capturing via ulead video studio 7

[woodyg]

My first post, and my first attempt at capturing/converting/and burning. I think I have a good understanding of how to do this (through much reading), however, I must just have some wrong settings. Any help, or nudges in the right direction, would be greatly appreciated.

First, what am I using?

Sony Vaio with 1.7 ghz/256 ram/80 gb hard drive with 2 partitions 20gb fat32 with os, etc., second ntfs with 60 gb for files. ADS pyro A/V link with Ulead Video Studio 7 (that came with capture unit)

What am I doing?

I am attempting to capture from my DTIVO. I am hooking up the DTIVO to the pyro via s-video, and rca audio. I am opening video studio and selecting capture. I choose DVD and use the setting suggested. I coose play on the vidoe screen, then begin capture. The unit will capture for a few minutes, then say I am out of drive space. When looking I see that the software says that I have 35,000 kb of space available, ad x minutes of time left for capture (x being different depending on the setting I use).

I obvioulsy have an incorrect setting somewhere. Maybe it is in my hard drive? I know that it is recommended that I have a stand alone drive, however, I wanted to learn a little about how to do this, and what I will ultimately need before I advance. I installed the video studeo on the ntfs partition to eleviate the 4 gb window. I am just a little frustrated since I cannot even seem to simply capture. I haven't even gotten to the burning stages.

I do not need spoon feeding, and am happy to read, but a nudge in the right direction would be great.

Also, what setting would you recommend for the best quality I could ultimately burn to a single layer DVD from the DTIVO signal?

Thanks,

Woodyg

[winifreid]

I am not sure it helps to install the program to a NTFS partition. You can always direct Ulead to save the video to that partition in options. Also, you have to select "Force to use Preview Mode" under Capture Options. I woud install the program with the OS partition (but I am not sure that it will make a difference). There are setting in Ulead that will tell you what quality settings to use to fit on the DVD with the time capture.

[thecoalman]

You sure your selecting the correct drive to capture to? Where VS8 is installed makes no difference but you have to select which drive you capture to or partition in your case.

[woodyg]

winifreid,

Thanks for the reply! Went to capture settings, and "force to use preview mode" was there, but not available to use. The only setting that I am able to change is "capture to library". Is there something else I need to set first to make that option available?

Thanks,

Woody

OR, do I need an upgraded version of the software?

[woodyg]

thecoalman,

I am setting the capture folder to D:\Documents and Settings\My Documents. "D" being my second partion that is NTSF.

Thanks,

Woodyg

[winifreid]

I don't know why it would not be available. Perhaps it is just for Win 98 (which is what I have). But you may not need to use it if switching the drive fixes the problem. By the way, I use Winfast PVR to capture because the schedule part is eassier and their are more options. But Ulead does fine if you prefer it.

[thecoalman]

If it's not the OS drive then it should be empty unless you created that folder or VS* created it............ Also I see that you stated that you have 35,000 kb of space available. That's only 35 MB which amounts to about 6 seconds of 720x480 AVI using a DV codec (approx if my calculations are correct) , Even if it's 35,000 mb that's still only 35 gigs. what does windows report your drive D as having in My Computer.

[junkmalle]

FAT32 does not support files over 4GB. <edit> Oops, sorry -- I see you have NTFS on the second drive!</edit>

[woodyg]

Well, I thought that I had resized my harddrive partitions, but fo rsome reason they did not take. I think this is why I was getting a bad storage reading. All seems to be fine there now. Thanks for the help.

Now, on with the newbie troubles. I have now attempted a capture that lasted approximately 10 minutes (of an hour show) then an error came up that said the buffer was full and to reduce my resolution. Also, when I played back the video I had captured (in video studeo) the screen was black, and I only had sound. Now, my goal is to burn shows/movies to dvd, so how far can I reduce the capture resolution, and still retain a good picture? Or, do I just need more power? I can easily upgrade the ram to 512, get a dedicated hard drive, or even upgrade the processor. However, as I said ealier, I hate to throw money at something that has another solution.

Thanks for any help,

Woodyg

[thecoalman]

I'd definitley get more ram, a normal installation of windows will eat up over 200 megs alone. You can never have enough ram (within reason). You'll see an increase in performance overall..... Drive wouldn't hurt either.....

As for the resolution I always cap in full 740x480 but some will argue this is not neccesary and their probably right. VHS isn't that high. Try dropping it down to you where can capture, it probably won't affect the final product. here's a good sight, see the understanding your source section. www.digitalfaq.com

[junkmalle]

I looked it up and the ADS Pyro A/V Link is a DV capture device. You should be capturing as a DV AVI file at 720x480 (in the US or other NTSC country, or 720x576 if your in a PAL region). This is not much more than a file copy as far as your computer is concerned. The data transfer rates with DV are pretty low so there should be little problem with hard drive speed, CPU speed, etc. That said...

You should not attempt to convert to MPG on-the-fly (ie, while capturing) because your computer may not be fast enough -- especially with the limited amount of RAM and multiple drive partitions. You should not attempt to reduce the frame size while capturing. The data stream coming from the Pyro is always 720x480 (NTSC, or 720x576 PAL); reducing it will only be more work for the computer. You should convert the DV AVI file to MPEG later for use on DVD.

The usual recommendation to have seperate drives for O/S and capture means two seperate drives, not two partitions on one drive. In fact two partitions on a single can be worse than a single partition because it insures that the O/S and video data are farther apart, thus incuring more seek time when the O/S needs to do some housekeeping.

Another problem often related to hard drives is the I/O protocol used. Use Device Manager to make sure it is using DMA, not PIO. PIO is slow and CPU intensive. DMA is faster and hardly uses any CPU time. This is the first thing you should check because it's easy and free!

256 MB of DRAM may also be an issue as that's just barely enough to run Windows XP comfortably. 512 MB will be much better for video work.

[woodyg]

Thanks for the good advise, it's just what I was hoping for!!

I am going for 256 more ram to bring me up to 512, with a second hard drive. Hopefully I can then capture in mpg real time. If not then I will capture in AV and convert.

One last question, what are the minimum processes in WinXP Home that must be running to capture? In other words, not what should be turned off, but what must be left on?

Thanks,

Woodyg