Dropped Frames

xtime wrote on 7/29/2004, 9:17 AM
I use a Pyro A/V Link Capture device connted through my Firewire port on my 800 Mghz Sony Vaio. The IDE is set to Ultra DMA, I defragged the drive, unplugged the WAN and the drive is a second physical drive, although on the same drive chain.

I needed to get some footage off of some old (7 Years) VHS for a project. When I used Vegas 5.0a's capture utility, I got tons of dropped frames. In fact, Vegas 5 would choke on it if I tried to bring it into a project.

However, if I used the sofware bundled with the Pyro, Ulead Studio 7(Not worth much as an editor), I got perfect captures with no dropped frames. I can then import into Vegas 5 for editing and rendering and everything is fine.

I would love to know why the Vegas Capture utility is choking so bad, any ideas?

Thanks,

Dave

Comments

B.Verlik wrote on 7/29/2004, 11:46 PM
This may not be too much help. I use the 'datavideo DAC-100', and I have a problem with dropped frames too. The only place where I drop frames, is where two sections of video are joined together, on the vhs tapes, or whereever you have a bad spot on the vhs tape. The same thing happens when I transfer Hi-8 tapes too. If theres a portion on the tape where the camera was shaken too much, I get dropped frames. This is a nuisance, but I just edit them out and I'm fine. But it does seem extra sensitive. Everyone seems to agree, that the way to go with these converters is to use the Canopus ADVC-100. I have no experience with this unit and can't tell you if it will work any better, as far as dropped frames go. I wasn't aware that it was a problem with Vegas Vid, though.
laurihof wrote on 8/5/2004, 3:31 PM
I bought that unit and am having the same problem (700-800 dropped frames in one minute!). ADS told me to ship it to them for a fix flash (another poster mentioned that). I will try capturing with Ulead though and see if they drop.

I used Pinnacle (yuck!) for my captures, but had to do too much rigging to get it acceptable to Vegas, so I bought the Pyro and an Adaptec firewire expansion card for my notebook. After the Pyro drops, I connected my MiniDV to the firewire card, and still got 600+ dropped frames in one minute. I just bought a D8 to use as a capture device for my analog captures, as suggested by another poster, but have not tried it yet.

You mention the DMA, and I've seen that before, but I go to properties in Device Manager and can't find anything about DMA. How do you check that?

Also, I had to reformat my hard drive because of a pesky trojan, and I think my ADDITIONAL capture problems began then. Is it possible I'm missing some driver or something? PLEASE someone help me. You guys have been a well of information already.
B.Verlik wrote on 8/5/2004, 7:52 PM
To laurihof,
Copy and paste this link:
http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=306&p_created=989816400&p_sid=OgBmf8hh&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD02NzMmcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=









laurihof wrote on 8/7/2004, 1:44 PM
Thanks...I figured it out. I failed to install something after reconfiguring the hard drive. Though it must be something like that since NOTHING I tried would work. I still dropped some frames, but it was only between interviews when the camera shut off and on. The material I needed was flawless. Whew, what a relief! Thanks!
Lauri