Dropped Frames

serge wrote on 11/18/2003, 8:11 AM
Hi there,

I have just made a decision to go ahead and purchase the Vegas+DVD Package. I feel that I've done my homework, and feel that the package is a great value for what I want to do: delve into recreational recording & learn to throw together multi-media DVD's for friends & family.

Anyways, I am having - what seems to be, a somewhat common problem: upon capture, Vegas Video Capture is dropping frames. I believe the problem is in my usage of the Vegas Video Capture, so I'm looking for some suggestions / answers - specific to the Capture utility.

Here's my setup:
Computer: P4 2.8 (hyperthreading enabled - acts like a 2 CPU system), 1 GB RAM, 2 x 120 GB SATA 7000RPM Hard Drives - one used for System & Apps, the other for Audio/Video recording. NVidea 5800 Ultra based Video board with 128GB Memory, running Windows XP Pro. Firewire Adaptor, M-Audio Audiophile 2496.

Camera: Sony DCR-TRV950 MiniDV camcorder - connected via Firewire.

As some suggested in the forum: I upgraded DirectX to 9.0b & customized Vegas Capture to not provide Audio/Video previews, disabled preview on my camera, disabled the Norton Anti Virus + other background running applications.

None of this helped. I've captured about 50 minutes of video nearly 3500 frames dropped. VVC is dropping consistently a frame every few seconds. This makes for a very jumpy video :(

I do not think it's the camera or the connection to my PC since I can capture the entire video with no frames dropped using Windows XP capture

If anyone have any other suggestions - things that worked for you, please let me know!!

Thank you!

Comments

jetdv wrote on 11/18/2003, 9:04 AM
Well, since my PIII 750MHz can preview video and audio while capturing video without dropping frames, I'm sure that's not the answer.

Check the obvious things:
1) DMA must be turned ON for the hard drives.
2) USB Devices stealing CPU time. May want to unplug ALL USB devices and then add them back one at a time until you start dropping frames again. Then you'll know which one is the problem (like a scanner or printer - my scanner must be OFF)
3) Is the firewire card OHCI compliant? May want to try a different firewire card.
4) All extra programs shut down (antivirus programs, firewalls, ...)

Frenchy wrote on 11/18/2003, 10:27 AM
A couple of things to add to what Ed posted -

Are you certain you are capturing to your media drive (in vidcap, Options-->Preferences-->Disk Management). This one's easy to overlook, and

How full is your capture drive, and has it recently been defragged?

I've got a Dell P3-600 (talk about a dinosaur!), and capture to a couple of different media drives, and will drop an occassional frame, but not to the extent you are. So, in summary, it is probably a setup issue. You may also want to check out videoguys.com. They have some pretty good setup and tweaks that may haelp.

Good luck, have fun, and welcome to the world of Vegas

Frenchy
rebel44 wrote on 11/18/2003, 1:09 PM
At least Vegas see you capture device.No wonder-it is Sony.
You have a plenty of power and no need to disable all other programs.
The only thing I could think of is the swap file interfere with capture. You my by accident try to capture to system drive. With 1G of memory- I would disable the swap file.
johnmeyer wrote on 11/18/2003, 1:46 PM
Click here to see my previous recommendations:

Dropped Frame Solutions

Let us know, if you fix the problem, what it was that made the problem go away!
serge wrote on 11/19/2003, 7:25 AM
Hey Frenchy, thanks for your suggestions:

Yes, I did specify my media drive - the installer sets up the installation drive by default, so I did have to change it to my media drive.

The capture drive is brand new - just finished building my computer - so it doesn't have anything on it.

Thank you for the suggestion of the videoguys.com web site, I've gone through their Windows XP tunning recomendations.

When all said & done, I'm still dropping frames - it has not dropped. What's weird is that I can capture the entire tape with Microsoft Movie Maker, without a single frame dropped.

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions!
serge wrote on 11/19/2003, 7:29 AM
Hey JetDV, thanks for all the suggestions:

1. All drives are DMA enabled.
2. Tried this, the only thing I had that was USB at the end was my mouse, still no go.
3. Yes, it is OHCI complient, I can capture 100% successfully with Microsoft Movie Maker.
4 Tried shutting everything down - followed the suggestions on videoguys.com to tweak the heck out of XP - still did not help.

I'm running out of ideas - should I just use Microsoft Movie Maker to capture my tapes? Seems like a cheesy way out - since Vegas Capture seems to give you a lot more flexibility, etc...

Thanks for the reply!
serge wrote on 11/19/2003, 7:34 AM
Hey Thanks for the suggestion John!

All the suggestions in these I feel like I tried, the only thing that seems to stand out is that maybe the problem is with the Camera? I wonder how much merit this idea holds considering that Microsoft Movie Capture does not drop a single frame, and every time results in a perfect capture.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions, for now - I'm lost.

:-(

-serge
serge wrote on 11/25/2003, 1:54 PM
Well,

After a few days of hard troubleshooting, I've finally figured out what my problem was: Firewire card.

I had a generic - CompUSA Firewire card. I tried connecting directly to my Motherboard's Firewire port. This immediately stopped the Dropped Frames. Now I can capture a full MiniDV Tape - without 1 single Frame Drop.

I guess add this one to the long list: generic Firewikre cards - may not work. The Comp-USA was a plug & Play OHCI / 1394 IEEE Compliant card, but for some reason resulted in a lot of dropped frames. I also discovered that Vegas Video was not the only application that dropped frames with this Fibercard.

Thanks for everyone's response.