DV Capturing Problem

[firetoad]

I have a DCR-TRV140 that I am trying to capture from via firewire. My computer specs: Win XP Home, PIII 866 MHz, 384 MB RAM, 40 GB 5400 RPM Maxtor

Here is the problem...

The capturing will go just fine until you hit about the 8 or 9 minute mark. From the there, there is major frame droppage! The video almost instantly becomes horribly choppy. Any suggestions? The task manager shows plenty of CPU and RAM left.

I have a 7200 RPM 30 GB hard drive on the way that I was going to use specifically for video. Will this help the problem since the OS won't be fighting the capture write on the hard drive?

Please help, this really stinks!

Todd

[stryker1080]

hey i aslo have the trv140... Can i ask you something, at what res do u capture using firewire? cuz when i captured with usb i kept dropping frames and looked shitty. what other options are there in the pexelware program when u sue firewrie? cuz i might buy the firewire..

[firetoad]

I didn't even check to see if Pixelware supported firewire. I purchased a firewire card from dvcentury.com for about $20 shipped. It was shipped with Ulead VideoStudio 5.0. I really didn't like the interface on the Ulead software. Right now, I am trying out Scenalyzer. I like Scenalyzer so far for capturing purposes. I am really thinking that my problems though are coming from the hard-drive. I am going to wait for my new drive to show up, install it and see what happens. I think that the OEM hard drive's buffer is being overrun because it is just plain slow. We will see though.

As far as my capturing, I am capturing in DV quality. I tried the USB capture (version 1.0 or 1.1 or whatever it is) and it is total junk if you are looking for any type of high quality capture. USB 1 just does not allow fast enough data transfer. I have a USB 2.0 card in my computer but I haven't tried it yet, which actually can transfer up to 80 Mb/s faster than firewire. I am not even sure that the camera even supports high rate USB transfer. Firewire cards can be had for so cheap off of pricewatch.com. I would definitely recommend purchasing a firewire card.

[Greg12]

don't waste ur time.

The device is a 1.1 device and won't transmite any faster.

[stryker1080]

so what res where u gettign with firewire?

[firetoad]

stryker1080, 720X480 until the hard drive starts acting up.


What are people's opinions on using your video dedicated drive as a slave on the primary IDE channel? I know that the dedicated drive should help. However, would it be better to run the drive on a separate RAID (PCI) Controller card as a master on the card's primary channel? Or, is this just overkill?

[iblubn]

had the same problem u need a firewire hard drive to capture to have not dropped frames since

[firetoad]

Well, I installed an ATA 133 RAID Controller along with a Maxtor 30GB ATA133 7200 RPM drive and my captures are flawless now! I did some benchmark testing using Sisoftware's Sandra 2003 and the new drive is about 2.5 times faster than my Compaq's OEM drive. Who would have thunk it?

BTW, also installed a Toshiba SD-R5002 DVD-R/RW and this thing is amazingly quiet. I have only burned a couple of CD-R's but I have never had a drive that didn't make a peep like this. As a matter of fact, I had to double check the cd's just to make sure they burnt properly and they did!