Dropped frames Capturing to RAID-0 setup ... HELP!!!

[buddha 2oo3]

Hey all,

Currently, I am capturing with an ATI TV-Wonder PCI (via S-Video through the breakout box).

I'm using VirtualdubVCR with the sync settings (so even when frames drop, it adjusts the audio sampling rate so I don't lose audio / video sync).

It works quite well, but I notice that after capturing an hour's worth of video I lose about 300 frames on average. (not overly noticeable during playback), but it's quite tiresome to deal with.

See my profile for my system specs

Currently just to note, I'm capturing with 2 7200 RPM 80 GB Western Digitals (ATA-100 set to Raid-0 striping. This IS my boot drive, but my page file resides on a seperate 80 GB Maxtor (ATA-133). I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that it's my boot drive (these drives are extremely fast).

I've tried disabling my network altogether (all firewire ports, LAN), and have had no success .. perhaps some BIOS settings I'm missing (i'm open to suggestions).

My video card is an older ASUS V7100 AGP 4x Geforce 2 MX440 (32 MB RAM) ... i'm not a gamer so this card does the job for me.

I'm also using the BTWinCap drivers if this helps at all. And before anyone suggests it, defragging makes NO DIFFERENCE ON A RAID

Any help from anyone would be appreciated.

Thanks

[awhitney]

Make sure that you defrag your hard drives, that could help a lot. and also don;t have any programs running in the background

[phelix]

I'm also using the BTWinCap drivers if this helps at all. And before anyone suggests it, defragging makes NO DIFFERENCE ON A RAID

Yes, you're right. When it comes to defragging, there is no difference between a RAID-0 array and a single drive. Both suffer the same latency problems when accessing a file that scattered all over the drive(s). This means that if defragging helps for single drives, it can also help for RAID-0 arrays. 8)

Now for something constructive. In VirtualDub, you can go to the menu item Capture -> Disk I/O and play with the settings. In my case, the optimimum settings were rather low: 2MB chunks, 4 chinks in buffer. WIth this , I get under 20 frames per hour dropped. It made much more of a difference than I expected.

[buddha 2oo3]

A couple of things to note:

I tried the Disk I/O settings in Virtual Dub and it made a HUGE difference (i went from losing about 100 frames in the 1st 20 mins of capture to about 35).

I noticed that around 17 minutes in I went from 2 frames dropped to 18, and it kept going up consistently ... any ideas about that? Or is it possible that's it's also Disk I/O settings? (I changed my settings to a 4 MB chunk size and 2 chunks in buffer) ... should i disable windows write buffering (there's an option for that)

[The village idiot]

It might have to do with the page file location and temp file location. You might try moving those to the raid drives too. And if the raid drives are fragmented enough, it will slow them down. It just takes a much more fragmented drive to start to slow. And onboard raid like the ones on most boards is software driven. You could get the same from making an NTFS stripe set on an ordinary ATA100/133 controller (across the 2 controllers). Read a review of that topic some time ago at (I think) Tom's hardware. Their conclusion was that most of the new ATA100/133 drives did nearly as well as the onboard raid systems when CPU overhead was figured in. Hardware raid controllers were not much better, but did not use nearly the CPU resources. The real speed comes when you get into raid5 or higher.

[RoopeT]

First of all, what are you capturing? With some VHS sources dropping frames is really unavoidable, but you shouldn't drop frames when capturing TV broadcast with your system (well, I don't).

Are you sure dropping frames is related to your HD configuration? HD speed is really not that big an issue nowadays, I can capture huffuv even onto my 5400 rpm Samsung Spinpoint without problems. I suspect it could have something to do with your Audigy. Have you tried disabling it and using onboard sound chip instead? Also, have you tried disabling preview during capture?

[buddha 2oo3]

OK ..

I am capping satellite (via S-Video Cable)@ 720 x 480 using MJPEG at a quality setting of 90.

Also, I'm using 2 80 GB hard drives (running at 7200 RPM) on a RAID-0 config ... I highly doubt that this setup (being a gig of RAM and an Athlon 2100XP) is my reason for these issues (hence the post).

My question to you is, why would you suspect the audigy being a problem? It's on its own IRQ, and has not given me any other issues. I even set my raid on its own IRQ.

Using my onboard chip will give serious distortion and I have bad latency issues using my onboard sound. I rather not resort to it. I've managed to lower my frame drops by about 80% by adjusting my disk i/o, so i'm sure it's disk access now. I guess I'll have to play with it. I just think it's odd that the defaults weren't correct. You live, you learn.

Any other suggestions? Bios changes i should look at?

[SaSi]

VirtualDUB is the most "lightweight" capture s/w I've tried, and with your system you should not be getting dropped frames. I have also discovered that apart from a fast CPU and fast HD space, the next most important element is the video codec. The codec burdens the CPU to encode the video. VirtualDUB has the feature to show you CPU utilization during the capture in real time. If you notice the CPU utilization vary well into the 90% + then it is possible that it may become congensted at times and cause the lost frames.

I have tried several codecs for capture and followed DJRumpy's advice to try hufyuv. It's free and it's fast and it can be lossless. I use it in the "best" settings, which means it is a bit lossy, but nowere like MJPEG or DivX. Also, it's one of the fastest codecs to encode. My P4/2.67 is capturing full frame PAL video at an average of 30~40% utilization of the CPU and I never get dropped frames except when the video itself get's de-synchronized, i.e. when either the VCR or the camcorder starts or stops recording.

On the other hand, the fact that you modified the I/O settings in VirtualDUB decreased dropped frames by that much, means that your Disk subsystem may not be as fast as you think. A stripped pair of disks is not neccecarily fast. I have seen that my highpoint 370 RAID chip using two 200GB 7200rpm WD drives is slower in striped pairs than it is in single drive mode.

[darkstar127]

I am using Canopus ADVC-100 for my captures. I get ZERO dropped frames with this. Its a little pricey but well worth the money to avoid all the headaches you experience. The only time I do get dropped frames is VCR material that is shaky to begin with.

I also use a RAID setup (0+1) for my captures and it works flawless. All my captures from cable box have been very high quality and no frame loss.

If you are getting dropped frames from ATI, try updating their drivers first. Next I would change the capture program to something like WinDV, DVIO or something really basic and see if you get dropped frames. I personally use Vegas Video for my captures.

[buddha 2oo3]

Ironically enough, I still get a lot of dropped frames. After changed the I/O settings, I am still seeing a lot of dropped frames (and i forgot to mention earlier that my CPU utilization was always between 25% - 35% before I adjusted the disk I/O settings, now I'm between 32% - 41%)

I disabled a MAJORITY of services that I don't need, My next step is to attempt capturing on my ATA-133 drive (which is set to Primary Master and is not part of the RAID) ... wish me luck

If it works ok on that drive, then I may have to swap out and boot off the ATA-133 drive and capture to the RAID which will be my "additional" space. I liked having the RAID as a boot drive, it flies otherwise.

Any suggestions? Is doing this a waste of my time? I'm figuring that it should have worked with my current setup, it's not like I'm trying to do 720x480 NTSC on a PII or anything ... this setup SHOULD work.

[buddha 2oo3]

Curious about something else too ... what's better to use... BtWinCap drivers ... or MMC (using an ATI card) ... right now I'm using BTWinCap ... I know MMC 8.x is out ... Last one I used was 7.6

(never tried MMC w/ Virtualdub mind you) ... any thoughts (perhaps there's my problem?)

Thanks for all the help so far btw.

[SeeingMole]

Have you thought of perhaps trying another capture program?

I've been using Virtual VCR and it works like a charm for me. I capture from TV and I can schedule it to capture automatically.

I've captured with huffyuv upto 5-6 hours on one single huge file with less than 10 dropped frames.

No RAID or anything fancy involved.

You can have a look at it here:

http://www.digtv.ws/

[Will Hay]

Try this:

Disable the RAID array and capture to each drive independantly.
I did this and found I had massive frame loss on one of my 80gb drives but not the other.
I now use one for storage and one for video capture - formatted before each capture, with no frame loss.
You'll notice our systems are not that disimilar so it may be simply a faulty drive.
Will

[RoopeT]

My question to you is, why would you suspect the audigy being a problem? It's on its own IRQ, and has not given me any other issues. I even set my raid on its own IRQ.

Older Creative cards are well known to cause sync problems that can lead to dropped frames. I've seen some posts on this on Doom9 capture forum. I've no idea if your Audigy could be causing your problems, just thought it might be one more thing to test.

MJPG @ quality 90? Is it Morgan MJPEG? This particular codec requires a pretty fast CPU (allthough that shouldn't be your problem if your CPU utilization is so low)

[buddha 2oo3]

From what I've read around ... apparently AudioHQ caused a HUGE problem (besides being a video junky, I'm also produce music and DJ so I kinda need it) ... I'm going to try uninstalling it, just to see what happens during caps

Anybody remember the DOS days of multiple configs?? I honestly wish I could apply this here with Audio HQ (if I make seperate profiles, Audio HQ will run no matter what) ...

argggh ... let's see what the diff is with this disabled.

I'm going to run HD Tach (Read/Write) benchmarking on all 3 of these drives at a friend's house (as I'm booting off both drives in my RAID, doing this on this machine would be pointless as I'd have to format). Perhaps one of my RAID drives is faulty. I'll know it in the results.

Anyhow, keep the suggestions pouring in ... i'm really confused now.

[kkrull]

Anyone use ScenalyzerLive for capture?

Why wouldn't this program, or any other, that knows you have dropped frames, simply stop, rewind and re-transfer the section that was lost?

[txpharoah]

I have a feeling that some of this may apply to your dropped frames:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=157660

[buddha 2oo3]

Thanks for referring me to the sticky.

Unfortunately, I have viewed that sticky about 90 times before I posted this lol

Still no luck, I had both of my RAID drives benchmarked and they're fine. I also attempted to capture to my other ATA-133 drive (on different controller cards, my RAID controller, my original E-IDE controller), and no luck. I'm still dropping frames like a mad-man.

I even defragged it and it made absolutely no difference. I'm seriously stumped as to what is going on. I updated my drivers, I disabled my Audigy and used my on-board sound and no luck. I removed every PCI adapter except the TV Wonder, and I disabled my network card. No such luck either way.

I'm impressed that Windows has sustained the torture I've put it through in the last week If anyone else has any ideas, better programs I should use (currently using VirtualDub VCR and huffy) I would appreciate it. I took advice from a post I got in this topic to use huffy, and it's a lot better quality wise (mind you it's a severe space hog), but it's better than Uncompressed RGB

Thanks again for the posts guys, keep em comin'!

[vhelp]

Hi buddha.2003..

Truth..
You can't believe EVERYTHING that any one person says 100% (including anything
I may have ta say) Unless they have proof or can demonstrate exact steps which
lead to YOUR success, you're gonna have issue w/ who's right or wrong or
what-have-ya
What I'm talking about here is DROPPED FRAMES. You hear that ZERO-DROPPED
frame all over. I can safely say, that w/ my ADVC-100, I have ZERO drops, but
w/ my Analog capture cards, that another story. On my 1st pc here, I drop frames,
but on my 2nd, if I follow a few simple steps, I will usually have ZERO drops.

The bottom line..
..is this, are they saying.. "they drop ZERO frames ?? or are they saying that
they drop a handful (hardly noticable in an hours capture, or a few dropped
frames is no harm) ??"
This is something you have to take w/ a grain of salt.

* re-start windows for every SERIOUS capture project
...(ok if you start once, and do multiple capturings, but note when you sys
...starts acting (dropping) 1 or more frames)

The above is assuming that you have worked out your dropped frames issues, and
have ZERO dropped frames.

I'm in th emiddle of futsing around some more w/ my 1st pc and dropped frames.
Like you, I also use my ATI-TV Wonder pci card cause I feel it's got great
quality captures. ...And, if does. But, I drop frames. Sometimes, I drop
only a "handful", and other, mostly "lots". So, like you, I"m doing more
testing/debuggin in this area.

Like noise, I have a theory that after all issues, steps, processes, ideas,
and any and all helpf tips and advice from this (and other) FORUM has ben tried
and untrue, it boils down to your Motherboard and Capture card. Period!!
That means, everything else that fits into a given setup ie,
* capture card
* capture card chipsets (cards tend to chanch these year to year)
* sound card
* harddrives
* harddrive i/o cards
* OS version
* Service packs ie, XP sp1/sp2 etc.
* system resources
* TSR
* graphics card drivers, and
* capture card drivers
* versions all any and all drivers (above)
* chipset
* unit you are capturing from ie, VCR, LD, DVD, Cable, Satellite
* source you are capturing from ie, VHS age, quality etc.
* source condition
* I hope I didn't leave out any thing else important here..
* background running apps, and those that HIDE from ctrl_alt_del window !!
...this you'll never know, and could be the whole cause of dropped frames.
...only way to know for sure, is to do clean install of windows. Hope it's
...Windows 98, cause you don't know what BillGates is sneaking into W2k/XP !!
...w/ windows 98, it's small and compact, and Mr. Gates didn't use those
...hidden hooks as those in W2K/XP OS's. If you are using these two, then you'll
...probably never know. But, if you have access to w98, I'd give it a try
...and see for (yourself) if you get ZERO drops. IMO, w98 is all you'll
...need for Analog capturing w/ the use of segmented .AVI's ie, AVI_IO
...or vdub, and don't worry about the 4gig limit in FAT32.

Now, you may have other issues that, between your going in a futtzing
around for days or even weeks with, that you've congested your OS and
sofware drivers etc. to the point that no matter what you do from that
(or this) point on, you'll never find the solutions.

Another thing I'd like to mention. A long time ago, I used to have those
SB Live cards (all variations) the bottom line is, and as I've mentioned
here many times over, that these cards STEAL system recourse and cpu
cycles and so on and so forth. These cards will commit havic in your
capturing endeavors. (see getting 2nd pc below)
If you can, buy a cheap $19 card at compUSA and YANK out your current
Audigy (which is an SB live) and and try this card out for testing.
See where your dropped frame are from here. IF you notice much lesser,
than you know you are closer to your resolution. I know that you said
that you do DJ stuff. But, consider below then - - for sure !!

One thing that puzzles me, and on my 1st pc, I have 2 harddrives and they:
* 2 Harddrives ...... Primary and Secondary (first ID0 channel)
* CDRW and DVDROM ... Primary and Secondary (first ID1 channel)
.. .. .. .. .. .. FIG A .. .. .. .. .. ..

I capture to Drive D, and as you would guess, I should have ZERO drops
in my captures. But, no. I have tons. Don't worry, it's tuned as best
as I can get it.

However, on my 2nd pc setup I have One harddrive partitioned to 3 drives:
* 1 Harddrive ....... Primary (first ID0 channel) partit. to C: D: E:
* CDRW .............. Primary (first ID1 channel)
.. .. .. .. .. .. FIG B .. .. .. .. .. ..

One would figure that I have Dropped frame in FIG B, ..but, I have ZERO drops!
So, go figure!! Well, until I start w/ VHS capturing. Thats another story.

The bottom line I would recommend is this..
Get a 2nd pc just for capturing Period! I did. I didn't have the monies
for it iether. But, I got tired of dealing w/ too many activities, that
ONE single pc still just isn't capable of jugling w/out ONE single issue.
So, I got a 2nd pc, just for capturing and I have virtually ZERO dropped
frame when I use Analog captureing ie, DC10+ and Osprey-210 cards.
Every so often, I have to "re-fresh" my 2nd pc. I have Ghost image of
my setup, and I re-image it when things just seem to act funny and I start
to notice dropped frames. It's easier popping in an Imaged CDR of a clean
install of my capturing setup, than to have to resort to pain-staking
debugging all my issues when the first dropped frame occurs. Mind you,
I still play this game from time to time, but that's because I have the
time, and I like pulling my hair out hehe.. But, when I've had enough, I
pop in my CDR disk.. and vualla. It's back in business.

I would suggest getting a second pc. You don't have to buy a hungrey
helper. Just bare bones and build it yourself, and share your monitor
and keyboard w/ a donggy. ..forget the name of this device.

Else, I would throw in the towel and get an ADVC-100 and be done with it.
And, even if you do get this device, I would still go w/ the 2nd pc unit
because it will come in handy when you need to have 1st pc up doing things
but also want to capture things too. I do this daily !! You can't really
do this even w/ the ADVC-100 perfectly, when you are surfing and have so
many browsers opened as in my case, and clicking here, launching an app
there and so on and so forth.

Look, you'll most likely and problably NEVER find your ZERO drops in your
current system. So, bare what I've written above in mind.
.
.
-----------------------------------------------
What I would recommend..

Is that you start from stratch. Briefly..:

IMPORTANT for BIOS..
* turn off LAN support (sel DESABLE)
* turn off USB support (sel DESABLE)
* if AGP, turn off (set PCI vga to IRQ) (not needed)
...else if PCI graphics card, leave on, and turn off AGP instead
* turn off everything else related to on-board PCI gizmos ie,
...sound, lan, modem, etc, that you don't need.
..JUST KEEP EVERYTHING OFF HERE..

THEN..

* uninstall your capture card drivers
* uninstall your graphics card drivers
* uninstall your sound drivers,
* uninstall ANY LAN and USB support (turn off in dev mgr)
* kill everyting in sight in device mgr for sound, vga/agp, lan, usb
Note, what we're doing here is clearing all IRQ's from system,
cause when you re-install your OS, it'll remember those setting and..
yes, you got it, will re-use same settings again, and you will have
waisted your efferts in vain.

THEN..

* Restart your OS, and let it go through the motions of trying to
...intall drivers and things.
* BUT, DON'T LET IT. Just click on cancel every time.
Note, what we are doing here, is making sure that your OS is once
and for all, clearing any IRQ settings and what-nots.
* then, make sure your OS boots up to Standard VGA w/ success.
* then, close down your OS.

NOW..

* uninstall your OS

OK, NOW..

* reinstall your OS (but if you have w98, even better)
* reinstall your sound drivers (minimally - don't get fancy here)

* remember to set you video mode to Standard VGA only!!
* change your graphics mode to Standard VGA (if not done already)
...wait until you've successfully installed Standard graphics first.
* set your colors to 32bit colors, and 1024 x 768 res.

* reBoot into your OS, and make sure it works very well (no SW apps
...just yet)

* Close down OS
* Reboot your OS
* reinstall your capture card now.
* close down OS

* Reboot your OS
* open vdub or avi_io and hope that it correctly senses at least one
...capture driver and displays some video (success)

The reason why we're going through all this nonense is because you
have poisoned your setup through the constant un/reinstall of all
kinds of drivers and things. it's become too combusted and sluggish.
Now, in the above, this is assuming that you refuse to install your
OS in a different directory. This is why we go through all the anal
steps and processes, because all the settings are still stored, and
you HAVE to clear them w/ these steps.

Now, once you've gotten your frame drops to minimum or ZERO, HEED
the warning.. GHOST your setup as it is now, to a CDR disk, cause
you wont be able to get it back properly once you've reinstalled
your other itmes.. ie, lan, usb, firewire, internet, drivers, codecs
and so on and so forth. If anything happens, you just pop in your
CDR and reimage your setup, and start again, ..debugging your steps.
-----------------------------------------------
.
.

I hope you achieave some success, but good luck anyways.
-vhelp