Here is some generic info on dropped frames as well:

Why do I have dropped frames, skipped or “jerky” motion and/or black frames in my captured clips, projects or final *.avi files?
The dropping of frames occurs when the time required for a frame's data to stream through the processor exceeds the real time the frame represents during playback. Video Explosion attempts to compensate for this time difference by dropping frames to "catch-up" to the appropriate real time position.
There are number of reasons for frame loss during capture. Below we have listed a few of the more common solutions.

ENSURE YOU ARE USING THE MICROSOFT DV DRIVER. In Video Capture, the device should be listed on the Video menu as Microsoft DV Camera and VCR.
*We do not recommend installing third party video software as this may install drivers that override the Microsoft DV drivers.

CAPTURE TO A SEPARATE HARD DRIVE. If you have a separate hard drive with more available space than the C: drive, capture your video to the secondary drive.
Recommended: ATA66 running 7200 RPM or faster. Keep these drives defragmented and less than 70% full at all times.

DEFRAGMENT HARD DRIVE. Since hard drives become fragmented over time, it is important to defragment the hard drive on a regular basis.

TURN OFF ALL PROGRAMS RUNNING IN THE BACKGROUND. Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys on the keyboard, then hit the Delete key. This will open the Close Program window. Click on the individual applications listed in the Close Program window and select End Task. The window will close. You'll need to press Ctrl Alt Del again to start the process over again. Do this for all applications listed in Close Programs except Explorer and Systray. These programs will start back up after restart.


TURN OFF THE PREVIEW WINDOW DURING CAPTURING. In the Capture window, select Options and then select Never Preview Video. You will be able to preview it from the camcorder but not from the Video Explosion program.

TRY SETTING "READ-AHEAD OPTIMIZATION" TO NONE. (Right click my computer icon > Properties > Performance > File System). Now click on the Troubleshooting tab and check "disable write-behind caching for all drives".

DO NOT “DAISY CHAIN” If your DV camera is connected to another IEEE-1394 device ("daisy-chained"), the bandwidth of the IEEE-1394 channel may not be sufficient for print-to-tape operations. Connect each device to its own IEEE-1394 port before using print-to-tape.

UPGRADE RAM. If you have less than 128MB of memory in your computer, upgrading RAM (128MB is minimum required) may improve performance to allow capturing with no dropped frames or no audio drop out in Preview mode.

WHEN USING AN IDE DRIVE, ENABLE HARD DRIVE DMA FOR WINDOWS 98 AND ME
To enable DMA on a Windows 98 / Millennium system:

Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and open the System icon.
Click to the next tab called Device Manager.
Open the Disk drives category.
There should be an item called GENERIC IDE DISK TYPExx (xx can be any number)
Highlight this item and click on Properties.
Click on the Settings tab and locate a checkbox called DMA.
Check this option and press OK on the warning box that follows.
Press OK on the Properties box and close the device manager.
Restart the system.

The Dell PC comes with 2 OHCI devices. One of them is on the sound card and the other is a port out the back of the PC. I tried both ports. I even disabled the port on the sound card to see if that would make a difference.

I looked at your second post and tried all of them but the read ahead item. I will try that next.

Thanks

Your disk array is also the OS drive correct?

You might see better performance by breaking one of the disks out of the array and making it a stand alone video capture drive.

While you do have a beefy machine and disk access should not be an issue, it is always best to have a dedicated hd for video capture. (i doubt this is your problem however.)

mmreed is right on the nose -- on both counts!

A second drive dedicated to video will solve more problems than you can imagine!

Also, if you shut off no other background tasks, make sure you at least turn off your virus software. Otherwise, it's scanning everything you port in and occasionally clogging the pipes.

There are other, smaller things that are more troubling in slower machines (e.g., if "indexing" is turned on, the OS is constantly logging every file to speed your searches). But, with your powerhouse, those two adjustments alone should remedy any dropped frames.

Try the second drive and turning off your virus software first, though, and, if you're still having problems, try some of mmreed's more serious measures.

Question? OK, I've added an external hard drive dedicated for video capture, but this is increasing my dropped frame problem. Is this because the external hard drive is connected to my laptop via a USB 1.1? Can I resolve this problem by adding a USB 2.0 adaptor? Are there any other settings I might change. Actually I don't have a dropped frame problem if I use my C Drive, but unfortunately this drive only has about 30 GB of available space. I'd like to use my external which would give me an additional 120 GB.

This is a Dell Inspiron 8200 Pentium 4 1.6 GHz with 256 RAM. Thanks, I just bought the program this week and it appears great, but I have several hours of raw Mini DV footage to edit.