Dropped Frames -Capturing video with ADVC110

dan-hedrick wrote on 1/14/2007, 2:36 PM

I recently purchased a Canopus ADVC 110 to capture VCS tapes to my PC hard drive (into Sony Movie Studio v6. It seems to try to capture, but it indicates about have of the video has "dropped frames". I have 1 G of memory so I think I have plenty of memory.
The instruction book indicates that the "DIP switches should by default should be: 1,3,4,5,6 in the OFF position and 2 is the only one in the ON position. My unit has 2 and 5 in the ON position. Position 5 in the ON position is for NTSC Set up and for PAL/SECAM in the OFF position. I'm confused on what this means and wonder if I should change 5 to the OFF position. OR...maybe I have other problems. Any suggestions on how to eliminate the "dropped frames" would be appreciated.

ALSO...one more thing...my pc does not seem to recognize the ADVC 110...although it seems to capture the VCS tape with dropped frames....?????? HELP!!!!!

Thanks
lcdrdan

Comments

ScottW wrote on 1/14/2007, 6:32 PM

Memory isn't important in this case as much as the speed of your hard disk. If you have a single disk on your system, that could well be the source of your dropped frame problem. Generally you should be capturing video to a different disk than your system disk.

The second most common problem is the capture utility provided by Sony. While many here have no problems with it, IMO it's very, very picky about any number of things. I would try downloading Scenalyzer and seeing of you have the same issue with dropped frames. www.scenalyzer.com

As for the PAL/NTSC setting, it depends on where you are. If in North America you want NTSC. For most of Europe, it's PAL.

Not sure about your PC not recognizing the ADVC - normally when you plug it in via firewire, windows should see it and ask what application you want to launch to interact with it.

--Scott

dan-hedrick wrote on 1/15/2007, 5:20 AM

Thanks, Scott:
I am in Nebraska, USA...so I will change the DIP switch setting to allow for that. I will also try to capture to another hard drive than my C drive (system disk). Thanks for the help....I really appreciate it.

However....I may be back if I still have problems..

lcdrdan

Paul Mead wrote on 1/15/2007, 9:05 AM

Following on Scott's reply, the most likely cause is some bottleneck on your system. For one thing, you shouldn't need to tweak the DIPs at all if you bought the ADVC110 for NTSC (it will be marked on the box). Don't frig with the Canopus box unless you already did and need to put things back to the way they were.

Tell us more about your system. That is, CPU speed, disk RPM, for starters. Is there anything else running on the system while you are capturing? If you get a blip of activity on your system during a capture you are at high risk of dropping frames.

This topic has been hashed over many times, so you can glean lots of hints by searching this forum or other sites (like VideoHelp.com, for example).

dan-hedrick wrote on 1/15/2007, 10:05 AM

I changed the DIP switch (#5) to OFF which reflects NTSC. I also downloaded Build 126 for Movie studio. I tried to capture a VHS video of my daughter's wedding. When I push "Play" the video shows on the PC great, but when I push "Capture" the video "jerks" and I get a lot of dropped frames. When I stop, I get the message..."Capture completed with dropped frames."

I am connected from my VCR with two composit video cables (one video, one audio) to the ADC 110 and then from the output of the ADVC to the PC via firewire.

My computer specs are: Dell 8300, Windows XP home edition (SP2), Processor Pentium 4, 2.8 GH, 80 GB Hard drive (with 9.3 GB free space), a second hard drive 160 GB (very lightly loaded). Memory: two 512 MB DIMM (total 1 GB). NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 Display adapter. DirectX 9.0C.

I also tried to find "scenanalyzer" as suggested by Scott above...but I just got the French web page...with no information on this software? Is this something I should pursue further.... Is it a free download, etc.?
Any suggestions on hot to capture VHS without dropping frames would be greatly appreciated.. (MY wife has been very patient about me buying "more toys" such as the Canapus ADVC 110.

Thanks, in advance.

lcdrdan

rustier wrote on 1/15/2007, 12:10 PM

I doubt you ADVC is the problem. Those units are rock solid. I would bet the problem lies in the way your hard drive(s) are set up or a resource conflict. I recall this happening to another person who had to change the dma setting (I think) on there secondary drive. Did you install your second drive yourself?

Have you tried capturing a short clip to the main drive - and then a short clip to the secondary drive?

You didn't say to which drive you were capturing - or did I miss that?

Have your tried capturing with windows movie?

Have you gone to your system manager to see if there are any hardware conflicts? Do you have any more firewire ports?(being used?) Are you using an add on firewire card or a Dell card? Dell can be tricky with upgrades due to their "proprietary" methods - (they remind me of the ole Packard Bell days)

ScottW wrote on 1/15/2007, 5:40 PM

It's www.scenalyzer.com not what you tried (scene analyzer).. They do have a trial download. The reasonable purchase price is worth the investment. Frankly I think the capture app with Vegas and VMS is a waste of time and disk space.

Canopus products are very stable, so there's likely something on your system causing you grief with the VMS capture app (assuming it's not acting up just to act up). Another area to check would be if your disk drives are configured to use PIO transfers rather than DMA. Your hardware manager can tell you how things are set up.

I've got a windows 2000 system that just today was doing a capture from an ADVC 300 via Scenalyzer while I was authoring a DVD using DVDlab Pro, and a second system was pulling data via the network off a disk on the W2K system to burn a DVD (in fact, off the same drive that was being used for capture) and not a single dropped frame in the entire capture of 1 hour 15 minutes. I can't even get Vegas capture to work on this system.

--Scott

dan-hedrick wrote on 1/16/2007, 1:26 PM

Thanks, Scott et al....
Sorry for not responding earlier....I've been experimenting.
I did manage to capture my VHS tape to Windows Movie Maker as suggested by rustlier and then import it to Vegas Movie Studio. But...I hate to operate this way with the extra steps...unless I have to. I would prefer to capture and edit in Vegas Movie Studio....(I'm lazy, I guess).
Scott...You said I should check how my disk drives are congifured PIO vs DMA. Please explain what PIO and DMA are and tell me how to find out (please be very basic)....and How they should be configured.
I really appreciate you all "baby sitting with me" on my problem.

Thanks a million...

lcdrdan

ScottW wrote on 1/16/2007, 3:15 PM

If you were able to capture with movie maker, it says to me that this is a situation where the VMS capture utility is just screwing up. It still won't hurt to check your drives.

Start/My Computer - right click, select "manage" from the drop down; click "device manager", then expand the "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" entry. Double click the "primary IDE Channel" entry. Click the "Advanced Settings" tab and make sure it says for transfer mode "DMA if available" for any devices there - also note if the current mode is not DMA or Ultra DMA. Repeat this for the secondary controller.

Personally, I'd work on accepting the fact that the capture utility with VMS is being a pain and either use Movie Maker to capture or Scenalyzer (which has lots of other nice features you may come to like).

--Scott

dan-hedrick wrote on 1/18/2007, 5:37 PM

Thanks ScottW:
I did as you suggested and got the following results:
Primary IDE: Device 1: Current Transfer Mode = Ultra DMA Mode 5, Device 2: Current Transfer Mode = PIO Mode (with no option to change.
Secondary IDE: Device 1: Current Transfer Mode = Ultra DMA MOde 2, Device 2: Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2.

I'm sorry but I have to ask a few dumb questions here....
What is DMA?
What are the "Controllers" (IDE1 and IDE2)
Do I need to change which controller I use to capture in VMS?

I appreciate your patience in helping me with this.

lcdrdan

ScottW wrote on 1/19/2007, 6:54 AM

DMA = Direct Memory Access; PIO = Programmed I/O. PIO mode involves the CPU extensively when transfering data from the disk drive, DMA mode sets things up so the drive controller can transfer data directly from the drive into computer memory with very little CPU involvement. PIO = slow, DMA = fast.

IDE1 & 2 are your drive controllers. Each controller can normally handle 2 devices. Your system looks to be normal as far as setup goes.

If you are capturing to your system disk, you should change your capture destination to a different disk.

--Scott

dan-hedrick wrote on 1/19/2007, 7:11 AM

Thanks...I really appreciate your help. It's nice to know that we can find help in these forums, instead of having to depend on the manufactuer. Although, I'll have to admit that I had great luck with HP on a problem. Can't say that I've had good luck with Adobe Photoshop Elements....

lcdrdan