Dropped Frames

[dano404]

In a 14 second clip I lost 176 frames using WinDV. I've tried other software to no avail. My CPU usage is staying below 8%. My computer isn't top of the line (anymore) but seems like it should be good enough. I've got an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor @ 2.0GHz, 1GB RAM, and a Radeon 9800 Pro w/ 256MB memory. I've captured in the past without any issues but I've reformatted since then and wonder if something is screwy.

Are there any common causes or quick fixes anyone can suggest? I appreciate any advice.

[Vidd]

One possible cause can be the hard drive.

Make sure it is defragmented before you capture. Make sure no other progam is accessing it, even your anti-virus program. If possible use a secondary internal hard drive other than the one that has your Windows swap file on it.

[edDV]

In a 14 second clip I lost 176 frames using WinDV. I've tried other software to no avail. My CPU usage is staying below 8%. My computer isn't top of the line (anymore) but seems like it should be good enough. I've got an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor @ 2.0GHz, 1GB RAM, and a Radeon 9800 Pro w/ 256MB memory. I've captured in the past without any issues but I've reformatted since then and wonder if something is screwy.

Are there any common causes or quick fixes anyone can suggest? I appreciate any advice.

DV capture problems are always disk system related. The drive may be near full and fragmented or some other process is using the drive forcing dropped frames. The OS always has priority on the main drive.

This is usually avoided by using a second drive for capture so long as the drive isn't being used for copy or access by something else. USB2 drives are especially vulnerable to drops since the disc controller is software running on the CPU. Other processes can interrupt the USB disk controller.