how to avoid drop frames

[The Linguist]

Lately everything I capture is dropping frames and not just a few tons of drop frames. My capture drive is physically seperate from my O/S drive with 200gb of free space. I have 1 gb of ram and am running a celeron 2.4ghz chip.

I'm using premier pro 1.5 for capturing and would really like to solve this problem.

[edsmith77]

have you checked that you are using DMA access and have not inadvertently slipped back into PIO mode.
My system sometimes does that without warning.

[The Linguist]

Yes I checked that defragged and have been googling like mad for the past several hours trying out everything I can think of other than reinstalling my system.

[thecoalman]

Start a capture and open up task manager... ctrl-alt-dlt See if you have any CPU spikes when the frames drop.

[harley2ride]

Another thing you might want to try, is boot to safe mode, and then capture and see if that helps.

[bits]

Does your capture card do harware or software encoding?

[The Linguist]

I"ll try what thecoalman suggested and then harley2rides suggestion.

I'm not using a capture card, just firewire.

[edDV]

What format are you capturing? What card or is this IEEE-1394?

[The Linguist]

I'm capturing as DV-avi and using IEEE-1394

[edDV]

I'm capturing as DV-avi and using IEEE-1394

The only time this has happened to me was a malware infestation. I got rid of it with system restore but often these things reinstall themselves. If that is the problem, a disk image restore or full reinstall is the only hope.

[The Linguist]

well, I'll run adaware and virus scans and if nothing gets caught and I still have this problem, I"ll either reinstall or make a new partition and install XP with only premier and photoshop to use that partition as my video editing station

[edDV]

well, I'll run adaware and virus scans and if nothing gets caught and I still have this problem, I"ll either reinstall or make a new partition and install XP with only premier and photoshop to use that partition as my video editing station

Adware didn't find the one that got me, or AVS antivirus. System restore solved my case. I only run system restore on the OS drive.

[Nelson37]

Step one - Have you read the Very Extensive sticky on "Why does my system drop frames"? This will save a lot of time.

Step two - DETAIL EXTENSIVELY any and ALL changes which have happened to your system from the time when it DID work up to the point where you discovered that it DID NOT work. ALL CHANGES. Hardware, software installed, downloads, web activity, Windows and other software updates, change in location, ALL. It is a virtual certainty that the answer lies somewhere in this list.

Roughly 90% of the time the list you supply will be incomplete. A lengthy question and answer session will gradually reveal some item which you for some reason neglected to put on the list. Then the answer will be revealed, and several of us will come to your house and beat you with a wet noodle.

As for the spyware, use AT LEAST 2 spyware scanners, if not more. One is almost never enough. Spybot, the MS app, and HijackThis are my personal favorites.

[edDV]

The only reason I brought up spyware was that everything else indicated his system should work.

[bits]

DV avi --> firewire and no on the fly encoding is that correct? If so, you are looking for something that is related to your HD, firewire port or whatever device your getting the DV avi from. This should be a rock solid transfer. There is noise somewhere between the DV avi source, the firewire or the HD that is causing data loss.

Try a different firewire.
Try using a different firewire port.
Replace your firewire card or see if you can borrow one and give that a go.
Cap to a different drive.
Check the IDE cable and connections

What software are you using to do the DV avi transfer to HD? What are the settings? Have you tried using something like winDV?

Try a google search on dropped frames over firewire.

[thecoalman]

The only time this has happened to me was a malware infestation..

I've had it happen when surfing the net during capture...

Generally capturing to my seperate drive and surfing didn't cause no issues, I've since stopped doing that because I would get the occssional dropped frame... usually just afew but they would be right in sequence...

[Wile_E]

As bits suggested, try WinDV. It uses a buffer. Otherwise if you keep getting dropped frames, it may be your Celeron processor. Even though it is rated 2.4GHz, it is way slower than a comparable Pentium 4 or AMD chip at 2.4GHz. I have an AMD64 3200+ and 1GB ram. I get dropped frames if I use Vegas or other software. But using WinDV, I can actually play some games like Diablo 2 at the same time as capturing, with no dropped frames.

[edDV]

The only time this has happened to me was a malware infestation..

I've had it happen when surfing the net during capture...

Generally capturing to my seperate drive and surfing didn't cause no issues, I've since stopped doing that because I would get the occssional dropped frame... usually just afew but they would be right in sequence...

I should have added, "with his level of equipment and a second drive".

[Nelson37]

Actually, we first need to establish that the OP was in fact, at some time in the past, able to capture WITHOUT dropping frames. This has not been firmly established, merely indicated by the qualifier "lately".

IF, and that is a big if, it did work at one time, then there is no need whatsoever to change software or hardware, unless the hardware has become defective and that does not seem to be indicated. What is now on the system was able to do the job, all that is required is to get the system back into the previous state. This will involve determining what the changes actually are, and hopefully what caused them.

Making any additional additions or alterations to the system merely confuses and complicates the issue. IF, repeat IF, it used to work then the cause of the malfunction needs to be located and eliminated, and prevented from re-occurring. New software will just mask the issue, possibly making identification of the root cause impossible.

Spyware is probably the most common cause of sudden changes in system functionality, hence the emphasis.

Need further input from the OP.

[The Linguist]

Step one - Have you read the Very Extensive sticky on "Why does my system drop frames"? This will save a lot of time.

yes

Step two - DETAIL EXTENSIVELY any and ALL changes which have happened to your system from the time when it DID work

I last captured video at the beginning of February. The only change I made was switching from Norton to AVG for antivirus software, but when capturing I go offline and turn off my antivirus software.

I may have installed windows updates (all done automatically), the only downloads were some TV shows via torrents.

Roughly 90% of the time the list you supply will be incomplete.

probably correct as I haven't logged everything I did. but am pretty sure that I got most of it.

several of us will come to your house and beat you with a wet noodle.

What kind of noodle? I hope it's not a lasagna noodle.

you are looking for something that is related to your HD, firewire port or whatever device your getting the DV avi from

I know it's not my camcorder 'cause a buddy borrowed it and captured fine to his computer

What software are you using to do the DV avi transfer to HD? What are the settings? Have you tried using something like winDV?

I'm using premier pro 1.5 but will try winDV when I get home (currently at work)

I've had it happen when surfing the net during capture...

I only monitor the capture, no surfing - I'm offline during capture.

Actually, we first need to establish that the OP was in fact, at some time in the past, able to capture WITHOUT dropping frames.

Yes I have captured successfully in the past.

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions so far.

[InXess]

Is your FW card a separate device or integrated? Make sure busmastering is enabled or have it reinstalled together with MB drivers. Reinstall FW card and IDE drivers.

[Nelson37]

Make absolutely certain the AVG is turned off, I would even uninstall it as a test. Virus protection (real-time) a common cause of dropped frames, that you have changed this software raises a red flag.

Camera operation verified. Did you use the same cable? Next would be the firewire card, can you swap temporarily with your friend? Defragged the Hard Drive?

Make minimal changes, one at a time, testing each change. Start with the Antivirus.

[INFRATOM]

Capture is CPU harddrive action mostly. Look at task manager see what is eating your resources. Spyware could be a big reason. Also your C drive make sure you have enough space for paging. Other reasons are out there too, like if CPU gets too hot it slows down .. disconnect network temporarily to disappoint spywares. etc

[InXess]

FW/ILink transfer from the DV cam is not nearly as CPU intensive as realtime MPEG-2 capture/encoding. Having Task Manager open (Performance Tab) may shed some light if CPU is overloaded. That shouldn't be the case though.

[zoobie]

Make sure you're offline when running your adaware or it will just go get the files again. I forgot this myself last night...and sure enough, it just went and got the files again.

[The Linguist]

Well I had the task manager open when capturing and it kept hitting 100% and averaged around 96% during capture even with the internet disconnected and antivirus turned off. I also tried capturing to a different drive but no change.

I captured with premier pro 1.5 and with winDV and both of them dropped loads of frames.

[gadgetguy]

With task manager open, click on the Processes tab and then click CPU. This will sort the processes by the amount of CPU resources it's using. When a process needs more resource it "jumps" to the top. See which process is eating up your processor, especially while dropping frames..

[edDV]

Well I had the task manager open when capturing and it kept hitting 100% and averaged around 96% during capture even with the internet disconnected and antivirus turned off. I also tried capturing to a different drive but no change.

I captured with premier pro 1.5 and with winDV and both of them dropped loads of frames.

I just capped some DV off cable via my ADVC-100 with a Pentium 4 2.4GHz. CPU. Before WinDV capture, CPU was ~14%, during capture CPU was 14-18%.

Something else is going on there. Look at XP Task Manager - Processes, then click CPU until ordered for highest % first. Then tell us which process is using up your CPU to 96%.

Mine is dominated by "System Idle Process" 83%. WinDV is 10-13%, next is FireFox 05-08%

[The Linguist]

Just did that. The first 2 minutes of capture I only lost 5 frames, not great but workable. After that I was dropping frames like crazy.

During frame dropping processes were:
premier pro around 70%
system around 25%
system idle process around 10%

of course things were fluctuating up and down.

perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling premier would help?

[edDV]

Just did that. The first 2 minutes of capture I only lost 5 frames, not great but workable. After that I was dropping frames like crazy.

During frame dropping processes were:
premier pro around 70%
system around 25%
system idle process around 10%

of course things were fluctuating up and down.

perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling premier would help?

Try WinDV first. That will test everything else.