Hello,
I wonder if a process is starting during capture? Sound like something is eating up clock ticks at a predictable interval.
OT I was rendering the other night when microsoft decided to send me an update for Anti-spyware, thanks m$.
anyway I just thought that if you could watch the process (sorted by %) then you might narrow it down to what is "interupting your capture".
The Canopus line is very good but very expensive as you know. The Canopus ADVC 1000 is a nice selection. http://www.canopus.us/US/products/ADVC1000/pm_advc1000.asp
I found it for sale for arourd $1400.00. That's seem alot to me, but you sort of get what you pay for. the ADVC 500 for around $900.00 is also good according to my sources, but I tried the 1000 so I can say that it works well.


Best Wishes,
Marty

Thanks for the replies - wasn't certain if I would get any, but this board almost never disappoints.

ezway - I have been following your line of troubleshooting so far without success. However, I did use a setting in the Pinnacle capture utility to turn off preview during capture, and, so far, am working through a 90-minute capture, the first 20 minutes of which shows no evidence of the artifacts, and, since these were happening every three minutes or so, without jinxing myself, I dare say that this may have cured the problem.

Chien, in making this purchase, I was well aware that most (including myself) consider anything "Dazzle" to be a toy - but, for the price, and given that it is returnable, and, since I'm really just playing around, anyway, I figured I'd bring this thing home and give it a try (price at BB was $79.00 - way less than most anything Canopus which at $1400 or even $900 eats into the stash I'm hoarding to put towards a new cam) (have been tempted to plunk all down for a GL2, but may save a little longer and jump at one of the HD cams - we'll see).

I was unaware of, and didn't notice the Pinnacle connection until I had already given my debit card to the cashier, or I might have skipped the purchase altogether.

However, the bottom line for me is whether the thing can convert video with quality that is comparable to the results I currently obtain by dubbing Hi8 to my D8 then transferring to the PC via firewire. The initial results are a bit better for some reason - more detail in the video - slightly more saturation (albeit, my comparison is only done by lining up test clips on the V5 timeline and toggling between the two)..

The reason I am even messing around with Hi8 is because I recently purchased on Ebay an old, but once top-of-the line Sony Hi8 cam to compliment my D8 and a second Hi8 on multi-cam shots. This is a stop-gap measure to relieve me from having to rent or borrow digital cams on my multi-cam projects until I can upgrade to a second, more current digital cam. I spent only $365 for this Hi8 machine (and to my pleasant surprise, it takes beautiful pictures). I can't justify spending more than double that on an item which, if it works flawlessly, only relieves me from the extra time it takes to make a D8 dub before transferring footage to the PC. When I finally do buy a newer cam, it will probably feature pass-thru at which point, any converter will probably lay unused in my "can't-bear-to-throw-it-away-but-never-use-it-anymore" drawer.

We're straying a bit off-topic here, but, it would be fun to learn what real advantages the more expensive Canopus would offer over this $79.00 toy (or my D8) as a converter.

Chien, I don't pretend for a moment that my humble collection of equipment can keep up with current professional level or prosumer level equipment in terms of raw video quality. Nevertheless, I find it an enjoyable challenge to get the most out of what I have to work with, and, for me, Vegas is my "David's stone" that allows me to maximize what I can do with the equipment I have. If I do say so, myself, I find (and my clients find) my three-cam stuff more interesting than single-cam stuff shot on even the most expensive of cameras (I shoot mostly classical music recitals and amateur stage productions - plays, musicals, etc.). I don't know how you shoot that stuff with a single cam and keep it interesting - but, I'm open for suggestions.

Thanks again for the replies.

Caruso (aka-Del Callo - how do I change that? I don't use "del callo" anymore).

Chien - one more point:

"Most consider USB to be a toy and not worth consideration, or at least not up to the task of transferring digital video."

I don't disagree with you - until I went into BB and saw this Dazzle thing, I didn't know that USB transfer of DV was even available. I have six external drive enclosures - all are firewire - but two can also interface through the USB port.

I'm sitting here, however, thinking to myself: "why do we (me included) develop these attitudes? Does it really matter how digital info is transferred from a converter to the PC?"

Now that I've turned off video preview during capture, it appears my USB 2.0 interface is up to the task, and digital is digital, right?

Just curious.

Thanks.

Caruso

Ok . . . finished editing the first section of my capture - 35 minutes of capture - artifacts appeared three times - no set interval.

I have to think this is in my system, not in the Dazzle thingy or the Pinnacle software. Just seems more like a computer problem than a software problem to me.

My machine (it's a Shuttle XPC - 1.5 GB RAM, 3.01 gHz Intel Pentium 4 processor) should be plenty powerful. I'm wondering if disabling hyperthreading would have any effect.

Further suggestions/comments welcome.

Thanks.

Caruso

The problem with USB is that it is a shared bus and can be used by many different processes at once. Many Windows functions will often probe the USB bus for inputs or other activity and these events can disrupt other USB traffic, hence many dropped frames. Real-time DV transfer needs a reliable pipe that won't get distracted by other traffic. Firewire is much better at this task.

Once you are finished with capture and are merely moving files around then USB 2.0 is certainly sufficient for transferring DV (and any other) files. Of course, these sorts of transfers aren't real-time, so the interruptions don't matter.

Have you checked out the Canopus ADVC 100 series? Some of these are as low as $200 on the street.

ps. Were you asking how to change your displayed forum name? It's under Forum Settings / User Name.

Are you by chance capturing footage to a USB drive? Capturing via USB and storing USB at the same time is bound to give you problems. If this is the case, try capturing to an internal or firewire drive instead.

I agree with the Canopus ADVC100 series recommendation though. I remember using my Dazzle box before I updated to the ADVC100 and thinking it wasn't that bad. On the small monitor in my studio it wasn't that bad actually. Then I saw a project projected on a screen that was about 6 feet diagonally. I could sure see some capture problems then! There were vertical artifacts running throughout the screen. On dark shots, the Dazzle capture didn't go all the way to black either. The quality of the Canopus ADVC100 is quite a lot better. If you audition it on a small TV you'll never see it, but on a high end big screen or projection it will just jump out at you!

There are other ways for processes to be started up than by just putting the shortcut in a Startup folder. I suspect there are other things going on in your machine every few minutes. You might want to get some software such as this to see what is really being loaded when you boot up. This particular freeware utility has been very useful to me.