Dropped Frames with DAC100 on Windows XP

[markandjane]

Hi There - great info from everyone on a whole range of topics.........but I wondered if anyone can give a capture novice some plain and simple advice?
My PC is "hanging" regularly when I try to capture streamed video and I can't figure out why! It almost sounds as though the disc slows and the picture freezes for a number of seconds.
I have an IBM Intellistation MPro Type 6219 (3GB RAM, 3 GHz Pentium 4) running Windows XP, with a 3Dlabs Wildcat4 graphics card, firewire connection. I concluded it should be more than up to the job.
I have disabled my firewall and closed as many of the background processes as I can, monitoring CPU whilst streaming confirms that at most CPU gets up to around 18% useage. I have tried capturing from my VCR through phono leads into the DAC and firewire to the pc and also from my (older) DV Camcorder using a combination of s-video and phono to the dac and again firewire to the pc and no difference.

The first slight issue I encountered was the with the DAC unit instruction manual which discusses enabling the hard drive DMA function which does not appear to be applicable in XP - any comments on this point please?

I have also found some apparent contradiction between the manual and the technical help on the website, with the settings for dip switches S4 & S5. I have a Texas Instruments IEEE 1394 bus host controller, the suggestion appears to be that 4 & 5 should both be ON. swapping the dip settings made no difference however and so I wondered which is the correct setting?

Are there any other hardware issues that anyone feels I need to consider?

Help much appreciated - Out of depth and now nearly out of my mind!!!

[tito13kfm]

well considering that DV "capture" is really just copying data from the DAC100 to the computer I would first start off by making sure your hard drive is defragged.. I defrag mine every single time before I capture.

Also, to check if DMA is enabled on your hard drive in XP do this.

right click my computer,
click properties
click hardware tab
click device manager button
click plus sign next to "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers"
right click on Primary IDE Channel
click on properties
clikc on advanced settings tab
Device 0 will be your primary hard drive.
make sure DMA if available is selected
And check current transfer mode
Mine says Ultra DMA Mode 5.. yours might say something different, but it shouldn't say PIO anything

[markandjane]

Thanks for the response...........well it did help me sort out the issue regarding DMA. I am actually capturing to device 1 - a second and nearly empty 36Gb hard drive.
I defragged the disk and also installed Pinnacle Studio 7 but still no better so any further ideas would be greatfully received.
I don't have the most up to date BIOS level, but would this or any other machine characteristics have an effect? I did run the harware diagnostics cd and although not completely sure everything seemed okay. When copying large amounts of data to my primary drive, to free up space on the capture disk, the same slowing of the disc occurrs (it is audible)!!!

[Dr_Layne]

The dropped frames could be due to a few things:

1. Poor video source. If the video sync signal is lost, the DAC100 will drop frames. A TBC (time base corrector) will fix this.

2. Poorly made Firewire port. Some firewire ports are not very reliable and can cause the same problem.

3. Defective DAC100. It's possible the device itself is defective.

I own a DAC-100 and I've had dropped frames all the time untill I started using a Time Base Corrector.

Steve

[jneste]

If your current transfer mode still says "PIO Only", check your jumper on the back of the HD. Set the HD on it's own IDE port and make sure it is on "Master" and not "cable Select". This is a problem I had. I was losing like 1/3 of my frames. After I switched it I don't even lose a single frame....ever!

JN