HELP --- I can No Longer Capture w/o Massive Frameloss

[nutty1]

Hi all,

I'm using a AverTV Stereo Capture card and VirtualDub.

I used to be able to capture with very little frameloss using PicMJPEG and following the steps outlined in the capture guides.

Now, no matter what I try, I can't capture w/o tons of frameloss. We're talking 30 frames in a 10 second capture!!!

Nothing has changed except that I haven't captured anything in about 4 months!

I've already shut everything down, AND I've defrag'd my HD hoping that would solve the problem.

At this point, I'd be happy if I could capture at 320 x 240!!

Here are my system specs:
Pent4, 2Ghz
512 Ram
120gighd
WindowsXP HomeEdition
wdm drivers from btwincap.sourceforge.net

[Sartori]

1.Have you turned off DMA for the hard drive (you`ll have to do a web search how to check this , I don`t know how to check in xp)
2.try reinstalling windows over itself to correct any problem files if they could be causing it , XP was a nightmare for me at one stage now its lovely again
3.the wincap drivers caused me problems , you could try the original drivers and then change back to the wincap ones .

Best of luck


Rob

[montythedog]

Possibly a virus?

Paul

[Petco]

Also, check your Device settings to make sure you are not in conflict (sharing an interrupt) with another device (this sounds like your problem). XP is usually defaults to direct DMA.

Anyhow, if it is in conflict, physically remove your hardware. Go into your CMOS setting an deactivate some of your integrated peripherals which aren't in use and reinstall your Capture Card.

[Nelson37]

First, determine what has changed, SOMETHING has.

New software or updates OF ANY KIND? New hardware added? Was the machine shipped or moved? Has it been in someone else's hands or available to someone else?

I see this all the time in my work. I typically have to ask the above question 2 or 3 times before finally getting "Well, I installed this neat screensaver my friend gave me, but that's not really software, is it?".

I repeat, SOMETHING has changed. DETAIL ALL CHANGES to software or hardware.

If it was shipped or moved, Remove and Replace all cards and mem chips in the machine.

[nutty1]

Ok,

I played around with my PC a little more tonight.

Bur first to answer some previous questions:
New Software Installed: Quicken 2003 and Turbo Tax. No other software was installed.

Haven't bought any new "toys" for it, so no new hardware was installed.

I also scanned for a virus, but system check out clean.

Pc hasn't been moved or used by anyone other than me.

Now, I also have an external firewire drive which I plugged into the PC, and then did a test capture to it. Lo and behold, I captured without the frameloss! So the problem looks to be my C Drive.

I went into the device mgr and checked to see if I had DMA enabled. Transfer mode = DMA if Available
Current Transfer Mode = PIO [Grayed out]

Could the above [transfer mode/current transfer mode] be my problem, and if "yes" how do I correct it? The current transfer mode is grayed out, and doesn't let me change it.

Thanks to all for all of your suggestions & help!

[Sartori]

You probably have a problem/changed something in your BIOS , go to the hard disk section and change it to whatever udma your hd is (1-4). Go to manufacturers website to find out if it isn`t on the disk .

[Dumpster]

This same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. For some reason my capture drive (D) switched back to PIO mode. After searching forever I finally found out how to set it back:

Go to Device manager and expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers".
Select "Primary IDE Channel" and Uninstall it.
It will require a reboot.
After booting back up, it will re-install the drivers.
When complete, you will need to reboot it again so it can select the UDMA mode.

I would have replied sooner but I had to register and wait 3 days before posting.

Hope this helps.

Dumpster

[nutty1]

Dumpster you are a lifesaver!!!

Following the steps outlined in your post did the trick!

[knoertploert]

This is funny, I had the same problem and Dumbster also solved my problem. Maybe a program, an update or somekind of virus changed the configuration.

Thanks a lot

[Dumpster]

I'm glad to have been of help! I just wish I knew what caused it so I could watch for it again. I'm sure it's not a virus, I've had no other indications and I keep my system pretty tight. I suspect something more in the lines of defrag or scandisk which has access to your drive setup, maybe it has a problem with certain drives... I just don't know enough about all that.


Dumpster

[knoertploert]

I found this at microsoft.com.

For repeated DMA errors.

Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.

In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the device.

Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on).

If the mini-IDE driver for the device does not support stepping down transfer modes, or if the device is running UDMA mode 0, Windows XP will step down to PIO mode after encountering six or more CRC errors. In this case, a system reboot should restore the original DMA mode settings.

All CRC and timeout errors are logged in the system event log. These types of errors could be caused by improper mounting or improper cabling (for example, 40-pin instead of 80-pin cable). Or such errors could indicate imminent hardware failure, for example, in a hard drive or chipset.

Some users on the intenet experienced this problem after defrag and other after crashes because of driver-conflict. I don't what was causing my problem. It could be both. But Lately I had a lot of crashes because of those stupid btwincap drivers.