capture video hiccups - video does a slight pause and jerk

[Christopher2222]

When I capture at 720p 60fps I'm experiencing small hiccups in video that occur in the final recorded video as well, happens maybe every 10 seconds or so. I also notice that during a longer recording the delay from satellite box to when it appears on computer screen gets longer as the recording goes on. What I mean is, when I push the menu button early on in the recording the menu comes up fairly quickly in the capture window on the computer but later in the recording the delay is maybe 10 seconds before it comes up on the screen.

I'm using Windows 7 64bit on an HP elite 8200 4Gb RAM Intel Core I5-2500@3.3GHz but no video card ( so motherboard graphics, maybe that's the issue?) Maybe graphics is using up too much CPU power? Would a graphics card help in this situation? Or maybe it's the hard drive or slow RAM?

Where should I start? I think I've got a fairly speedy system for the Hauppage Colossus, so maybe all that's needed is a video card? Or assuming my system is good, why is the video just a split second spotty every once in a bit. Ideas?

[Christopher2222]

The card recommends a video card with at least 256Mb of RAM, but I don't think that affects capture issues. Also note my integrated video has allocated 64Mb of RAM so maybe that has something to do with it. I think I need to go into the BIOS to change the allocation amount if it's possible.

I will have to check the CPU usage details after work to see if there is a lot of CPU usage. If that's the case a dedicated video card should definitely remove some of the pressure off the CPU.

[Christopher2222]

Ah, I see the sticky on dropped frames. Sorry about that (probably why no replies) However almost unnoticeable unless you watch closely, maybe 3 or 4 frames dropped in 600 frames and no audio issues. Maybe that's normal, but having a flawless capture is obviously the holy grail.

I am pretty sure I have a super fast system, this system is totally devoted towards video capture - no other programs installed, updated drivers (which confuses me as why I should have any dropped frames at all) but after reading the sticky it has given me some ideas that I was already thinking about re: troubleshooting. ie CPU usage and no dedicated audio card may cause skipped frames which really surprised me. Hard drive speed etc..

Falling short of getting a new video card and audio card I'll check everything else this evening and hope for some luck

[Christopher2222]

Partially solved ..

So after some more reading. I tried the uncheck disable hdmi ac3 in the hauppauge capture software, I changed the HDMI ethernet cable for one without ethernet no changes. So I ended up going to the power options in the control panel. What I found made the most difference was increasing the minimum processor frequency I've currently set it at 90% for some headroom. I read somewhere where people just change the power options from balanced to high performance mode and it has worked for many people for other reasons. So instead of changing the whole power plan I only modified a few settings - since that computer doesn't have wifi or even connected to the internet I changed the wireless adapter settings power setting to low. I changed the PCI Express - power link state management to off and of course experimented with the minimum processor frequency. In High performance mode it is set to 100%, however as I said before I set it to 90.

I used the CTV news channel with the scrolling newsfeed across the bottom as a benchmark - hard to notice any picture skips but I can easily see them in the newsfeed bar. Prior to making the change it wasn't very noticeable but there were small skips (you'd miss it if you blinked) and then a little larger skip ( you still could miss it if you blinked). Then after the changes, you could still pick out where the screen might have skipped a little but it's a lot less perceptable and not noticeable at all in the video. The larger blips are much smaller and I still can't tell in the video if they exist or not.

For anyones interest I haven't made any hardware changes, I'm still using the integrated graphics on the motherboard. I have yet to determine whether it makes any difference at all since the capture card handles most if not all the operations. However the memory on the integrated graphics in the motherboard is slower than any memory in a graphics card, it's possible the integrated graphics card when dumping it's memory is causing these blips. And so when increasing the minimum processor frequency it speeds up any dumping and processes or just clears things up faster, at least that's what I think.

[Christopher2222]

Just a quick note I've found the ctv newsfeed across the bottom from the source isn't smooth afterall anyways, but I've reduced if not eliminated the video hiccups with the increase in minimum processor frequency.