Frame Dropping w/ Pinnacle PC TV when Capturing Audio

[eCriminal]

I just got a Pinnacle PC TV, and whenever I attempt to capture, it drops at least 2-5 frames a second, continuously. I am using VirtualDub, and have tried DivX and the Huffy Codec. I have a 1.4 Athlon XP, so I do not believe CPU power is an issue, since the CPU usage is usually jumps around under 50% (even in capturing directly to Divx). I've got a pair of old ATA66 7200RPM hard drives in RAID0 config, and I believe they are sufficient for the job. However, it seems that if I turn off audio capturing (just video capturing), no frames are dropped. Could somebody advise? Someone mentioned that it might be a PCI timing issue. Thanks before hand.

[Bull]

Okay one of me friend had the same problem. He also have a Pinnacle and is running with both Win98 and win2000. His drop were dropping like crazy (24RGB with Huffey and picVideo), so in win98 we closed all programs down exept Vdub and Explorer, and there no more dropping frames. We never got it to work in 2000, but I've just talked to a guy who sayed that there where some problems with Pinnacle PCTV Pro in 2000 and XP.

Thats the best help I can give you :P

[eCriminal]

Thanks bro. Yeah, I am running windows XP. A friend gave it to me, which he bought a few years ago, probably running 98SE back then. I'll see what I can dig up. I'll try swapping a sound card (my sound blaster live isn' compatible with this new via chipset, so i' musing like a sb pci512), fiddle with IRQs, etc... I was just wondering if I missed a setting somehow to cause all these insane drops. I just was playing with a WinTV Go, and I rarely drop frames with that card.

[therick]

Well, I have the card working (after a lot of work) in Windows 2000 with VDub. I think there are some pretty serious issues with the dirvers though, because I stull get 1-2 drops every 1000 frames with every capture. I also upgraded from a Win-TV card (with which I had VERY few drops). Another thing that I have noticed is that when I try to capture audio at 44.1 16 bit stereo (176 kb/sec) that VDub hangs at the end of the cature. I beleive this is an issue with the drivers, not Vdub.

@eCriminal - I would just try to fiddle with it and see what you can get out of it...that is what I did...hell I only paid $35 for the thing...I am just glad that I got it to work.

[eCriminal]

"1-2 drops every 1000 frames" sounds just like what I am experiencing; I dropped around 30 frames when capturing a 45 minute clip (when doing nothing in the foreground). I figured that poorly written drivers is the cause. With my WinTV Go, I could usually capture directly to DivX with little or no frame drops, and doing work in the foreground. I can't capture to DivX with this PCTV without insane frame drops (5+ frames per second), and I drop at least 2 frames per second when capturing in Huffy when doing work in the foreground. However, the PCTV gives me a way higher quality capture. As for myself, a friend gave me his PCTV for free (used), after I was bitching that my newly purchased (and will be refunded) WinTV Go has horrible quality. I wonder if the 9x Pinnacle drivers are better written; nonetheless, I will have to suffer from the 2GB FAT32 limitation.

[ertanc]

I've the same problem with VDub + Avermedia TVPhone 98 capture card. Always 10 - 20 frames dropping in 1 hr. video. I heard that "AVI_IO" capturing software (only 80 KB.) is not dropping any frames. But did not try yet. I will try today with HuffYUV compression and see what happens ???

P-III / 800
80 gig. / 256 / Win XP Pro

[jako77]

Under XP, you should try WDM drivers (e.g. beta on pinnacle site).
I had the same frame dropping problem when I switched from WIN98SE to WIN XP. However tuner still does not seem to work properly. If so, install the WDM drivers by removing reference to the tuner in the 'inf' file. Choose the channel using Dscaler (internal drivers), and capture using vdub or iuvcr.

[therick]

@jako-you got the WDM drivers to work? Could you please tell me what you did to get those to work? I tried them with iuVCR when I first bought the card, but I couldn't get it to work. I am running 2000...should I upgrade to XP? Can you use wdm drivers in VDub? Questions, questions, I have....

[owix]

eCriminal:

Let me tell you my setup to capture with Pinnacle PCTV Rave. Rave is basicly the same card as Pinnacle PCTV without stereo nicam tuner (I think).

I use Duron 1,2 Ghz based computer with windows 2000. For capturing I use iuVCR. Capturing driver setup is "mixed" cause I use 1) tuner and crossbar from iuLabs tweaked wdm drivers and 2) audio + video capturing drivers from pinnacles wdm beta drivers. This setup gives me good results. I can capture up to maximum resolutions of iuVCR, even with Divx 4.12 codec. Of course with maximum resolutions I have to lower Divx´s performance settings and bitrate. But with mjpeg I should get really excellent results and divx capturing to vcd pal resolutions is ok, not excellent but ok for vcd burning after tmpenc conversion. (but not good enough for quality freaks).

I did a clean install for my computer to get my current config to work. I installed basic drivers for stuff normally. In Pinnacles installation I first installed tweaked drivers and rebooted the computer. After reboot I opened the device manager and selected tweaked audio and video capture devices and update driver function changed the drivers into pinnacles betas.

I use most recent beta version of iuVCR for capturing. iuVCR has never caused me troubles in capturing. If I have had problems with it, it has been my mistake or drivers fault. I really recommend registering it if you use it regulary. I did so.

If iuVCR doesn´t work for you, try FlyDS. It has similar functionality and it performance and quality is close of iuVCR, but it needs little bit more power from cpu. It works also with vfw drivers if wdm drivers doesn´t start to work.

Sometime getting capture setup work is pure luck but mainly you need time to test your config. And remember to compromise a little and don´t watch the screen so close. Take a step back from the computer screen. If picture looks decent then it will look even better when you watch it from TV with DVD-player.

Owix

Ups almost forgot to mention:

I captured yesterday 2,5 h of TV with iuVCR with divx4.12 into vcd pal resolution (bitrate was about 3000). Not a single dropped frame!

[jako77]

Therick :
To make Pinnacle WDM drivers work I simply commented out each line of 'inf' file with tuner inside (use ';').
This is with XP, I cannot recommend to switch drom win2000 to it, I guess it should also work with win2000.
I can capture at full res with flyds and iuvcr but the sync is very bad.
The sync is good with vdub but cannot cap above 352*288

[dilbert]

Try to cature with avi_io.
I'am running win2000, on an P3-500, using directX 8.0 and "directx.bda" innstaled , Pinnacle PCTV pro with no problem.

I can capture 480x576, mjpg=q19, CD-quality sound, with no drops of frames, using the original driver.

When i was using VirtualDub, i always get frames dropped. I also noticed that the picture on my moitor was better after i installed directX 8.0 + BDA.