Problems with capturing, hard drive speed

[gabolema]

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone could help me. I've been trying to capture DV with my laptop:
-Toshiba sattelite A20
-Hard drive 40 GB 4200 rpm
-P4 2.66 GHZ. 512 ram

I couldn't do it. And I am not talking about dropped frames, I am saying that it crashes. Adobe recommends to have a minimum hard drive speed of 7200 rpm. However, I don't think anyone has a laptop computer with that hard drive speed. I've used my father laptop and it did great, and I seriously doubt it has a 7200 rpm hard drive.

Any help would be appreciated.

[redwudz]

Normally, DV isn't captured. It's just transferred over a FireWire cable from a device such as a camcorder to the computer via the FireWire port. My laptop with a 4200RPM hard drive has no problem with it. What device are you transferring from?

Have you checked your FireWire card to see if there is a problem with IRQs or something interfering with the transfer? And check with the cards manufacturer to see if they have any information. I have two PCMCIA FireWire cards, one with USB 2.0 and they both work fine with my laptop, no dropped frames.

DV eats up a lot of hard drive space, so I normally use an external drive. DV is about 13GB an hour. Do you have enough HD space? Have you tried your FW card to see if it will work with other FW devices or cameras? Your computer recognizes the device or camcorder properly?

One last thing. Does your father's laptop have SP2? I don't recall if there were any problems with SP1 and FireWire, but that may be a remote possibility.

And where does Adobe come into the picture?

[gabolema]

Hey,
thanks for the quick reply!
"Have you checked your FireWire card to see if there is a problem with IRQs or something interfering with the transfer?" I have no idea what is that!
The firewire card is an adaptec fire connect AFW-1430. I haven't checked it with other devices because I don't have other devices
But I don't understand whay it works with my father's and not in mine's! I have SP2 aswell.
Something interesting. I have a SD port integrated with my computer, and I have a 2 GB sd card. I put the destination folder the sd card. It worked better than in my hard drive, I got at least one min of video, while in my hard drive I only get 3 seconds. I have 10 gb free, so if I want to transfer 2 min there shouldn't be any problem.
I have downloaded Scenealyzer in order to find out my hard disk speed.

"Sclive was able to write to write 89.3 frames per second.
This is 3.0 times realtime
When the computer...."

What does this mean? Is it good enough?

Thanks again

[edDV]

Hey,
thanks for the quick reply!
"Have you checked your FireWire card to see if there is a problem with IRQs or something interfering with the transfer?" I have no idea what is that!
The firewire card is an adaptec fire connect AFW-1430. I haven't checked it with other devices because I don't have other devices
But I don't understand whay it works with my father's and not in mine's! I have SP2 aswell.
Something interesting. I have a SD port integrated with my computer, and I have a 2 GB sd card. I put the destination folder the sd card. It worked better than in my hard drive, I got at least one min of video, while in my hard drive I only get 3 seconds. I have 10 gb free, so if I want to transfer 2 min there shouldn't be any problem.
I have downloaded Scenealyzer in order to find out my hard disk speed.

"Sclive was able to write to write 89.3 frames per second.
This is 3.0 times realtime
When the computer...."

What does this mean? Is it good enough?

Thanks again

Your computer is marginal for firewire transfer. I have answered this question many times. Use advanced forum search. Subject: "4200 RPM" Author "EdDV"

Bottom line: Shut down all other processes. You are walking a tightrope.

Feel free to ask more.

[gabolema]

Thanks again.
I am sorry but I didn't understand your reply, I don't have all those English expressions integrated -I am form Uruguay-. "walking on a tightrope? my computer is marginal for transfering firewire?
What do they mean?

As far as I can see there shouldn't be any problem, since the other post you pointed me suggested that a guy uses 4200 rpm. Believe me I have shut down all the processes, every possilbe application. I still can't get it to work. It's so annoying!
Thanks for your time

[redwudz]

I think he's saying your system/drive is too slow for FireWire transfers. If a slow hard drive were your problem, it seems you would likely be dropping frames, not crashing the computer. Does your hard drive seem to be slow on loading the OS or programs? I'm wondering if something might be slowing it down. You might check to see if it's in PIO mode.

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel the drive is on and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot. This will not damage any files on the computer.

Another possibility is the hard drive needs defragging. Right click on the drive, then 'Properties> Tools> Defragmentation> Analyze, and it will tell you if it needs it.

If you still get nowhere, it's either the drive or the controller or something running in the background in the computer. Maybe a antivirus or other program. You can check how much CPU/memory it's using in Task Manager and what programs are running.

I can't figure out why it would crash, though. Does it shut down the whole system, forcing a reboot or just the transfer program. Sclive seems to say the drive is OK.

[gabolema]

Hi,
It crashes while it is "transfering", if I close the program everything goes back to normal. Unless I unplugg the camera from the PCMCIA card, then it crashes.
My computer drives where in DMA mode, so I guess that is not the problem. I am not running any program in the background.
Isn't it wierd that I could transfer more video to a SD card, than to the hard drive?...that's why I think that there is a problem with the hard drive. Would you recommend to try a new hard drive?
Thanks again

[edDV]

Thanks again.
I am sorry but I didn't understand your reply, I don't have all those English expressions integrated -I am form Uruguay-. "walking on a tightrope? my computer is marginal for transfering firewire?
What do they mean?

As far as I can see there shouldn't be any problem, since the other post you pointed me suggested that a guy uses 4200 rpm. Believe me I have shut down all the processes, every possilbe application. I still can't get it to work. It's so annoying!
Thanks for your time

We will go step by step.

You don't think you should be having a problem transferring DV.

You are having a problem transferring DV.

I say, your computer may or may not work depending on how it is managed.

I say you can have higher probablitity to make it work if you limit other processes and manage hard disc usage.

The problem is not hard disk speed. The problem is the disk being used for other processes causing frame drops.

[gabolema]

No matter how many processes I shut down, it still won't work. However, if I don't shut any, and I select target folder my IPOD, it works!...one more reason I believe there is a problem with my hard disk. If this is the case: what would be the best solution: buy an external hard disc, or buy a new laptop hard drive. I mean, these external hard disk can record things in realtime?, because I am also planning to do a recording studio.
Thanks again, and again..............................and again

[jameshgross]

gabolema,

I think you have some serious system problems.

Download a copy of Hijackthis, follow ithe directions and post a copy of the log on Techsupportguy web site, an expert will analyize the results and advise you what to do.

There is ALWAYS a reason for Windows to crash. HD speed is not one of them.

[Dragonsf]

How much is the swapping overhead? As you are using the same drive for recording and swapping, maybe you get a race condition here. Watch with 'Taskmanager'.
I'm using an external USB 2.0 HDD without any problems for DV recording.

[gabolema]

Okay. Thanks for everything, I think I'm going to buy an external hard drive. It's not worthy paying so much for a new laptop drive. I haven't understood yet why I can't, but now I am sure that I can do it if I select target file an external device. I'm happy with that.
You guys are great.