Capture Artifacts - Hardware or Software?

[jday]

I'm posting this in the General Discussions forum because I'm not sure whether this is a software or hardware issue. I recently built a video editing computer specifically for Adobe PremierePro CS5 (i7 930, 12GB DDR3 RAM, nVidia GTX285, 10000rpm program/boot drive, 1 TB RAID 0 capture drive, etc). I'm running Windows 7 64-bit. I've basically met or exceeded all CS5 requirements.

The problem is that when I capture DV (not even HDV) from my Sony HDR-HC7 I get a frame or two of artifacts about every 50-60 seconds and maybe 1 dropped frame per minute. I know that is not a lot of artifacts/dropped frames but there shouldn't be any. I can rule out a few things as the cause because I have PremierePro CS4 on my 32-bit Windows XP laptop and can capture the footage without any dropped frames/artifacts. That rules out a problem with the camera, the firewire cable, the mini-DV tape, etc). Also, on my problem machine I've tried different mini-DV tapes and the issue occurs on all of them. If I capture the same segment numerous time, I will get the artifacts/dropped frames but NOT in exactly the same spot.

I think I can also rule out a software issue with PremierePro CS5 because I also tried to capture using other capture software and I still have the problem. All this leads me to believe this is a , most likely, a hardware problem. I know there have been some issues with 64-bit Windows 7 and firewire drivers. I have tried both the installed and legacy drivers and there is no difference in the issue. I have also tried both the firewire port on the front of my case and an add-on firewire card and, again, the problem is there in all cases. I have used memtest to test my RAM and it all tests good (0 errors). I really don't know where to look next.

A (not so convenient) work-around is to capture the video on my laptop and then transfer it to my editing computer to work on it in PremierePro CS5. I would sure appreciate any help in solving this problem. Thank you.

[lordsmurf]

RAID 0 is probably the problem. Drives in that array type are prone to have heavy fragmentation issues. Fragmentation leads to dropped frames and file corruption. I've seen more RAID 0 arrays fail that not. You didn't need RAID 0.

You should also capture with low-overhead software (WinDV) and not Premiere.

[jday]

Thanks for the reply. Since I had never set up a raid array before I actually thought it could have something to do with it. Well, I unconfigured the array and reformated the two drives separately. However, I'm still experiencing the same artifacting problem with the captures. It really is strange since the artifacts only appear for a frame or two every minute which means only 1 frame out of approximately 1800. I'm actually thinking that if I still want to use my new machine for capturing (instead of my laptop with CS4) I can simply delete the single frames with artifacts. I doubt one frame every minute will be noticeable. This shouldn't be too big of an issue since most of my video clips are fairly short. For longer ones, I will use my laptop. However, I would still like to narrow down the cause of this if anyone has any other ideas.

[edDV]

Thanks for the reply. Since I had never set up a raid array before I actually thought it could have something to do with it. Well, I unconfigured the array and reformated the two drives separately. However, I'm still experiencing the same artifacting problem with the captures. It really is strange since the artifacts only appear for a frame or two every minute which means only 1 frame out of approximately 1800. I'm actually thinking that if I still want to use my new machine for capturing (instead of my laptop with CS4) I can simply delete the single frames with artifacts. I doubt one frame every minute will be noticeable. This shouldn't be too big of an issue since most of my video clips are fairly short. For longer ones, I will use my laptop. However, I would still like to narrow down the cause of this if anyone has any other ideas.

DV format "capture" is an IEEE-1394 stream to file operation. Byte rate is a small 3.5MB/s (~28Mb/s). This would be well within even the slowest laptop hard drive sustained rate (~18MB/s). So something else is happening. Your disk system isn't stressed.

First eliminate the camcorder as an issue by capturing to a different computer.

Use WinDV to separate Premiere Pro issues. WinDV is just a GUI over DirectShow.

Avoid capture to RAID for now because RAID controllers have a separate set of issues.

This shouldn't be happening. I've never seen it. 64bit driver issues are suspect. Did you buy this machine with 64bit Win7 installed or did you build it? Could be a mother board driver issue.

[jday]

edDV, thanks for the reply. I know my initial post was long, but I addressed several of your points (all good ones) and had already ruled them out. The capture works fine on two other computers so it rules out the camera, cable, and tape as he problem. I have also used different capture software on the problem computer with the same result so that should rule out PremierePro as the problem.

Then based on other advice above, I disabled my RAID and tried capturing to a single drive and it didn't help. So, it can still be a 64-bit driver issue since the other two computers I tested the capture on were both 32-bit machines/software. As far as my editing computer, I recently built it myself for the main purpose of using CS5. Like you, I haven't seen this before and have checked all the things I could think of checking. Even though I've tried two different IEEE-1394 options (built in the front of the case and attached to the motherboard AND an add-on card in a slot), I still think this might be an IEEE-1394 issue since that is what is transferring the video to the computer. I have tried the newest IEEE-1394 drivers as well as the "legacy" driver based on recommendation from another forum and that didn't help either. I included a picture below to show exactly what the problem is and the fact that it isn't "major" but also not good.

[edDV]

I'm out of ideas. I was going to suggest a different IEEE-1394 card.

A glitch like that is probably due to a buffer overflow. As if the IEEE-1394 card isn't getting priority. Normally a desktop computer will have PCI bus mastering that isolates the IEEE-1394 to memory to SATA disk controller process from the OS background operations. Check in the CMOS setup that Bus Mastering is turned on.

Also you could try turning off disk indexing on the capture drive.

[TimA-C]

If you bring up the Task Manager (or equivalent) while capturing, do you see any processes grab the cpu at the same frequency that you have the glitches appear on your captured video?

Have you got any CPU power-saving features turned on in your BIOS?

Are your Hard drive controller drivers from the motherboard manufacturer, the chipset manufacturer or Microsoft's update service? Personally I'd go with the chipset maker's drivers but I'm sure others will have their own opinions.

[jday]

I've been away from my computer for a couple days but was able today to try some of the above suggestions. I opened up Task Manager to observe the processes during capture. Under the CPU column of the Processes page all processes other than "premierepro.exe" remained at "0" throughout the capture process. As far a "premierepro.exe" the CPU value varied between 1 - 3 throughout the entire capture and didn't really change when the artifacting occured.

I also turned off disk indexing on my hard drives as suggested above.

Here is another small piece of information which might or might not be relevant. I just realized that the same thing (artifacting) occurs when I'm set up to capture but only previewing the video (i.e., I have NOT clicked on "capture" yet). So, simply previewing the video from the camera in PremierePro or any of my other capture software has the same problem.

[edDV]

That would be expected. Something is glitching the IEEE-1394 DV stream buffer.

Did you check the CMOS setup for PCI Bus Mastering enabled?

[Nelson37]

Did you try the SAME CARD both in this PC and the others, which work correctly? Does one of the good Pcs have a seperate card you can transfer to the Win7 PC? It is possible BOTH the built-in and seperate card are defective.

Does the onboard Firewire and the add-on card both use the same chipset?

At this point, I would try to locate alternate drivers for the Firewire ports and/or cards, Many companies re-brand the same card and some have better drivers than others. It may just be a wait for the proper update.

You could also try an Adaptec or similar higher-end card.

[jday]

That would be expected. Something is glitching the IEEE-1394 DV stream buffer.

Did you check the CMOS setup for PCI Bus Mastering enabled?

I did check the CMOS setup but couldn't actually find anything that said "PCI Bus Mastering". I know the CMOS is different for different setups but do you know if it could be called something else and where in the CMOS setup I would be looking for it? Thanks again.