What to change to get rid of dropping frames

[blaak]

I got a Dazzle 90 for my birthday to capture my vhs tapes to pc. When I tried that earlier on and I watched it there was only video about 2 from the 3 seconds (so a lot of frames dropped). I read here on the forum it might be something with the pc system so my question would be what I need to change. Here are some details:
Operation system: WinXP SP2
CPU Speed: Athlon XP2600+
Harddrive space: 10Gb and 140Gb (transfer to 140gb)
RAM Memory: 256mb
Video card: GeForce4 MX 4000
What would be the best option (or maybe I need to change some settings)?
Thanks!

[Ron B]

Hi there-I know it takes between 250-300MB of memory to run my computer at an idle with XP Pro, maybe you could use a little more RAM.

[I_am_stealth]

Try to stop some of the services that are not needed in the Taskbar. CTRL +Alt+DEL then stop programs like antivirus software, etc. There, you can also see how much resources you have ( use of memory, cpu, etc)
You definetely do not have much RAM. In what format are you trying to capture? do you use the Dazzle software? also it is not recommended to use the same hard disc with the operating system.
good luck

[blaak]

I want to capture to dvd with best quality, I use pinnacle studio 9 as software.

[deckard8]

The dropped frames seems to be a fault with the usb power
management of some PC's.
Some users have reported success using a self-powered usb hub instead of the on-board usb's on your PC.

[blaak]

this one would do it? Ram link

[I_am_stealth]

I want to capture to dvd with best quality, I use pinnacle studio 9 as software.

So you are capturing straight to Mpeg 2.
I Suggest you capture to an .avi, then you software encode to MPEG 2 using something like TmpgEnc package. It would take a longer time and more hard disk space for the captured footage, but if you do not have large amount of material, it gives better quality at the end.
Also it should be less resource demanding.

[lordsmurf]

That software is the problem. It's not very good at all.

[deckard8]

this one would do it? Ram link

Extra ram has been reported not to cure dropped
frames with this device.

http://www.usbman.com/forum/UltraBoard.cgi?action=Read&BID=10&TID=73&SID=905621

[I_am_stealth]

this one would do it? Ram link

Check the type of your ram with some software like Everest.
Are you sure it is PC 100 as the one from the link?
Also try to match the latency of your current Ram chip.

[Erevos]

Most problems with fame drops are related to hard disk.

Make soure it is defragmented and has a lot of free space (more than 70%). You need a lot of free space because the disk speed is much faster at the begining of the disk than at the end.

Also you should put the 140GB disk alone in separate IDE chanel because if it is on the same with any other device, they both operate at the speed of the slowest (the 10GB disk in your case).

Dont wory about RAM. I have the same RAM and slower CPU and capturing all the time in full DVD resolution using virtualdub and Huffyuv codec without problems (I have a PCI card not USB). Studio software uses it's own MJPEG codec whits is fast enough.

I had problems at the begining because of the disk speed. Since I created a IDE RAID1 set with two disks (almost double speed than single disk) everything works perfect.

[dphirschler]

Although you really need more RAM, I doubt that is a major contributor to your dropped frames.

I'd recommend capturing to AVI using Huffyuv codec and YUY2 colorspace. If you still get dropped frames, try Picvideo MJPEG codec set at 18. Use Virtual VCR for capturing or maybe Virtual Dub, not the software that came with your card.

You can also try capturing blind. If you still have dropped frames, try reducing the capture size down to 640x480 (or smaller). I am assuming you are NTSC. If you are PAL, then 640x576.

But you really do need more RAM.


Darryl

[dphirschler]

Wait a minute! That thing is USB? I hope it's at least USB-2, because USB cannot handle more than 320x240 unless the capture card is hardware mpeg encoding it. It appears the bottleneck is the USB.


Darryl

[lpn1160]

DMA enabled on your hdd, should be by default, however check anyway!!!
Page file on same drive? Move it!!

[harley2ride]

I agree with many of the above suggestions.
First, use windv, huffyuv, or virtualvcr to capture. Throw away the pinnacle software. Make sure that you defrag your hd before capturing, and before encoding (if there are lots of things happening on your system, between events), shutdown unnecessary tasks, and I would most definately upgrade to a minimum of 512mb of ram, and preferably, 768 or 1gb. Search the forum or tools section to see what most people like to use for authoring and encoding. Also make sure that you use programs that you are comfortable with (but not pinnacle). If you do some searches, you will find that pinnacle is a very buggy software.

[blaak]

Thanks for all the replies. I got back from holiday so I can start working on this again. If I got it right I should delete pinnacle because it sucks, buying extra ram is not a priority. Get myself a program like virtual vcr and then I can get it going. after i have a 70% empty hdd that is. (is that really necessary I only have 3gb left out of 170) I have usb for dvd standards and I don't want to rip to lossy source (like avi or something) first. Thanks again!

[blaak]

that's right isn't it?

[harley2ride]

If you use huffyuv, it is not lossy, and you can capture to avi. Or you can try to capture to mpeg if you don't need to edit anything. Your lack of memory could be a problem there. You need to have at least 50g free on your hd. Shutdown all unnecessary tasks before you try to capture. If necessary, start up in safe mode to capture. I never saw an answer in your post if you have usb2.0. If you only have usb1.1 you need to find a way to capture using firewire, or you will have dropped frames.