DV import help

[VirtualDoobMon]

Hi,

looking for a freeware app that will import dv and report the number of frames dropped. Any suggestions?

I'm using OS 9

thx

[havema-1]

I miss such an app, too!

They say that DV is lossless but those occasional dropped frames are the flies in the ointment!!

Sometimes I import the same DV tape twice to iMovie (1st to the timeline and then to the shelf) and then compare the imported clips' lengths and take any longer clip from the shelf to the timeline before starting to edit.

Usually there are about 0-5 dropped frames per hour. Bad spots on a tape cause some that can't be avoided no matter what. But the others are caused by the occasional hiccups in the system.

BTW, I initially had a habit to reboot just before importing any important tape. But then I noticed that a fresh boot, in fact, introduced more dropped frames than a weeks old boot so now I have dropped that habit I guess fresh boot may have some invisible house-keeping still going on even after a few minutes.

AFAIK Final Cut can report dropped frames but that's overkill for me.

BTW, I archive the (edited) home videos on big loose ATA disks (connected via a WiebeTech ComboDock) as <9min 27 sec .dv files so I want to take care there is a minimum amount of dropped frames there. I'm pretty good in spotting jerky movements caused by dropped frames on a TV, too

[edDV]

Laptop?
Sure your drive has adequate space and is defragmented.
Capturing to the OS drive can cause this unless all background tasks are turned off.
These drops occur either during extreme disc seeks or when the OS takes the drive priority causing Firewire buffer to overflow.

[guns1inger]

More memory might help. I used to edit DV on much slower CPUs that yours and never dropped a frame. If you are dropping frames during DV transfer, you have to look at the system.