UPDATE!! virtualdub corrupts my outputted video in Vista -SCREENSHOTS

[BilboFett]

UPDATE!!
Hello.
I am on an AMD 64 6000 running Vista ultimate in 32-bit mode, w/ 4 gigs of ram, nvidia video card, a couple 7200 rpm hdds, etc. I am current and updated on all Windows patches.

No matter what codec I use, whether its divx, lagarith, huffyuv, or even full uncompressed, virtualdub corrupts my outputted video.

By "corrupt" I mean single frames where 1/2 or more of the screen is eaten up by jagged rainbow lines. It flashes randomly throughout the entire video.
I was cutting out the corrupt frames one by one in premiere, but thats ridiculous, I shouldn't have to do that.

I've noted that tmpgenc, premiere, windows media encoder, etc. do not corrupt the video. It is only virtualdub, and it doesn't seem to matter what version. I tried 1.7.6, 1.8, even tried vdubmpeg2.

No capture, its when I am compressing any video. It doesn't matter if the source video is mpeg1, avi (any codec), uncompressed avi, or wmv by way of avisynth. It doesn't matter if I use filters or no filters. It does not go away if I omit filters. Interestingly enough, its only after the file has been written to disk that the rainbow-line corruption enters in, not during the dub preview.
Thanks so much for the help.

Here is a zip file w/ 5 screenshots showing what I am talking about. I included 2 samples of the frames just before and after corruption. The corruption is random, and has no reason or rhyme.

http://download.yousendit.com/F132979B1E939021

(zip file also uploaded to post)

This is very frustrating. Please help!


vdub%20examples.zip

[DarrellS]

Are you using the AMD 64bit build or the 32bit build?

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/virtualdub/VirtualDub-1.8.0-AMD64.zip?download

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/virtualdub/VirtualDub-1.7.8-AMD64.zip?download

[BilboFett]

Are you using the AMD 64bit build or the 32bit build?

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/virtualdub/VirtualDub-1.8.0-AMD64.zip?download

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/virtualdub/VirtualDub-1.7.8-AMD64.zip?download

I'm using the 32bit build, as the 64bit won't run on a 32bit OS. Virtualdub in 64-bit is virtually useless because you can't use any of the filters (all 32bit)

[BilboFett]

Ok now this is getting really weird.
A file I absolutely confirmed was "uncorrupted" ie. missing the jagged rainbow lines, etc. now has them. It seems to come and go.
I noted that when I moved it from one drive to another in a copy, it started to appear. When I moved it back, it stayed.
Yesterday I noted that the lines came and went, meaning, they were there when I was scrubbing back and forth, then later that day they were not there. Right now they are there.
Also interesting, a file I wrote to disk earlier, I absolutely confirmed was uncorrupted.
I am playing it presently, and the lines are there.

Is this a hardware problem? Someone mentioned voltage on my motherboard for ram and the drives. Since it doesn't seem to be codec specific... is it an error streaming the video back and forth from my drives? Do I have a bad IDE cable? Or a bad IDE channel itself on the motherboard? Or wrong voltage for something? Hmmm.
I am a novice at this and have no idea what I'm doing.

I did note that tmpgenc, windows media encoder, and adobe premiere didn't seem to corrupt the files when it writes them to disk. Perhaps virtualdub is singled out because of something in the communication from the disk to the program?

I ran memtest and it passed. I ran seagate diagnostics on my drives, and they passed, but I'm a little suspicious of one of them because often when I run chkdsk it finds many errors.. but again, I am not reading or writing from that specific disk with these video files.
I have 3 hard drives. If one out of the 3 is bad, and the video file in question isn't even on it, would the entire IDE channel stuff run wacky, resulting in something like this?

I don't know how to check my motherboard voltage. Perhaps I am using a power supply that isn't giving enough power to all my drives, video card, etc?

Any thoughts tips or troubleshooting ideas? PLEASE HELP

[Soopafresh]

Ask on the VirtualDub forums.

[redwudz]

I didn't see it anywhere, but did you try to view those files on a different computer or a stand alone player? I've seen similar problems to some of your screen shots from a bad video card.

But the easiest way to check MB voltages is to boot the computer and go to the BIOS screen. Most have a hardware monitor page where voltages and fans speeds are displayed. You get there with most computers by starting the computer and clicking the 'Delete' key about once a second until you see that it will open the BIOS screen. If delete doesn't work, check your first screens and it should tell you which key to use, usually at the bottom of the screen.

Normal MB voltages will be +12DC, +5VDC, and usually +3.3VDC. They should have -12VDC and -5VDC also. Most times the BIOS will tell you if they are out of range. They can vary by .1 to .3VDC sometimes.

[Kayembee]

I didn't see it anywhere, but did you try to view those files on a different computer or a stand alone player? I've seen similar problems to some of your screen shots from a bad video card.

So have I. Recently. From my main computer. Once I'd narrowed the problem down
to the video card I found a free utility called Video Memory Stress Test (Google for it),
and this confirmed bad memory on the graphics card. I replaced the card with an
identical unit, and problem solved.

No way to say for sure if this is your problem, but the test is easy and free, so it's
worth checking.

[BilboFett]

I ran the video memory stress test, and everything passed. Unless I'm mistaken, I had this problem even before I installed my latest video card. Just a thought; if my video card was not seated properly, it would affect more than just files I write to disk in virtualdub.

[BilboFett]

I didn't see it anywhere, but did you try to view those files on a different computer or a stand alone player? I've seen similar problems to some of your screen shots from a bad video card.

But the easiest way to check MB voltages is to boot the computer and go to the BIOS screen. Most have a hardware monitor page where voltages and fans speeds are displayed. You get there with most computers by starting the computer and clicking the 'Delete' key about once a second until you see that it will open the BIOS screen. If delete doesn't work, check your first screens and it should tell you which key to use, usually at the bottom of the screen.

Normal MB voltages will be +12DC, +5VDC, and usually +3.3VDC. They should have -12VDC and -5VDC also. Most times the BIOS will tell you if they are out of range. They can vary by .1 to .3VDC sometimes.

I can't seem to get any voltage info from the BIOS. Its an HP pavilion media center m8200n. Are there any free utils to tell my my voltages?

[redwudz]

Some motherboards don't have a 'Hardware Monitor' page in BIOS. Some programs that might work: Everest, CPU-Z, Speedfan, SiSandra, Motherboard Monitor. CPU-Z is the easiest, but not much voltage info except for CPU and RAM. I doubt that's your problem, though, as wrong voltages would cause all sorts of other problems.

A simple program like the freeware SIW can also tell you a LOT of information about your motherboard and system. http://www.gtopala.com/

[BilboFett]

I don't know if this helps, but:

1) My 1st drive that keeps having chkdsk errors when I run it was *just* replaced with a brand new one. And lo and behold, still getting random errors on the new drive. Most every time I run chkdsk it has to delete tons of orphan files, mark space as previously used as free in the drive bitmap, etc. etc. I just replaced the drive, and am getting the exact same errors on the new drive?
2) My 2nd drive (out of 3 total) is constantly spinning down to sleep. All power management settings are disabled in Vista, including drives. If I try to access the drive it first has to spin up. I've checked this drive for errors, and don't get any. But Seagate tech support was telling me the only reason why the drive would be going to sleep is because it is bad. Sometimes when I first boot up, the BIOS takes *forever* to detect my drives, and when you go into Windows from that, device manager under IDE ATA controllers lists the IDE channel for this 2nd drive as DMA mode 2 (incorrect). However, if you reboot again and if it instantly detects the drives, once you go into Windows and check that IDE channel again, it lists the drive as DMA mode 5 (which is the correct speed listing).
3) One of my drives is constantly caching, because the light is constantly blinking, you hear the noise, it sounds like its defragging.
4) Never seemed to have any trouble with my main SATA Seagate (boot) drive. The other 2 drives are IDE.

Both of these drives house all my data and are the location of my video files in question.

can a bad IDE cable cause this? Is it possible my motherboard has a factory defect and the IDE channel is jacked?

And I just wanted to say in general that ever since I bought this computer, I haven't been that pleased with its performance. Its a dual core Athlon 6000+, (each processor is 3ghz), it has 4 gigs of ram, a fairly fast nvidia video card w/ 1 gig of onboard ram, etc. And I know its subjective, but it seems like my old computer and my parents computer both run seemingly faster than this one, and they're less than 1/2 of the power in the specs.
If something is really wrong with the IDE channel, that would explain its use of caching, ram, reads/writes. etc. It definitely does not feel like I have 4 gigs of ram.

[redwudz]

I would change the IDE cable to the drive(s). That's cheap enough. But you may be right that there is something wrong with the IDE controller. Can you put your problem drive on one of the other controllers temporarily for a test? That along with the cable change may help to isolate the problem. I would also try unplugging one drive and see if that helps. Your problem is sounding more like a MB problem than a video card going bad.

And sort of obvious, and it may have already been mentioned, but make sure those PATA (IDE) drives both have the jumpers set correctly. I try to keep the Master on the end of the cable and the Slave in the middle.

Next, I would check that power supply. Unfortunatelly most times, the best test is to substitute a known good PS. But unplugging all extra drives and cards to reduce the power draw can sometimes tell you the PS is underpowered for your application.

[GideonK]

If it's a hardware problem, why is vdub the only app that exhibits a problem while the other encoding apps appear to be OK?
Since you have experimented with different solutions, try one more:uninstall vdub from the registry and re-run it (In Regedit search for 'freeware' and you'll find a 'virtualdub' entry. delete it)

As far as your other issue

ever since I bought this computer, I haven't been that pleased with its performance.

If this happened to me I'd return PC to the seller so fast his cash register would still be open from the origianl sale.

[BilboFett]

My system was way underpowered. I was using a 300 watt power supply for a system that requires at least 440 watts, from the calculations I did.
I have now installed a 500 watt power supply, Antec, earthwatts, top of the line. As a precaution, I ran chkdsk on all 3 of my drives: 1 Seagate 400 gig 7200 IDE, 1 500 gig IDE, and 1 500 gig SATA, all Seagate.
Guess what... EVERY drive had errors on them. Deleting orphan file... recovering free space in the volume bitmap, etc. etc.
It finally finished, I went into Windows, and was curious... so I ran it again at reboot time.
More errors! WTF.
I have 3 theories:
a) seagate drives are being made like crap now with that 5 year warrranty
b) seagate drives get corrupted in vista if you have the right hardware combination
c) When I originally partitioned out all my drives, using an underpowered power supply, with not enough wattage to support all my devices, every partition was corrupted.
I'm not sure about theory C, but it would at least explain how chkdsk finds errors every single time I run it on a reboot. I find it very hard to believe somehow I got 3 bad hard drives from Seagate, including the brand new replacement drive I just got. Someone else suggested a corrupted motherboard because of blown capacitors for drive controllers, etc.
Btw, since I got the new power supply in, BIOS detects all my drives instantly, and the IDE port always lists DMA mode 5 for the drives as it should now.

[DarrellS]

I've had a problem twice in the past where every time I'd start my PC that Windows would pop up an error saying that one of my drives integrity was in question and that it needed to run scandisk and would start deleting all of my files.

The first time the problem was that the clip that holds the memory down on one of my modules had popped loose.

The second time, I believe it was a cable problem. Either a bad cable or a loose cable. I've had cases where a drive that was working would not show up all of a sudden and I'd tap the cable and they'd work just fine. If you're inside your case a lot it's easy to knock something loose.

Just remembered that in December, I had the same problem with scandisk only deleting the files that I'd made in the last couple of weeks and that a couple weeks later, the motherboard fried with smoke coming from a very small chip below the memory modules.

[BilboFett]

ok how's this for incredibly weird: I knew Vista was doing something!
a) I download fileA from the internet onto partition1 on my 2nd drive. I try to process it in virtualdub, virtualdub gets an error and can't finish the dub. I go back and try to scrub back and forth on the fileA in virtualdub; virtualdub crashes. I repeat the process by downloading FileA onto a different drive and/or partition, just to ensure something didn't corrupt in the download. The same thing happens; Vdub can't finish the dub and crashes when I scrub (nice rhyme?) BTW this file plays fine in WMP and various applications.
B) I create a virtual XP PC (not Vista) on that same partition1 on my 2nd drive. I copy over FileA from my parent-Vista OS onto the XP virtual PC install running within Vista on the same partition and same drive.
c) I load FileA into Virtualdub, and get the same results. A failed dub, and crashing when I scrub the file back and forth.
d) Within XP, (running virtually inside Vista) I download a fresh copy of FileA from the internet. I load that into virtualdub (in XP)... I can scrub easily back and forth. I can process no problem.

WTF!??? What the hell is Vista doing?

Addendum: those same jagged rainbow lines are still coming up, even after installing the new power supply. However, video processed on virtualdub in XP does not have any of those lines in it.

[BilboFett]

ANOTHER UPDATE.
Well, I've pretty much resigned myself to think that its the motherboard, something on the chipset.
I ran chkdsk on the virtual pc and as soon as it rebooted it started deleting orphan files like crazy, writing changes to the volume bitmap, etc.
Now my XP virtual PC is having trouble booting and I think its corrupted.
I bought this brand new HP in October so its 7 months old. I wonder if HP is going to fight me on replacing the motherboard because I changed the ram, hard drives, and video card. They'd better not.
Does this sound like the route I want to go? I'm going to tell them that I've replaced 2 hard drives in it, and every drive keeps getting corrupted no matter what.