How many dropped frames is acceptable? How can I minimize it

[LanEvo7]

I've been capturing for about a month. I use Virtual Dub to capture and I notice everytime I capture, there are always dropped frames. It ranges from 6 to 46 dropped. I use PicVideo's MJpeg codec at 18 quality.

I was wondering how many dropped frames is acceptable? How can I minimize it? I already have DMA enabled on my hard drive.

[Richard_G]

Personally, I work on the principle that 1 dropped frame is 1 too many and recapture. You will sometimes get dropped frames if your source has blank or noisy frames (such as when you shoot something with your camcorder, rewind the tape to check what you've just shot and then start recording again).

I used to use PicVideo codec at quality 19 when I was doing analogue capture and that was fine. Without knowing a bit more about your setup (source, etc) I can't really answer your question.

[LanEvo7]

I am capturing from some VHS tapes I have. The video on the tapes are sometimes taped over an older source. It is somewhat noisy.

[Richard_G]

In that case the noise is probably the cause of your dropped frames and there isn't a lot you can do about it. As long as they aren't too noticable when you play the captures back, you'll have to live with it. Over what period do you get your 6 to 46? If you are only dropping 1 frame every few seconds, you probably won't notice them.

Try capturing something that is good quality in the first place to see if you still drop frames. If you watch the preview while capturing you will probably see the frame drops coincide with any really noisy bits. Ideally you want to be capturing to a separate hard drive to your operating system and applications (I use a 40Gb drive for OS and apps with a separate 120Gb to save the captures to), make sure the capture drive has been recently defragged and have DMA enabled on both drives.

[MrKGB]

I agree that most likely your tape is the culprit.
You can very easily verify this: record some tv show.
If you have dropped frames - it's your system dropping frames, if not- tape is the problem.
Some cards are better capturing poor tapes.
I used to have an old avermedia card and it was making lots of dropped frames, now I use winfast tv2000 and it works well even with really bad tapes.

[LanEvo7]

I can't verify by capturing TV shows. I live in the city and I don't have cable. I've got pretty crappy reception. I think ill try my dvd player.