video from a DV cam is lossless regardless of what app you use. The only difference is the options available such as splitting files by scene, file size etc.

Except that VirtualDUB does not do DV transfers.

[thecoalman]

Except that VirtualDUB does not do DV transfers.

I wouldn't know I've never used it.

[edDV]

Key issue for avoiding frame loss is to separate the capture (and scratch) partition from the OS partition and better yet capture to a different drive on a different IDE channel. Background processes are probably killing the transfer. Defragging may help.

The issues are discussed in the context of a notebook in this thread.
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248968