SonicFoundry Support,

Even on VegasVideo forum, I have NOT seen a
informative reply from support on people hitting
their heads against 4gig limit on 98SE (using
capture 2.5).

When I capture using VF2.0 (CD version - not an
upgrade from 1) on a 98SE using ATI
All-In-Wonder 128 (and no matter what settings
I use in VF) - VF captures and when it hits
4 gigs, it ends the capture with "Unknown error."

If anyone on 98SE with an analog capture card has
actually gotten a VF segmented AVI capture - please
post on how you've done it. If you've hit this
problem - please post to say that it is more than
one of us.

Thanks,

John Toops

I've successfully captured about 25GB of video in 7 files with the new
video capture. However, i couldn't do it with my ATI Rage Fury Pro card.
Actually, i can't capture anything useful at all with that card. I'm using
a Hauppauge WinTV for analog NTSC capture (audio going into a
SoundBlaster PCI-128), and using firewire for DV capture.

Maybe the problem folks are having is due to the ATI card. I've found
their video input to be quite unacceptable and their drivers and software
to be absolutely useless. I also had the same problems using their
All-In-Wonder card.

Many, many, many users have reported problems with ATI hardware and software, and this problem is not specific to Sonic Foundry products (check out any media production-related forum and you'll see the same thing).

I'm not saying their stuff is bad, but you might want to consider other options if you can.

Please remember that both Vegas and VideoFactory work GREAT with DV. If you can afford a DV camera, there is NO better format for our video tools.

Thanks for both of your replies. I'm glad to hear
that segmented AVI analog capture does work because
Video Factory is a good product overall.

So the technical questions are:
1) What event causes the next AVI file segment
to be created and written to?
2) Do you count written disk bytes, read filesize,
count bytes given back by the video driver,
or use some other method of determining
bytecount - maybe estimated time?
3) At what bytecount would cause the next AVI file
segment to be created and written to?
4) Since ~4 gigs of data are written and probably
is the cause for the capture to stop, there
must be a discrepancy between the byte counter
and the actually number of bytes written to
on disk. So what would cause the difference?
5) If not 4), maybe its just too close to the
4 gig limit that it can't complete the current
write? Because of partition cluster size?
Or something along those lines?
6) Win98 windows explorer still works using
signed long - so files over 2 gig can not
be copied someplace else. So how about adding
a simple patch to allow the size to read in
from an INI file.

Just trying to understand for some people this
feature works and others it doesn't.

Thanks,

John Toops

Just to make it clear ... i agree that this is an ATI problem and certainly
not an SF video capture problem. I've tried over half a dozen pieces of
capture software and all produce poor results with the ATI cards, or
refuse to work at all. Even ATI's own capture software doesn't create
files worth using. However, all the software i've tried works well with
the Hauppauge WinTV card (except for ATI's software, which can't be
configured to use the other card ... go figure).

To give ATI their due though, they do make a very nice video card. The
output is very sharp and clean, the NTSC analog output is very bright
and clear. It's also very difficult to beat their prices. I've just decided
to live with separated capture and output cards for now.

This is parenthetical to the topic, but I have a Matrox Rainbow Runner G Series analog capture card and *never* use it anymore. If I want to capture something, I'll do it using the record function of my sony digital 8 recorder's VTR mode, and then transfer it to computer via firewire. The camcorder's capture is far superior than any consumer analog capture card, I'd imagine. Plus there is much less worry about dropped frames. My advice - if you have a digital camcorder and an analog capture card, throw the latter out.

-Jeremy

I have a Osprey 200 and I get the same behavior. The maximum clip size option does nothing for me. No matter what I set it to it just goes right past it and ends up hitting the 4GB limit.