Dropping 100s of frames!!! Please help!!!

[Nelson37]

Unless I am missing something, all the data indicates that best cap res for his card is 640, and definitely not less than 368. This indicates to me that he should NOT cap at 352, regardless of source or the amount of data contained therein.

And how many times will we see it stated that "you should never cap VHS at greater than 352"?

I believe the high-res number for my ATI card is 688, which is as I recall the actual captured res when using the "crop" switch in MMC.

Also, if you are capping MPG2 for immediate use, resize and crop is not an option. The only viable horizontal res choices for DVD output are 352, 704, and 720. 352 introduces specific quality degradation, and 704 is not available in my software.

Looking at ALL the data, 720 appears to be my best option.
Looking at ALL the video, 720 appears to be my best option.

MATTEO - I remember when I thought a filtered VCD looked better than my first attempts at higher res. You can do better.

On the frame drops. OK, do some repeated 10 minute caps of the same source segment. Lower the horizontal res in increments of 20, all the way to 352 if necessary. Reboot after each cap, and you may need to erase each file after creation for space and fragmentation considerations. Note the number of drops and the filesize. You should see a gradual reduction in both, together. This would indicate HD throughput is the issue. If you get a dramatic drop at a specific point, perhaps at 640 or maybe 368, this would indicate it is some sort of card/software issue. You could very well have a combination of the two.

This procedure will yield some specific results, most definitely something other than "I tried that and it didn't work." If you cap perfect at 352 and drop massive frames at 360, then it is definitely the card/drivers as the slight increase in data flow should not be a large factor yet. If you start dropping a few at 500 or 600, increasing along with increasing res, this starts pointing at throughput. Go back to the point where you drop just a few and eliminate audio for an additional check. This will slightly reduce filesize independently of resolution.

I do not doubt that some people can cap full D1 Huffy AVI to their OS drive. I do believe that the consensus of experienced users would be that this is not likely to happen for most people.

[racerxnet]

Hey Trevor,

Whats the cap size with a SVHS tape at 5mhz. Would I be better off at the cap size based on your calculations for normal VHS?

[trevlac]

Hey Trevor,

Whats the cap size with a SVHS tape at 5mhz. Would I be better off at the cap size based on your calculations for normal VHS?

Hey Racer,

Capture frame size is a complicated thing. Much depends upon what your card is doing. Also, if you want to hit a standard, there is no reason not to just shoot for that.

Resolution is easy to calculate if you know the bandwidth. It's about 80 TVL per each 1MHz. From resolution you can easily get the framesize for a 4:3 TV by just multiplying by 4/3.

So, 5MHz * 80TVL * 4/3 = 533 pixels is the max resolution in SVHS (if the bandwidth is 5MHz). Of course for PC viewing NTSC would be good to cap at 640x480 and DVD would be 704x480 (depending again on the cropping your card does << another complicated topic >> ).

[darkstar127]

Sacajaweeda: YEP, I defrag all the time, especially before any attempts at capture!

Also, YEP, I have been using huffyuv (sorry, I SHOULD have pointed that out before!!! My apologies!). I haven't tried any other compression methods, however.

And finally, YEP: I capture with uncompressed PCM audio (CD quality)...However I still get 100s of dropped frames when capturing WITHOUT audio!!!??

I appreciate the responses, please keep them coming! In the meantime I will try out VirtualVCR and see if that helps...!? I will definitely post up any new developments!!!

(Just to remind you, my aim is to capture VHS at FULL RESOLUTION (720x576 PAL) and burn to DVD. My system is tweaked to optimum as far as I am aware, and I have virus protection too! Really don't understand why my system rejects FULL RES capture???)

Matteo693,

First check to see if your card will even capture at the higher resolutions. Some cards can't and won't. Forcing the card to do something it can't do may cause VirtualDub to reprocess on the fly and that may be the reason for excess lag.

I would then refer you to check out a capture device that will capture at full resolution in either NTSC or PAL format. The Canopus ADVC-100 has worked flawlessly for me and its the top user rated device in Capture Cards section of this site. It's top rated for a reason. It's so easy to use. You just need a firewire card, decent A/V wires, large hard drives and you are set. The ADVC-100 does not drop frames but I don't use Virtualdub for capture. I did try it and it dropped for me at times and I was unsure how to use that program. I use Vegas Video for most all of my captures and that is sufficient for me.

Hope this helps

Darkstar

[Matteo693]

I'm still battling this.

YEP I figure a camcorder w/analog pass-thru, or the ADVC-100, is the go. However, in the meantime, I would like to find out how some people capture full-res with their capture card...while I can't?

My card specs/reviews sez it has some compatibility problems with VirtualDub...BUT its PVR software works fine.

I have figured out how to capture full-res with WinFast PVR, at last (you have to plug in your settings, create a name for it, and ADD the profile to the list, then OK it! ...sheesh...!). However, I run the captured avi thru VirtualDub & find it's infested with dropped frames (still!)...and playback, sure enough, is jerky.

I've tried iuVCR and Virtual VCR...these both drop like crazy!?! Useless!

I can get zero (well, occasionally...!) dropped frames capturing at 720x576 with PicVideo codec (quality = 19), and no audio (using VirtualDub)...and with overlay/preview turned off.

Should I just bite my pride & be satisfied with this??

(I've updated my computer specs, if anyone cares to have a perve.)

I've also read elsewhere that there is a modded VirtualDub version 1.4.13 (build 14328) that uses wdm drivers. Also that using BTWincap drivers will help. Haven't tried this yet. I guess I'm a bit reluctant, having spent ages going through updating all my wdm/display/chipset/etc etc drivers. But I guess I'll give it a whirl & report back.

Any further suggestions would be GRATEFUL!!!!

(One thing I haven't done yet...partition my harddrive. I don't have the foggiest how to do this? Any links? Is it honestly worthwhile me going through all this?)

[dxj40c]

Turn off all the stuff in the task bar: Antivirus monitoring, firewall, ISP Taskbar, etc. And especially all that crap that gets put on your computer when you browse the Web. I guess you could go to MSConfig and turn off more stuff, but I've never had to go that far. This stopped my dropping frames at 640x480 and above on ATI AIW Radeon 7500, ATA133, 1.8Ghz. When I get rich I will make one computer just for capturing without all the other crap you have to have to use the computer for. No Internet, No Antivirus, No USB, No Wireless Mouse, No Modem; nothing but the capture function. Bliss. And yes, defragging is good too.

[Leoslocks]

kataomoi was having a dropped frame issue with a similar system. Thread

Here

He solved it by not stopping the service Human Interface Device Access

I use a similar card (Asus Ti4200) and capture uncompressed AVI with Virtual Dub 1.5.10
The trouble there is 80 gigs per hour. (Dedicated capture drive).

From the Virtual Dub site:
VirtualDub needs a Video for Windows capture driver to capture. Most Firewire (DV) devices do not provide a VFW driver, and thus cannot be

used by VirtualDub at all. Also, ATI appears to be shipping their current devices with a WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver only; this can be used

indirectly by VirtualDub through a Microsoft wrapper, but it is crippled in functionality and it also appears that the wrapper is buggy.

The wrapper will show up as "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)." If it works for you, great.

I am using the SVideo breakout box that came with the Asus card but my wrapper shows up as above.

I looked for the VFW Wrapper and VFW update tool but could not find them. Hand in there and solve this problem. I know you will do it.

[axolotls]

I've also been racking my brains on analog capture with 100-1000's of dropped frame recently.

After a week, I finally am able to capture 4th gen (read: DIRTY, NASTY, BLEEDY) PAL VHS tapes with little or no frame loss.

I am glad I spent a week testing everything since I was about to buy another capture card (I am using a crappy BT878 card) and a faster hard drive.

Anyhow I've been capturing PAL VHS and converting them to NTSC DVD.

My best captures have been by:

ULEAD 7.0 (VirtualDub is crap at capturing "garbage" PAL analog sources)
Capturing at 352 x 576 (Yes, I've read the recent posts here about resolution).
Using Huffy AV (Convert YUY and Left Gradient)

System is: P4-2.26, 512MB @ 333, Seagate Barracuda 7000 Series (80 puny GBs) with everything disabled except an ATI program that I use to calibrate my monitor.

Also, my drive is cleaned and defragged constantly.

[axolotls]

I also have been able to capture at full PAL DVD resolution (with maybe a dozen frame drops per 30 minutes), but based on the source tapes I have, it makes no freakin difference except maxing out my HD during capture.

[Nelson37]

Matteo - Your results with PicVideo, Virtualdub, and no audio point to a couple of possibilities. If using same settings and Huffy codec results in a lot more frame drops, then you need to fine-tune your settings for throughput. (Changing to this codec will slightly increase filesize). You could also increase MJpeg compression and see if drops disappear.

Ruthlessly eliminate ALL running progs, defrag, etc. There are some buffer settings in VDub that may solve those last few drops.

It could also be your audio card conflicting with your capture card. Some audio cards have inaccurate clocks which can cause this problem. If possible, try a different sound card, perhaps from a store with a good return policy.

[axolotls]

VirtualDub is notorious for frame-dropping with poor quality analog sources. I also notice that VD barely uses my CPU and only 200MB of memory.

A faster hard-drive might help too.

[funkydude74]

Hi Matteo693. I myself am having the exact same problem. I have a 128 Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4200 which comes close to what yours is. Anyways what happens with mine is I can capture perfectly on Ulead Video Studio 6 at a resolution of 720x480 (NTSC resolution) but when I try to capture at 720x576 (PAL resolution) I get a shitload of frames dropped even if I record in mpeg. One bizarre thing is I can't get that resolution in Ulead 6 but can get it in 7.

Anyhow this is giving me the shits too, as a result I ended up having to record at 720x480 and convert to 720x576 which isn't too bad but the edges are jagged in areas which spoils it a bit.

I've asked questions about my frame droppage problems a while back and was thinking my card was inadequate to record 720x576 but my card is one of those top of the range cards. Though I think I heard of a bug with this type of card which won't let you record successfully at a higher vertical resolution than 480 lines. I really find this bizarre due to the fact that I get really bad frame drops just by upping the vertical resolution another 96 lines!!!

Now I too want this problem fixed but I don't want to pissarse around with registries and TSRs etc... as I don't know which ones to delete from the task manager. I know I don't have much room to work with video, about 10GB left on my 60GB hard disk.

I've read over all the responses to your question and I'm way too confused about the quality differences when recording at horizontal resolutions of 352, 360, 640, 720 etc. as VHS offers only 240 lines but when recording on PC at that resolution and recording at 720 and comparing the differences and it appears 720 is a lot better, what's the go with that??? How can a 240 line picture be upgraded to 720 lines looking even better than upgrading to 352 when they both should look the same??? This is where it REALLY gets confusing!!!

I hope to get my problem solved too as I've recently received a copy of lost 70s footage of a rock band and I know one of the band members through email and want to put this footage to DVD for him. I want to make sure the picture looks good, not shithouse.

Cheers
Troy