Unable to capture more than 30 seconds of video..

[BlueNocturne]

Last week, I bought a USB device - Adaptec GameBridge 1400 to record video from my videogame consoles. Everything seemed to work fine using Virtual VCR and Windows Media Encoder up until a few days ago. Now, whenever I try to encode a video in MPEG-2 format or using a codec like DivX, Xvid, or a WMV one, I can't seem to be able to encode more than 30 seconds of video. I'm able to encode as much audio I want, but when I playback the video file, the picture freezes at the 00:30 mark while the audio continues to play.

However, the GameBridge device comes with InterVideo Home Theater, which records and encodes video in MPEG-1 format, but I have no problems whatsoever. I'm able to record video for as long as I want..

Has anyone ever heard of such a problem with USB devices? It's just very strange since all of a sudden I get this problem. I'm thinking the cheap device may have broken, but I just came here to ask for help or any ideas of what the problem may be caused by.

[guns1inger]

So what did you change a few days ago ?

In my experience, things rarely just stop working. There is usually a reason. Something you installed or uninstalled or changed is the most likely cause.

[BlueNocturne]

All I remember installing were a couple additional encoding codecs to see if I would get any different results in quality. Sincer there are so many different audio and video codecs, is it possible that some may conflict with others? Maybe I should try to uninstall all of the codecs I have installed..

[Scorpion King]

Capturing MPEG-2, DivX, Xvid, WMV is/can be pretty CPU intensive. Have you / are you monitoring CPU usage during this whole process? Besides telling you when you are beginning to max out all those capture settings, it can also warn you of problems elsewhere (by being abnormally high).

Good luck.

[redwudz]

is it possible that some may conflict with others?

Yes. If you already have a codec installed and you install a very similar one, it can corrupt the first one. We see this fairly often when someone installs a codec pack over that top of already installed codecs.

USB devices can be interrupted by the OS or a program accessing the USB interface. If you have multiple USB devices and a drive or capture box on USB, that can occasionally cause problems. But if it worked before, something must have changed.

Usually codecs shouldn't cause the problems you describe. It might happen with one codec, but unlikely several at the same time.

So I'm guessing the problems you described are caused by something else. Pinning that down may be a little complex.

Since you are using XP, you might try a Restore to a earlier date, before the problems started. Second, try uninstalling and reinstalling your capture software. That might reset it.

And as mentioned by Scorpion King, check your CPU and memory usage in Task Manager. The problem you describe sounds similar to a CPU overheat problem. But that would be unlikely unless quite a few things had changed.

Anyway, I hope this is a little help. You can uninstall your added codecs, then try the restore. Unhook all other USB devices and see if any of this helps. Good luck.

And welcome to our forums.