counting dropping frames with Canopus ADVC 50

[meringone]

Just bought a converter ADVC 50: quality from vhs is very good, but I have a few dropped frames. How can I count them quickly? Since now, I acquire with another SW card, based on conexant 23880, (no dropped frame but very poor quality) and I compare the number of frames between two fixed scene change.
I use a JVC 8700 with TBC incl uded, and I have about 10 dropped framese per hour with Canous ADVC 50. Whitout TBC I have 1/2 hundreds per hours.

[daniel_beller]

Hi. There are a few factors that can influence the quantuty of dropped frames in a capture. My experience with Canopus has been excellent (I use the ADVC 300) and I tried several cards (VIVO) to carture to VCD and DVD.
How much RAM do you have?
Heve you installed the latest DirectX version?
Is your capturing partition the same as your OS?
Bear in mind that Canpus uses a propietary AVI codec, that will result in 178 Mb/min or about 13 GB per hour.
If you'll provide some info about your machine, it may help.
Personally, I capture archival material, some of it in very bad shape. The TBC should eliminate almost all dropped frames. Are you trying to capture some exotic PAL-M or N from south america. I do that and have had some really bad headaches.

All the best

Daniel Beller
daniel.beller@gmail.com

[edDV]

I agree with daniel_beller. We need to know your hardware and technique.

major issues:
- capturing to the same drive as the OS (Windows, Mac, Linux) can cause contention. The OS usually wins this fight and you get dropped frames.
- background tasks such as anti-virus, screen savers, or disk hungry apps may steal the capture drive.

Tell us what you have. DV capture should be painless.

[meringone]

I have an AMD XP 3000+ with 1GB RAM, working in double channel. DX9 installed and a dedicated HD 160 GB SATA. If I capture from DV camera I have no dropped frames. When I capture from ADVC 50 the capture program doesn't see dropped frame, so I think it's not a trasfer problem: I can capture in uncompressed YUV with the other SW card without dropped frames (70 GB x hours vs 14 GB x hours !). But if I compare the number of frames with a SW capture I have different number of frames, so I think it's only a DV conversion problem. The VHS are PAL, european, commercial of about 5 years, some MV protected and some no. The result is the same.

[bugster]

Bear in mind that Canpus uses a propietary AVI codec, that will result in 178 Mb/min or about 13 GB per hour.

Just to correct a minor misinformation here. The canopus does not use a proprietary codec, it uses DV, the same 'codec' as found in DV camcorders. It is a standard, not proprietary. You are right about the size though.

[meringone]

should I use external TBC (like datavideo 100 / 1000) in order to avoid dropped frames during conversion?

[edDV]

So, the software isn't reporting dropped frames. You aren't observing dropped frames. You are just getting a different frame count.

Your hardware looks more than adequate. Are you sure you are counting from the same start and end frame?

A TBC shouldn't make any difference for frame count that I can see.

[meringone]

I count exactly from one scene change at the beginning of the film to another at the and of the film. If i put the two tracks together in the timelime of Vegas Video I can see the different number of frames. I have tried with another settings of the vcr, the 'stabilize image', which disables the TBC of the JVC, and I have about 100/150 dropped frame per hour.