Dropped Frames 530 in 1 shot

[Stanley99]

Hi All,
I normally don’t ask for help all that often but I’m stumped. My problem is that I get 530 to 560 dropped frames just around 30 minutes into a video capture. All in one shot.
- OS Windows XP Home
- AMD Athlon 2.6ghz
- 1gig DDR Ram
- 3 WD 300GB 7200RPM Hard Drives

The Capture devices are a Pinnacle Systems PCI 900 or Canopus ADVC 100. My Problem is the same with either. As so capturing with Pinnacle Studio 10 or VirtualDub 1.6.9. The network is disconnected from the outside world and all the third party services have been disabled in msconfig. Fast indexing is also disabled and removed. DMA is active on all drives. I get the feeling that windows is running a service that accesses the primary hard drive at certain times and cause the dropped frames. The hard drive light goes on solid from a flicker for about 5 – 10 second and I get the 530 dropped frames.
I have started to disable some of the Windows service in msconfig in hopes of pinpoint the culprit. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Bodyslide]

Make sure no Defrag or Anti-Virus software is running.

[Stanley99]

Capture drive is empty and Anti-Virus removed.

[bobkart]

This happens at the same point in the tape each time you try to capture? Sounds like a corruption on the tape if so. It's unlikely that the same system service or whatever PC load would just happen to kick in at the same point in the tape each time.

[GreyDeath]

Or better yet, defrag your hard drives before you capture. See if you can shrink your preview window so it doesn't use some much of your Virtual Memory.

[bobkart]

... defrag your hard drives before you capture.

Capture drive is empty ...

[toonfan]

Disable windows defender if you have it installed.

[redwudz]

What is your video source? Does it do the same with all video sources? That would help to rule out the source as a problem.

If you are not using the boot drive for this, which you are probably aren't, there shouldn't be any Windows services that would effect other than a boot drive.

Assuming a DV transfer via Firewire, which is fairly low CPU usage, I would guess maybe something messing with your FireWire controller. FireWire is also a networking program. Even though you aren't hooked to the net, is there any program that might try to access FireWire? Do you have a MB FireWire or PCI card? The filesize with 30 minutes of DV would be about 6.5GB, but nothing special about that number.

I haven't defragged, unplugged, disabled or changed anything on my HTPC computer or my laptop and I have no problem with a DV transfer dropping any frames using a ADVC-100 on either one with a one or two hour transfer. With a 6 hour transfer to my HTPC, I have seen a few dropped frames, but that's with a VCR tape. I use WinDV for the transfer, but the transfer program used doesn't seem to matter.

About the only thing I can suggest is to run Task Manager while you hit the 30 minute mark and monitor CPU and memory, along with processes running. If you can get the problem to repeat with a video source like a set of color bars from the ADVC, then you may be able to pin it down a little better.

[Stanley99]

First of all thanks for so many replies. I should have included more details but writers block sets in with frustration. The drive the video is captured to is not the system drive and I start the capture with no other files on it for testing. The capture hardware is a Pinnacle Systems PCI 700, internal PCI card and a Canopus ADVC-100 Firewire device. The problem is present with either capture device. With both devices I am using the S Video inputs and the source does not seem to matter. It can be a VHS tape, satellite receive or camcorder, same thing with all. I’m not using windows defender nor have I heard of it. I don’t think spyware is the problem because I don’t surf the web with this computer, it is souly used for video work. I did scan it with Ewido and it turned up nothing. Some other things I forgot to mention is that the Windows XP has only SP1.
When capturing video CPU usage hovers around 50% and memory page file usage is 180mb. I did notice when the problem is present the CPU usage jumps to 100% and in the task manager System Idle Process jumps to 98%. No other Processes show CPU usage except the VirtualDub.
Ok, with all that said, I was able to stop the dropped frames and get clean captures more than 1 hour long. Using the power of msconfig, I was able to eliminate a group of services that contain the one causing my problem. In msconfig, under the Services Tab these are the services unchecked and turn off.

Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Messenger
Net Meeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Remote Desktop Help Session Manage
Smart Card
Task Scheduler
Secondary Logon
Internet Connection Firewall(ICF)
Telephony
Portable Media Serial Number Service
Automatic Update

All are Microsoft Services

One or more of these services is interrupting my system and causing my capture to drop 530 to 560 frames in one shot. I agree that some of these services like Smart Card or Telephony I will never use and should be left turned off. It would be nice to know witch one is causing the problem. Any thoughts.

[INFRATOM]

my guess would be 1- Fast user switching if more than one people login 2- Task schedule could be running or starting a service. 3- Auto update could be looking for internet connection. 4- messenger could be looking for internet & update. 5-Error reporting.. somthing causing error and wants to report or trigger Dr Watson
Even though you are not connected to internet don't rule out spyware many programs have spyware but they call it auto update before contacting their website they check your profile whats installed etc some examples are AOL, acrobat reader, divx .. anti-viruses .. also check hard drive space when it tries to page if there is not enough space ( on OS partition) will slow your computer down. Firewire is considered a network connection and firewall may effect it, by the way you said you have sp1 and sp2 has firewall so look into that too.

[Stanley99]

Again thanks for the reply,
I agree than I my have something trying to poke its way to the internet causing a brief system interruption. I never switch users and the system boots to the same user every time. I think I had Messenger disabled from day one because I did not intend to use this machine for much web activity. I have been turning these on in groups of three to test them for my problem. The bad thing is than I need to capture a video for about one hour to be sure all is ok. Very Time consuming.

[toonfan]

Are you able to perform a capture after rebooting in safe mode? That should minimize the number of additional processes running.

[Stanley99]

Now that is something I did not think of. However with just a hand full of services left to test, I would like to find the Microsoft service that needs to be canned. This way we will all know that this service can interrupt a system and cause a chuck of dropped frames. It is quite a battle but I’m starting to see the end. My biggest fear is that everything gets turned back on and the problem disappears. That would stink.