Mencoder (Ubuntu) with Logilink Video Grabber VG0001 -> video buffer full

[Dobi]

Dear community,

I would like to capture some old VHS home videos. I use a Logilink Video Grabber VG0001 and Mencoder (SVN-r1.0~rc3+svn20090426-4.4.3) under Ubuntu 10.4.

My command line looks like this:

sudo mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:norm=PAL_BGHIN:width=720:height=576:outfmt=uyvy:device=/dev/easycap0:input=0:fps=25:buffersize=64:adevice=/dev/easysnd1:audiorate=48000:amode=1:forceaudio:immediatemode=0 -vf harddup,pp=lb -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:cbr=128 -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=2048:aspect=4/3 -o video.avi

Now and then mencoder says "duplicate frame", but audio and video are perfectly syncronised in the captured video, but at several positions on the VHS Tape, I just get "video buffer full - dropping frame" errors, nothing is captured any more, and I have to kill the process and start again, but there is a nice video file of the minutes, that worked.

This happens with "harddup" and without it, and after an arbitrary number of duplicate frames.
My CPU is not overchallenged. Three cores are idle, the fourth just uses 30% of its capacity and I do nothing parallel. The screensaver is deactivated.
I've tried so far
- another VHS tapes
- another VHS player
- another PC (laptop)
- increasing and decreasing the video buffer size (crashes after a few seconds)
- other bitrates (audio and video)
- other codecs (audio and video)
but the problem remains.

It would be great, if someone would have an idea, what could be the cause for my problem or what I could try.

Regards,
Tobias

Edit: Because I did not figure out, how to solve this, I bought another stick, a AVerMedia DVD EZMaker USB Gold. It works fine. The Picture is a little bit dark, but it captures reliable and worked out of the box with the linux drivers from the manufactors homepage.