MM7 vs. vdub capture

[mrpoopy]

I just installed generic drivers for my all in wonder ve card. I was hoping that virtual dub would be able to capture video better than MM7, but now MM7 won't record anything right, and virtualdub doesn't seem to record the same way. It drops around 50% of frames. Dropping frames was never an issue with MM7. I was capturing to mpeg1 and it worked fine.

Does the all in wonder ve have a hardware encoder or something? And do I need software that can take advantage of that? Windows Movie Maker and MM7 can both capture with no problem (atleast mm7 used to not have problems) but virtual dub captures huge files and drops frames.

I don't konw a lot about this stuff. Any help would be very much appreciated.

[mdm]

What do you mean you "installed generic drivers", and why?

What compression codec are you using in VDub?

[cradix]

Tell us as many VDub settings as you can. I know when I first started using VDub, it took me a while to figure out where to set what settings and what exactly they all meant (MMC was a piece of cake, however).

Is there a chance you are trying to capture to big of a frame size? More than likely, though, you're trying to capture to uncompressed video (I think this is where MDM was leading with his codec question). Someone recommended Huffyuv to me at one point and I've never looked back!! (2 to 1 compression on files!)

If you're capturing uncompressed, your computer may not be able to keep up with the rate at which it needs to transfer the data to your hard drive! Whereas, if you let some compression take place, your PC can focus more on the actual capturing and less on storing that captured data (translation: less dropped frames).

Finally, make sure you close any programs in memory that like to take up CPU cycles (i.e. automatic e-mail checkers, virus scanners, etc).

Hope this helps. --Matt

[Nelson37]

ATI cards do not have hardware encoders. There ARE some hardware features which assist in speed and resize and some other areas which will not be utilized by other drivers. The benefit is fairly small, but significant.

MPEG encoding is assisted more than AVI, SFAIK, but even AVI w/HUFFY thru MMC loses no frames, Vdub about 10 per hour, with occassional clusters of drops. But the filesize is too large, over 40 gig a movie.

12 Mbit, 720x480 MPG2 I can cap 3 movies, a 1/2 hr show and a football game, and process 1 movie and the show in one weekend. on a 60 GB drive.