Analogue to DV-Dropped Frames During Capture

snicholshms wrote on 9/17/2002, 9:29 PM
I'm getting a lot of dropped frames when I capture from my VHS player. Got 25,079 dropped frames from a two hour VHS tape. I'm using Dazzle's Hollywood bridge. Is it normal to have a ton of dropped frames when capturing/converting analogue to DV?

I have 14 HOURS of baby/children movies to edit down for my first PAYING client! I know, "Welcome to the video biz!"

Any help is welcome!
Steve

Comments

rextilleon wrote on 9/17/2002, 11:22 PM
No, you shouldn't----I am not a big fan of Dazzle--and have heard that these problems are fairly common. I just captured a couple of hours of analog through my DV Storm Card using Scenealyzer as my capture utility---It worked perfectly---then I threw it into Vegas and voila----
snicholshms wrote on 9/17/2002, 11:46 PM
Rex...
Is that the Canopus 100 converter you're using? If not, which DVStorm hardware do you use?
I'm going to try capturing the VHS tapes via the Dazzle/Scenalyzer route. Scenalyzer may have fewer dropped frames that VidCap.
Thanks,
Steve
rextilleon wrote on 9/18/2002, 7:53 AM
The Storm Card has a convertor built in but the dedicated Canopus convertor works great. If you are going to do lots of analog capture, it's the only way to go. One last question--do you get dropped frames when you capture digital? If you dont then your problem has to be with Dazzle.

PS. Since I started using Vegas, the Storm card serves strictly as a convertor---I never use it for anything else.
snicholshms wrote on 9/18/2002, 11:25 AM
Rex...
I only get about 10 to 15 dropped frames per i/s hour when capturing DV from my JVC camera. Where in VidCap or VV3 do I go to make adjustments to decrease the dropped frames? Thanks for your help!
craigunderhill wrote on 9/18/2002, 11:27 AM
have you turned on ultra dma on the hard drive?

i know it's simple, but it should be mentioned.
nolonemo wrote on 9/18/2002, 11:35 AM
Does your DV cam have analog pass-through? That would probably eliminate the dropped frames problem. Alternatively, you could try recording to DV tape and capturing the DV (should be no generation loss in the transfer from DV tape to the PC).
snicholshms wrote on 9/18/2002, 11:36 AM
Craig:
Yeah, got the Ultra DMA working here. It might be that the Dazzle unit works well for small projects...longer projects create more time/opportunity for glitches in a simplified system like this one.
Also getting a handful (not bad) of dropped frames when capturing DV from my JVC camera. Where do I look to review the capture settings in VidCap/VV3? Any adjustment suggestions?
Thanks,
Steve
snicholshms wrote on 9/18/2002, 11:50 AM
nolonemo:
Unfortunately, my JVC GR-DVM90U (one of the first mini DV camcorders made) doesn't have analog pass through. Bought it about three years ago before I ever thought of editing and doing this for a revenue-generating hobby. The camera is a dinosaur now.
I'll be converting a lot of analog in the future so I need to buy the right equipment and know how to use it properly with VV3/VidCap. There must be a place in VidCap that allows adjustment or tweaking of imported analog but I can't find it. Tried searching in VV3 help and this forum. Have you made any such adjustments in VV3?
Thanks,
Steve
winrockpost wrote on 9/18/2002, 11:57 AM
I had a similar problem a while back,, Vegas was reporting I was dropping thousands of frames,, but it really was not,, kinda dumb question but have you viewed the footage, are they really dropped ?
SonyEPM wrote on 9/18/2002, 1:23 PM
First things first: please update Vegas to 3.0c (the current version).
snicholshms wrote on 9/18/2002, 2:07 PM
SonicEPM:
VV 3.0c build 138 is the version in use. What can I tweak to reduce the number of dropped frames?
Riscel1:
Viewed the first 2 hours and there are lots of "stills" where frames were dropped making the motion very "herky-jerky". Kind of like Frankenstein on speed.
Thanks,
Steve
SonyEPM wrote on 9/18/2002, 3:14 PM
The problem is either with system config in general, or possibly with the Dazzle.

Start here to make sure your system is set up correctly:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/support/supportproduct.asp?familyid=30&family=vegas&topicid=89&detailid=879
snicholshms wrote on 9/18/2002, 6:28 PM
SonicEPM:
Thanks for the help. I checked my system to the info in the Knowledge Base you directerd me to and everything is fine. I use firewire harddrives (NO, I don't daisy chain them to each other or the camera during the capture process) and their policies in the properties section were set to "Optimize for quick removal". I changed that to "Optimize for performance" which allows write caching.
I'll capture some more analog footage and let you know if this helps.
Thanks,
Steve
salad wrote on 9/18/2002, 7:33 PM
Mine was set at "Optimize for performance" by default. It's still "removes" fairly quickly.
snicholshms wrote on 9/18/2002, 10:41 PM
Salad:
Have you had any dropped frame problems capturing to your firewire hard drive?

If so, what have you done to reduce the number of dropped frames?
Thanks,
Steve
salad wrote on 9/19/2002, 9:03 AM
Hi Steve,
No, I've never seen any dropped frames cap'ing to the external...that I can remember.
I've even cap'd with the DVcam hooked right to the daisy chain port on the drive enclosure......just as a test.
As much as I hate to admit it....I can't really trust my firewire drive for archiving precious footage cap'd from DV tapes from othere camera guys. I've had DV files "go away" after a defrag using Norton Speed Disk. I now use it for moving stuff around, back ups, getting stuff over to the other PC......just about everything else. It seems to be working good now....for both PC's. It's an 80 GB WD, but I've since partitioned as (approx) 40/40 GB FAT32/NTFS.
I wouldn't recommend letting XP use it for swap file. I'm not on that PC right now, so I don't even know if that was an option....prob not.

Cheers