Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/27/2011, 6:17 PM
A couple of things could cause dropped frames:

a) The speed of your computer. Though most computers running dual core processors or better have little problem keeping up. (Even a well-tuned Pentium is more than adequate.)
b) Background processes. Depending on which operating system you've got and how many things you've got running in the background, you could well have your capture interrupted by a background process. Windows Indexing, for instance, is one of the first things I turn off.
c) Antivirus or Norton anything. If your antivirus or Norton software stops everything you load onto your computer to see if it's got viruses on it, that causes dropped frames.
d) Capturing to an improperly set up second hard drive. If the second drive on your computer is set up in the operating system but not in your BIOS, you'll get very poor performance and dropped frames, for instance. If your second drive isn't set up as NTFS, you can also have file size problems during capture.

There are others but those are the major causes.

What operating system are you using? How fast is your processor and how much RAM do you have? Are you capturing to your C drive or to another drive? And what antivirus program are you using?
musicvid10 wrote on 10/27/2011, 9:08 PM
If you are capturing to an EIDE (PATA) drive, the most common cause of dropped frames is that DMA is not enabled. You can find it in Device Manager.

The other cause is a dirty or misaligned tape transport or play heads.
garland wrote on 10/27/2011, 11:40 PM
Thanks Steve. I realize now I failed to provide enough specs on the computer. It is a quad core i7 930 2.80 Mhz, with 16 GIG RAM, and the video was captured to a second internal drive. There were no other programs running. McAfee is the antivirus program.

Now, I may have found the problem, but have I? I re-captured the video using a different camcorder and it captured with zero frame drops. BUT, it was capturing to the C drive rather than the second drive (drive I). I am new to Windows 7 and I thought I was capturing to drive (I), but it was actually capturing to drive (C).

SO, was the camcorder the problem, or was drive (I) the problem? I really think it was the camcorder because I have captured HDV footage to drive (I) before with no problem.

Thanks much for the help.
garland wrote on 10/27/2011, 11:42 PM
Thanks musicvid. I re-captured the footage using a different camcorder and it captured with zero frame drops, so I believe that was the problem.

Thanks for the help.
Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/28/2011, 8:29 AM
Also, make sure your second hard drive is set-up in the BIOS as well as in the operating system!

To do this, start your computer and press ESC or F1 or whatever it says to do on the logo screen to enter the Set-Up. If your hardware isn't set up in here, you will ge greatly reduced performance.

And, as mentioned above, also make sure DMA is enabled, and that the drive is formatted NTFS rather than FAT32 (as they come from the factory). I also recommend turning off Indexing. (Open Computer, right-click on each drive and select Properties to see the option.)

With the hardware set-up you have, you should have no problems capturing over FireWire from any camcorder, if it's properly set up and you don't have any annoying Norton interference.
garland wrote on 10/28/2011, 12:14 PM
I will enter Set-Up and check it there. The screen goes by so fast I haven't yet caught what key to press to enter Set-Up.

Both drives are formatted NTFS. I will turn off Indexing as you suggest. Will I notice anything different after doing so?

How do I enable DMA?

Thanks much, I appreciate the help.
musicvid10 wrote on 10/28/2011, 12:17 PM
DMA only applies to EIDE drives, not SATA.
It is in the drive's properties in Device Manager.
The exact way to get there depends on your OS.
A google will tell you exactly how to get there for your particular OS.
Markk655 wrote on 10/28/2011, 2:37 PM
Just checking....Are you sure that you are using firewire to capture? Your computer appears to be new and they don't usually have firewire ports unless you add them in. By any chance are you using?
garland wrote on 10/28/2011, 4:58 PM
Yes, definitely capturing via firewire. I have both firewire 400 and 800 ports.
DocSatori wrote on 10/29/2011, 11:00 AM
It sounds like you discovered the solution to the original posted problem. Still, just to add I was doing almost the same thing with similar hardware. I kept having dropped frames and thought it was because I was routing input via firewire through my computer to output to an external hard-drive. I decided to save the videos - about 100 five to twelve minute long videos - directly to my computer hard-drive and copy to my external drive(s) later. I found out while copying from my computer to the external hard-drive via firewire, one of the firewire ports had a tolerence that was too loose i.e. the male jack was not making a snug fit. I moved the same jack running to the external drive over to another firewire port on the same card, and later had no problems saving directly from my Sony digital HD videocassette recorder, through my computer to the external hard-drive. (I was using the SONY VMS capture application instead of trying to send directly to the external hard-drive.) Moral being, it could be just a simple loose firewire jack to port connection sometimes. In fact, I've had terrible luck with loose firewire connections and use USB 3.0 connections whenever possible for data transfer. But, sometimes with older video hardware, firewire is the only option.