Why framedrops?

[geohei]

Hi.

This forum is propably my last rescue. I get framedrops (not too many, but there are) with my system. I read miscellanious threads in this forum, but none could help.

P4 1.8 GHz
nVIDIA GeForce3 Ti200
768 MB DRAM
80 GB harddisk (Ultra DMA, defragmented!)
Latest WDM driver from nVIDIA (1.22)
Win2000

When I capture analog material from my PAL-DV Camcorder (perfect signal), I get 1-5 framedrops per minute depending on the applicatiion used. The selected resolution is 720x576.

VirtualDub - most framedrops
iuVCR - less
Virtual VCR - best results, but still drops!

I use Huffyuv 2.1.1. Uncompressed increases the number of framedrops.

I upgraded every possible driver (video, IDE controller, ...), and don't get better results!

BTW, the same hardware has WinXP installed on a different partition. Also there, I get drops with Virtual VCR. Approximately the same number.

I don't know what else I could possibly try.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[bgrieb]

If this isn't a new thing, maybe you're just capturing at too high of a frame size. I've got a GF4 Ti4200 with ViVo and a 1.4 Ghz processor (512 Megs of RAM and an ATA133 Hard Drive). Anything that high drops frames like crazy if I use anything other than really conservative settings. I found out pretty quickly that if I really wanted high quality captures, VIVO cards are not the way to do it.

BG

[hwoodwar]

If you haven't already I suggest you go through:

How to Tune your system for ATI capture cards

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/81808.php

I realize this says for ATI capture cards and you do not have one, but much of this pertains to any capture system.

and additionally

High Quality Capturing with Little Frame Loss in VirtualDub

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/89899.php

for VirtualDub.

[jbusser]

Hi
I did have many framedrops aswell and finaly i found out what the problem was.
I use a PCTV card and capture with lots of software. The biggest problem was the realtime MPEG codec from pinnacle because it doens'nt "fill" the dropped frames. So I had to capture in AVI and later convert.
The problem is the mastertape or the video- or camcoreder. When its quality (video-heads or old tapes!) is low there will be a lot of dropped frames. This problem occurs when capturing via the composite plug. I had better results with "normal" coax (cannel) recording probabluy because there's a completely different type of datatransfer: when the composite plug gets no, or very poor, pictures it does not sent a signal while the coaxial plug allways gives a signal, even when it is on an "empty channel"
almost allways it is impossible to plug your camcorder directly to the coaxial plug. Instead of that you can use your VHS is a transmitter.
Beware that you need a TV tunercard for solving this problem.
At least: Try to clean your video-heads and be sure the tracking is optimal.
Good luck
Jan Busser

[Craig Tucker]

Capturing to a dedicated video capture hard drive may solve your problems. It is not recommended to capture to the hard drive where your OS is installed.

[DaveQB]

Capturing to a dedicated video capture hard drive may solve your problems. It is not recommended to capture to the hard drive where your OS is installed.

agree with that,
i havent ever tried it, but i wouldnt recommend,

i can cap @ 768x576 to a single disk (ATA100 Seagate Cuda IV) with no dropped frames,

with either Mjpeg or HuffyUV
now using a 2x20 16/16 RAID 0 and i can browse the web, post to forums etc while i capture,

i think the HDD is what you have to look @ first

try HD Tach or SiSoft
or even AuxSetup.exe in the Virtual Dub folder to benchyour HDD's

hope it works well
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[fmctm1sw]

Capturing to a dedicated video capture hard drive may solve your problems. It is not recommended to capture to the hard drive where your OS is installed.

agree with that,
i havent ever tried it, but i wouldnt recommend,

This is an interesting topic. I capture to my "C" drive all the time. I capped last night at 480x480 30fps with picvideo 18 compression and no frame drops. You may say "that's nothing" but on a celeron processor and ATA-33 motherboard I think its good. That is quite adequate for me. But maybe I'll investigate that. Anyone know if you can repartition windows 2k (without any specialized software) off the top of your head?

[DaveQB]

nope

Partitions Magic is your best bet ...

edit: but a partition wont make a difference,
when we say dedicated capture drive we mean a physical seperate HDD. and preferable on a channel of its own.

partitioning your boot drive and caopturing with that, isstill capturing with your boot drive

use a small HDD to put your swap file onto, and remove the existing swap file off your boot (and capture) drive,
that will help,

but your not having problems anyway so why am i saying this