Best settings to capture

[hardrock]

Hello people:

I have this hardware at my computer:
Pentium III 500mhz
128 RAM
NVidia GeForce II 64mb
Pixelview PlayTV Pro
40gb ULTRA-DMA Hard disk

under Windows 98 se

When I capture to uncompressed AVI (under VirtualDub or AVI_IO), I can't capture with no frames dropped, always get a lot of them
What can I do to solve this problem?
Please help me!

[cybermage26]

Buy more RAM.
Defrag your Hard Drive.
And make sure your HDD has DMA enabled.

[hardrock]

It's hard for me to buy more RAM at moment
Yesterday I've defraged my hard drive, and the problem stills.
Where I can check my HDD has DMA enabled?
I think it's enabled, but, only for make certain about it.

[hardrock]

I forgot to say
When I capture at AVI_IO, I capture only around of 2 seconds, then appears this message: Sorry, no more I/O buffers avaiable...
What can I do for this message don't appear?

[spooky]

I had the same problem before

do the following
"you should adjust your data rate so as the number of allocated buffers usually does not go above 20" ( under Capture Settings")


It worked for me
Also make sure you turn off things like Screen Saver, Sleep Mode etc

Hope this helps

[native90210]

Try setting up maximum Virtual Memory Settings/Control Panel/System Advanced/Performance Virtual Memory both my Harddisks are set to 768MB and it works fine on a PIII 800 (MPEG2)

[droolian01]

Hi hardrock.
You mentioned that you are trying to capture to uncompressed avi, why not try huffuv, or if that still results in dropped frames try picvideo mjpeg setting 18. You should have no problems with your system spec.

It requires a very high spec system to capture in uncompressed avi at any useful resolution, and would probably be seen as a waste of cpu cycles/time in postprocessing for non existant quality increases.

[hardrock]

With Huffuv, I continue having the problem with dropped frames, but with Picvideo not. I can use quality 20, and not drop frames.

But, now about the uncompressed avi: I have a friend who haves a computer similar, the only differences is the OS (Windows ME) and RAM (168 ram)...
And he can captures 24bit uncompressed avi with no frames dropped...

spooky:
what capture program u use?

native90210:
where I can configure it? I can't find here

[native90210]

Windows 2000 - Tips & Tricks

How to change the size of the virtual memory paging file

Open System in Control Panel.
On the Advanced tab, click Performance Options, and under Virtual memory, click Change.
In the Drive list, click the drive that contains the paging fileyou want to change.
Under Paging file size for selected drive, type a new paging file size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.
If you decrease the size of either the minimum or maximum page file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. Increases typically do not require a restart.

copy from
http://www.activewin.com/tips/win2000/1/2000_tips_14.shtml

[hardrock]

I don't use Windows 2000, i use Win 98 SE
Is better Windows 2000 for capture?

[rocraz]

Hi there hardrock,

you should go to start>control panel>system>device manager>HDD controler>properties to check if the DMA is enabled for your harddrive.
But even if it´s enabled you must have an ATA66 cable, otherwise your computer will not work at Full Speed. The ATA66 cable has a blue plug on one end (the one you plug on your motherboard). So you must have this cable to put Fast DMA to work. Only "checking" the DMA option is not enough. Without the cable your DMA settings won´t work.
I tried Win2000 for capturing videos and didn´t like it. Now I use WinXP, which is much faster than Win2000. But I also was told WinME is also good (have never tried it though).
Rodolfo Vaz

[hardrock]

At my Win 98 I can't see if it's enable or not. But, I checked at my BIOS Setup, and it's enabled. My HDD Cable is the ATA66, this isn't the problem.
I don't tried to capture with Windows XP.
Finally, what's the best OS to capture?
Some people say is 2000, other XP. I'm interested to update my OS. I have almost all of Windows on CD, but I don't know what's the best for capture.
Please help.

[rocraz]

Hardrock,

under win98 you have to check the HDD controller at Device Manager (system under control panel).
Regarding the best OS, the best way is to try them both and choose the best for you. I tried Win2000 and didn´t like the way it keeps "accessing" the Hard Drive when I´m doing nothing.
Some people say WinXP is terrible, but I´ve been using it with Ulead VideoStudio and have had no problems at all (although I have been doing only analog video capturing, as the digital video capturing has not worked so far - maybe this is a WinXP problem, I don´t know).
HTH,
Rodolfo Vaz

[hardrock]

Rodolfo, you capture in uncompressed AVI?
What's your hardware/software configuration?
And..
are you brazilian?
8)