Capture stopped due to unexpected error

Lonn wrote on 6/27/2003, 9:11 PM
My operating system is Windows XP Home Fat 32. When I Start a capture from analog camcorder to Video Factory DV-AVI 720x480 the capture aborts at 4.1Gig every time, and says "Capture stopped due to unexpected error". Could this be due to Fat32 size limit? Do I need to convert my harddrive to NTFS? Also, the aborted AVI plays fine but the 4.1gig file is only about a 3.5 min. capture. At that rate about 10.5 min. of captured video from my camcorder will be 12.3gig in size. I want to capture my video from my camcorder at the best quality and then put it on DVD's to play on TV with my hometheater DVD. Am I using the right capture format or am I doing something wrong in the capture process? I plan to use Sonic MYDVD to do the authoring.

Thanks, Lonn

Comments

discdude wrote on 6/27/2003, 10:40 PM
Sounds like the 4GB FAT 32 limit.

Do you have Video Factory 2.0? Video Factory 2 supports segmented files. In other words, when you hit the 4GB limit Video Factory 2 should just create another file and keep on capturing.

However, Video Factory 1 does not support segmented files.

The reason Video Factory creates such big files when capturing from certain analog capture devices is because it doesn't support (real-time) software recompression. Unfortunately, there is no way around this other than to use another program for capturing or investing in a capture device with hardware compression (like the Canopus ADVC-100).
Lonn wrote on 6/28/2003, 1:34 AM
Yes, I do have Video Factory 2.0c. Is there an option I need to check in order for it to split the files or should it do so automaticly? I am capturing from a GeForce4 Ti4400 which captures a very good picture but it sure creates a large file in DV-AVi. When the capture stops due to the error the file is exactly the same size each time, thats why I was thinking it might be Fat 32 size limit, but I don't find an option to check in order to split the files up.

Thanks, Lonn
laz wrote on 6/28/2003, 2:47 AM
VF 2 will capture automatically so there's nothing you have to do.

Try changing the driver in your capture card and make sure it's the latest version.

I'm not sure what you mean on the fat32 issue as xp is NTSF by default and if you've changed your hd to fat32 you'll get other problems too.
discdude wrote on 6/28/2003, 8:46 AM
Actually, FAT32 is default for XP Home. Furthermore, while you can use NTFS with XP Home, it doesn't support all the additional NTFS features that XP Pro supports (not that it matters for home users though).

Lonn, fire up Vidcap. Go to "Options" and select preferences. Under the "Disk Management" tab make sure:

1) (Sorry to ask but ...) Make sure you have enough disc space in your capture folder.
2) Make sure that the Max DV clip size box is checked.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 6/28/2003, 10:10 AM
...or just convert the drive to NTFS. Problem solved. If you are using XP Home there is no reason to use FAT32 unless you dual boot with another operating system that doesn’t support NTFS or you have DOS games that you boot from a DOS floppy disk. I just upgraded to XP Home from WinMe this week and the first thing I did was convert all my drives to NTFS. Goodbye FAT32.

Also, NTFS is a journaled file system. When your system crashes (and it will), NTFS can reconstruct your files based on journal entries that it keeps while its updating files, whereas FAT32 can just truncate and fix bad pointers but your files are still destroyed or lost. You will also get better performance because the NTFS allocation tables are structured more efficiently that FAT does.

In short, if you’re using XP Home or Pro and you’re not using NTFS you are cheating yourself out of a big advantage of that operating system.

~jr
Lonn wrote on 6/29/2003, 1:54 AM
Thank, much for all the info. I think I will convert to NTFS. Is there an option within Windows XP Home that will convert the file system to NTFS or do I need to buy Partition Magic or some other disk management program in order to convert?

Thanks, Lonn
laz wrote on 6/29/2003, 3:16 AM
If you invest in Partion Magic it'll be one of the best investments you'll make. It can convert fats32/ntfs, resize/merge partitions, create b/up hd's and all without loss of data.

BTW I didn't know 'Home' was fat32 by default, but it'll probably work better with ntfs.
discdude wrote on 6/29/2003, 8:27 AM
No, you shouldn't need Partition Magic. It's handy to have, especially if you are buying new hard drives, but not necessary.

Typing "CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS" (where you replace [driveletter] with the appropriate drive letter, e.g., C:) in the command line or "Run" box will work.

You will need Partition Magic if you want to convert NTFS back to FAT32 however.
Lonn wrote on 6/29/2003, 9:26 PM
Thanks everyone for the information. Been a big help.

Lonn