Occasional dropped frames from 8mm tape capture

[frubsen]

I'm using a Sony Digital 8 Camcorder TRV480 and WinDV to capture a bunch of old 8mm tapes. The problem I'm having is that on a 2hr tape, WinDV will report some dropped frames. It varies depending on the tape, but usually between 10-20 dropped frames.

Is this a problem with the timebase of the tape? or is this a hard drive issue? What is the best way of diagnosing this?

Thanks

[smrpix]

You haven't listed your system specs so it's hard to say if it's processor or drive speed. It may simply be that a few frames are so screwed up they can't be captured. Be sure to turn off all background processes while captuing -- especially anti-virus, internet and disk indexing.

[frubsen]

i7 3770k, 16gb ram, multiple 7200rpm drives and SSD

Happens on all the drives, I don't really notice anything on the captured files, just wondering why its reporting dropped frames sometimes and not others.

[smrpix]

Your specs are more than adequate for DV. There is most likely a signal interruption on the tape, it could be happening at camera starts and stops for example.

[johns0]

If you don't notice any sync issues or glitches then 10-20 lost frames is nothing to worry about at all.

[2Bdecided]

If you don't notice any sync issues or glitches then 10-20 lost frames is nothing to worry about at all.

0 dropped frames for DV capture is normal on a ten year old PC. Sync issues are rare using WinDV, no matter how many frames it drops.


As smrpix said, if there are unrecorded or damaged portions of the tape, then (depending on how the TRV480 creates the DV stream at this point) WinDV will report many dropped frames, and sometimes does miss real video, or corrupt perfectly good video, at the point where it resumes.


I haven't used a TRV480, but I did have a DV camcorder which had this issue with WinDV. It's the combination of the particular camcorder, what it does when there's no signal, and WinDV itself which causes this.




An alternative explanation is that your PC is doing something else at some point during that two hours. While the specs are overkill x 10 for DV capture, occasionally some rogue supposedly "background" task will grab enough resources to make a real-time task like DV capturing hic-up.


Cheers,
David.

[frubsen]

thanks guys, i'm thinking its more tape related, as some tapes seem to have more of an issue than others. some don't give any dropped frames at all.