Capturing nightmare. It's driving me insane. Dropped Frames only problem.

[Legit Nukes]

My frames are dropping sometimes just dropping 1 or 2 frames or completely stopping sometimes. I have been working on this for over 4 - 5 hours a day since I want it to work so badly. Any free time I have I try to get it to work. It's so hard to sleep knowing I can't figure out a computer issue. The frames always drop at 26 seconds. I don't know why 26 seconds, but it's always the same spot. 25+ times at this spot makes me wonder what's happening. Even if the game isn't busy and on low setting. I just don't understand why the different settings don't help it out to not do it. It's the same for every setting I've had.

Computer: Asus G50VX

OS: Vista
Duo 2.0 Ghz/4 GB

Device: pinnacle - studio moviebox hd 14
Connections:
1. Normal AV cables
2. usb cord into laptop connects to box
3. capturing from input out on tv

I'm trying to record x box 360 game play. It doesn't matter on the quality of the video what so ever. The CPU never seems to go above 70%. My computer is only 3 months old to. This just seems odd for me to have this problem.

What I've tried:
1. Graphics Card - Performance setting
2. Windows Task Manager - deleting all unused programs except what I need to run the device. No browsers or anything open.
3. Disk Defragment - I didn't think this would work.
4. Lower settings in pinnacle. I wish I could turn off the capture preview since I think this might be part of the problem. Settings don't seem to make a difference though.
5. Resetting my entire computer to manufactor settings.

What I think it might be.
1. I need splitters - Instead of going input out on the TV connecting my x box 360 into splitters to try to split the signal. It doesn't seem like it would work, but the more I think about it the more I want to try it out.
2. Ram issue
3. Bandwidth issue

Please ask for any additional information you may need. I just have lost hope in this program.

My one biggest question is why at 26 seconds?! What is so important about this time frame?

[DB83]

The biggest issue with capturing is the hard drive itself. And with a laptop you only have one.

Even though you have eliminated most non-essential programs from running, you still have one rather essential one running called Windows. That one will be constantly be accessing your hard drive at at the same time that you need it for capturing - something will give and as the drive cannot keep up you will drop frames.

The other issue, as you have pointed out, is a possible bandwidth issue by using a USB interface for the capturing. But, assuming that there are no other USB devices attached to the laptop at the same time as you are capturing it should not be an issue.

The only partial solution is to partition your hard drive and use the non-OS partition for capturing.

[sphinx99]

Seems like a possible bug to me, if the dropped frames are only at 26 seconds. That would be right around the 1000 frame mark. What software are you using to capture? Also, what exactly happens at 26 seconds? One frame drop? Many drops? Freeze? Can you find out whether it's dropping at about the same frame # each time?

[lordsmurf]

Problems: USB, Pinnacle, and not having second hard drive just for video

[Bjs]

Try the following

1: Change power settings to highest level
2: Disable indexing services
3: Check amp's drawn by device ... if it needs more than 1 amp consider getting a powered usb hub with it's own power brick ... belkin units work well

4: What antivirus came with it ... if nortons, consider change to a lesser resource hog such as avast or avg

5: Find a piece of software than can use the device which is not as gui intensive as the pinnacle product

[olyteddy]

1. I need splitters - Instead of going input out on the TV connecting my x box 360 into splitters to try to split the signal. It doesn't seem like it would work, but the more I think about it the more I want to try it out.

You are correct that a splitter wouldn't work because video can't be simply split. You'd need a distribution amp instead.

[Legit Nukes]

I made my first video and put it up to youtube earlier today. Thanks for the replies guys. The one thing that worked and works for better and lower quality graphics is that I close all these random processes I have going. Something in these processes is messing me up.

I tried deleting all the unused processes in the "process tab", but this didn't do anything. I found a services tab in windows task manager and disable everything including internet ports. This is the only thing that fixed it. I got down to 28 processes running at a time. Where it's normally 50+. I need to do some research into this because I've never actually understood why so many things run in the background. I know it's for faster load times as you launch it, but i need to figure it out how to stop it.

This time I did it and I tweaked the services to where I could be on the internet and record fine at the same time. I don't really use my webcam, but the frames have dropped in that, but to around 50 for 2 seconds. lol better than 1k before 1 second recorded.

Is it hard to get under 10 processes running and have most of my features work like internet and such?

[iconbenv2]

Try turning Wifi Off, Because Wifi takes up alot of processing power

[martyxke]

An interesting thread this one, and a very familiar problem for a lot of the older guys I would imagine. Dropped frames were a real issue in the early days of DV file capture, simple solution is to capture all your footage to an external hard drive,instead of the internal one. The latest generation of passport drives seem to work fine, and are really inexpensive now. The problem lies in having to read and write from the same drive ( bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach when you were a kid, you can do it for a while but its difficult! ) You partially solved the issue by dissabling as many systems as possible, and this is always a good start, I personally do that with all my computers, and it really speeds up everything, including the boot up. Simplest way if you dont know already is,click start, run, then type in "msconfig"
go to startup tab, and uncheck all the boxes. Or do it a few at a time if your unsure, you can re visit msconfig at any time and always re tick the boxes if you need to.
Hope this helps and you still have some hair left.
Regards Marty