Utterly Baffled

[Suzuko]

I'm here as a last resort hoping someone can tell me what I've done wrong and how to fix it.

I built a newer, more powerful computer so I could do more with video editing, but so far I haven't been able to make anything work right with the video part, which was a lot better on my old machine even though it's much less capable. Or so I thought.

I'm assuming you all can see what kind of equipment I am using by looking at my profile. If not, let me know.

Here's what's going on:

My capture device came bundled with WinDVD Creator 2. I installed that and tried using it, but everything just freezes as soon as I open the program. I talked with InterVideo on the phone and they told me to uninstall it and the capture device and the drivers for it, reinstall everything and try again, which I did, with no improvement.

So I uninstalled WinDVD Creator 2, and decided to try Power Director 4, but Power Director 4 would not even *start* for me. I uninstalled and reinstalled it, and it still would not open, so I uninstalled it again.

Next, I decided to try the Windows Movie Maker program that comes with Windows XP. I was able to capture an hour and a half of video from a VHS tape and the file came out just perfect, so I thought I was on the way to being able to do what I need to do, but no, the very next time I tried to use WMM it froze at the stage where you choose the settings for the clip.

After some consultation with friends who know more about computers than I do, I uninstalled Norton AntiVirus (Wow, what a job that is!) then tried using WMM again, and again got the same result.

WMM wouldn't just freeze up itself, it would make the whole computer freeze up and have to be manually shut down using the button on the front of the box.

Since I had used VideoWave 5 very successfully on the old machine I decided to try it on the new one and see if it would work better than the others, but it ALSO froze up the moment the capture button was activated, and stopped Windows from shutting down normally. I made several attempts with it before giving up.

Someone else had suggested updating the video cards drivers, which I did and which was not the answer. Someone else suggested updating the BIOS and the VIA drivers, which I did, and which also did not solve anything.

So I figured, fine, something is really goofed up on this machine, I will reinstall Windows and hope that takes care of the problem. But that didn't work either.

The only option I could see at that point was to reformat the HD and start fresh. And this time I did not install Norton AntiVirus (or any other AV program, yet).

The first thing I tried after getting all the Windows updates and patches was installing the capture device and trying WMM again. No dice. Same result as before - freezing and hanging up the whole machine.

By the way in trying to shut down WMM with the Task Manager I paid attention to how much of a load was on the CPU, and it was very small - usually well under 10% and it never went over 15%.

Someone suggested disabling hardware acceleration. I tried that. I was able to capture two hours of video (with WMM), which came out *almost* perfect - there was a small horizontal line on the bottom of the screen when I played back the file from the HD.

I figured, this is better than nothing, at least it works, and apparently the problem had nothing to do with Norton or with Windows or my video drivers or any of the other stuff I tried, and I was looking forward to being able to do what I built the machine to do.

But the very next time I tried using WMM, it froze at the exact same spot as before, and every successive attempt has yielded the exact same result. I've once again unistalled video drivers and reinstalled, etc. etc. blah blah blah, and tried every level of hardware acceleration there is, all with the same result.

Before I go through any more thoroughly frustrating experiments with various editing programs I'd really like to figure out what the heck is going on. I sure hope it's just some simple stupid little thing that I've overlooked, and not that I've been cursed.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[p_l]

Searching for and removing SubTitDS.ax solved a similar problem for me.

If that doesn't work, try eliminating any of the troublesome other .ax files you may find among these.

[lumis]

wow.. sounds like you've been through hell & back.

i dont capture video to my comptuer anymore, my standalone dvd player does an excellent job & much faster..

but if i were to capture video to my computer i would probably use virtual dub (uncompressed avi, huffyuv, mjpeg), and then encode that video to dvd spec, vcd, etc..

capturing with virtual dub is pretty easy, especially if you use one of the excellent guides on this website.. the only problem with that route is that you have to encode that video, which can be very time consuming..

as far as your problems, i really dont know what could be causing them.. what capture device are you using? letting us know that could be a big aide in assistinig you. i checked in to the "GeForce XFX 5500", but i dont believe that is a capture device.

[p_l]

Another thing you could try, from the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Some Microsoft DirectShow video filters are installed by non-Microsoft video and audio programs, and are known to cause issues in Windows Movie Maker when you try to import or preview audio and video, or save a movie in Windows Movie Maker. To prevent such issues, these filters are turned off by default in Windows Movie Maker 2.1, which is included in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Note Turning off DirectShow video filters in Windows Movie Maker 2.1 does not affect their functionality in other video and audio programs that might be installed on your computer. The DirectShow video filters that are turned off in Windows Movie Maker 2.1 include those in the following table.

Video filter name File name Version number
DivX AntiFreeze Filter
Divxaf.ax
0.0.0.0-0.4.0.0

Kristal Studio
Ac3audio.ax
All

InterVideo Audio Decoder
Iviaudio.ax
All

Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher
Mmswitch.ax
All

FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder
Ffdshow.ax
All

DirectShow Subtitle Filter
Subtitds.ax
All


To turn video filters off or on in Windows Movie Maker 2.1

1.
On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Compatibility tab.

2.
In the list of video filters, do one of the following:

• To turn off a filter, clear its check box.

• To turn on a filter, select its check box.

[Suzuko]

>snip<
but if i were to capture video to my computer i would probably use virtual dub (uncompressed avi, huffyuv, mjpeg), and then encode that video to dvd spec, vcd, etc..

>snip<

what capture device are you using? letting us know that could be a big aide in assistinig you. i checked in to the "GeForce XFX 5500", but i dont believe that is a capture device.

My capture device is shown as well as the video card.

I will look into virtual dub when I have time.

Thanks.

[Suzuko]

Another thing you could try, from the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Some Microsoft DirectShow video filters are installed by non-Microsoft video and audio programs, and are known to cause issues in Windows Movie Maker when you try to import or preview audio and video, or save a movie in Windows Movie Maker. To prevent such issues, these filters are turned off by default in Windows Movie Maker 2.1, which is included in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Note Turning off DirectShow video filters in Windows Movie Maker 2.1 does not affect their functionality in other video and audio programs that might be installed on your computer. The DirectShow video filters that are turned off in Windows Movie Maker 2.1 include those in the following table.

Video filter name File name Version number
DivX AntiFreeze Filter
Divxaf.ax
0.0.0.0-0.4.0.0

Kristal Studio
Ac3audio.ax
All

InterVideo Audio Decoder
Iviaudio.ax
All

Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher
Mmswitch.ax
All

FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder
Ffdshow.ax
All

DirectShow Subtitle Filter
Subtitds.ax
All


To turn video filters off or on in Windows Movie Maker 2.1

1.
On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Compatibility tab.

2.
In the list of video filters, do one of the following:

• To turn off a filter, clear its check box.

• To turn on a filter, select its check box.

I haven't got any filters showing there. Like I said in the original post, I haven't installed any other video programs yet. But thanks for the suggestion.

[Suzuko]

Searching for and removing SubTitDS.ax solved a similar problem for me.

If that doesn't work, try eliminating any of the troublesome other .ax files you may find among these.

None of those .ax files are found on this machine.

[zoobie]

offhand, this sounds like mobo and graphics card incompatibility problem

how do your other programs run?

you can try http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/ for more help from the pros

[ebenton]

Just to make sure you are comparing apples to apples here, do you have a source file that you were able to successfully process on your old computer? Try that to see how it works on your new PC.
When having problems like this, it is usually good practice to eliminate as many variables as possible. Using the same software with the same source file is a good way to do this.
Starting out with a different machine, different software and different source files introduces too many variables at once.
Try duplicating your original software/file environment as closely as you can with your new machine. If you still have access to your old PC, try installing your old video card, capture card, etc. etc.
If it works at first, then change one thing at a time so that you don't introduce multiple changes simultaneously.
If it doesn't work at first, then I guess you're back to square one.

[Suzuko]

offhand, this sounds like mobo and graphics card incompatibility problem

how do your other programs run?

you can try http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/ for more help from the pros

No problems with any other programs (prior to this fresh install of Windows when I had other stuff installed).

I'll investigate with the link you provided.

[Suzuko]

Just to make sure you are comparing apples to apples here, do you have a source file that you were able to successfully process on your old computer? Try that to see how it works on your new PC.

I'm not sure what you mean by process. On the new machine so far I haven't been able to capture video consistently.

Try duplicating your original software/file environment as closely as you can with your new machine. If you still have access to your old PC, try installing your old video card, capture card, etc. etc.

If it works at first, then change one thing at a time so that you don't introduce multiple changes simultaneously. If it doesn't work at first, then I guess you're back to square one.

On the old machine I used Windows 2000 Professional and now I've got Windows XP Home SP2. I have considered installing Win2k on a new partition ... and I could move the old graphics card into the new machine. It's doesn't have nearly as much memory, but I don't suppose that matters for video capture.

The old capture device (Dazzle DVC 80) I think would be too slow. The old machine had USB 1.0 only and a much smaller HD that did not have much space. All I was capturing on it was short clips from a camcorder, so the what I had was adequate.

I am pretty busy with other stuff but I will try this experiment as soon as I can and report results in this thread. Thanks for the ideas.

[Suzuko]

In case anyone is interested in what's being said about this issue in the forum zoobie mentioned, here's the link to my thread:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/index.cfm?action=showthread&threadid=226947&forumid=1

[RottenFoxBreath]

have you tried it without sp2?
just plain old windows xp,possibly with sp1.

[Suzuko]

No, the disk I have already has SP2 on it.

[penamty]

Even though it is a new system, I would run a RAM diagnostic tool just to be safe. I have seen strange behavior in machines that have subtle RAM miss configurations, or downright defective modules.

[zoobie]

Right now, you have nothing to lose by removing SP2.
Maybe pop in another grahics card if you happen to have one laying around.

http://www.compphix.com/uninstallingsp2.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875350

[RottenFoxBreath]

yeh true,i would give it a go with removing sp2,that did cause a few headaches with programmes when it was released.

[Suzuko]

I will test the RAM and report back here. I also spoke with a video card mfr's tech support rep who said try the Dazzle capture device and see if it won't work with their card and also swap video cards (my old card is a Matrox) and try the Plextor device with it, to narrow down whether the problem is with the capture device or the video card. I will post back the results of those tests. I'd like to avoid removing SP2 if possible but will try it as a last resort.