Frames freeze while capturing

[sheezits]

I have been capturing analog video from VHS tapes with a Canopus ADVC-50 capture card. The card does an unbelievably good job and I have captured quite a few tapes. However, a few days ago, during the capture process (and in the final avi file), the video runs for a seconds, then freezes for a fragment of a second, then runs for a few seconds, then freezes, and on and on.

Since then, I reinstalled Windows XP SP2, cleaned and defragmented all drives, but still have the problem. I tried to capture using Sony Vegas 6 and WinDV 1.2.3. The problem shows up in both programs. I also have the VHS player hooked to a TV and it plays fine, but on the computer monitor, it runs and freezes.

Is there a setting in my Bios that might have been changed? I didn't change anything in the Bios. The problem began while I was capturing a tape. The first 45 minutes was fine, but the next 20 minutes had the problem. Since then, everything has the problem.

Thank you for any help that anyone can give me.

[mikiem]

Check hardware? Try card in another slot, or PC? If more then one stick ram, try one or the other? Try software like Prime95 to see if other problems too that you're not yet aware of?

[Cole]

I had this problem a recently.

Sadly, the solution can be a bit expensive as it is an extra piece of hardware I needed to get to solve this issue. It is a problem with the tape. What you need to get is an external Time Base Corrector to put a syncronised signal to the ADVC-50. In my case had to get a Datavideo TBC 100

Further explaination: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=273089&highlight=

The problem hasn't happened since I got the TBC.

[sheezits]

That's the strangest thing. Why would a tape cause the problem? The original tape plays fine when you watch it on the TV, and yet, it continues to freeze while trying to capture.

After doing all of the above fixes that I listed, I took your advice and tried another tape. It worked fine!

Anyway, I'm up and running. I just have to figure out how to make that tape work. Perhaps I'll try another VCR. The Time Base Corrector is absolutely not an option, not at the price.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Cole]

Different VCRs will react with tapes in different ways. The tape may well work with other VCRs, it may not.
Hopefully, your tape will.

The reason I did end up getting the TBC was that I was finding it happening with lots of my tapes and somehow I stopped trusting my capture abilities without the TBC.

[geowharton]

Your "freezing" frames are drop frames.
Many things cause drop frames.
First!, try retentioning the tape before capturing. Sometimes thats all it takes. Let the tape play all the way through to the end at normal speed and then rewind completly. This really helps if the player has a weak drive.

Since you are not dropping frames with the capture of other tapes, then you can be fairly sure that the tape may be the problem. However, sometimes there can be a tape that plays fine in one player and not in another. I have used a JVC HR-S9911U VHS player that sometimes doesn't play a tape well when a "run of the mill" player will.

Dirty tape heads and dirty tapes will cause drop frames also.
Some tapes are just not as good. A Time Base Correcter (TBC) can be a tremendous help. I use a Sima SSC-2 but there are several good enough ones on the market (Datavideo TBC 100 ). If just a few frames from the player are corrupt, you will never notice while watching on the TV, but your computer cannot captuer them. The TBC can reconstruct corrupt frames.

[Cole]

They are not dropped frames in the sense of the capture device not picking up the capture. If when you were capturing the tapes and this happened, you should have noticed that the capture software would not have registered any dropped frames and the playback would have been exactly as you saw the stuttering/freezing happening.

It is to do with (as it was explained to me by daviddeck in the link above) the tape having a drop-out around the vertical sync region. This can confuse the capture device, causing it to add a frame, drop a frame or freeze as it tries to resync to the input. The results will vary from tape to tape, and may even vary each time you try to capture a particular tape.

geowharton is right where he says that a TBC will correct the signal as I have not had this problem since I installed a Datavideo TBC-100.

Why I won't do without it now, is that I have some older conversions that I have had to do again as (although not often) I have found that this has occured maybe once or twice in a tape, but to me who is archiving a vintage television programme collection, that is once or twice too many.

[mikiem]

I agree with what others have posted, but you wrote: "Since then, everything has the problem."

If you meant that all tapes are now a problem, whereas beforehand your process worked fine, I think I'd check to make sure nothing broke before investing in added hardware. Perhaps easy way to tell might be if you tried last tape you captured successfully? Could have degraded since then, but the odds I think would be in favor of a new problem.

[Cole]

No, I didn't say that everything has a problem, what I said was, I won't do without the TBC just in case there is a problem with any tapes that I may be converting.

I did discover a few of my older conversions (before I added the TBC) had this problem, but I was using a different VCR at the time. Some tapes I have come accross have this issue with the ADVC-50 regardless of which VCR I am using.

Actually, I recall that when I first came accross this problem I thought it was because my hard-drive was too defragmented!

With the TBC, NO tapes have this problem.