Comments

Nat wrote on 5/2/2002, 11:45 PM
Is DMA activated on the drive ?
This might sound silly but sometimes it's unchecked by default...
psychogenic wrote on 5/2/2002, 11:47 PM
hmm...i'm sort of new at this. could you explain DMA for me and how i might check this?

thank you.
Nat wrote on 5/2/2002, 11:50 PM
Well, basically there are several transfer modes for hardisks, it used to be PIO which was 13 megs per second. They then introduced DMA, which goes from 33 to 133 megs seconds. You drive is probably 66 or 100 which is sufficient. However, the option must be checked. You should go check in the control panel under system. Try to find the device manager in there and see if DMA is activated.
psychogenic wrote on 5/2/2002, 11:53 PM
ok...so this is something that i check in windows as opposed to vegas? remember, this is an external hard drive that i have so i'm not sure that the same rules would apply. i'm looking under device manager and i don't see anything here yet. are you sure that its in here?

thanks.
Nat wrote on 5/2/2002, 11:58 PM
If it's not in the device manager it will be in the drives utility. I assume there are some sort of utility since it's external...
what's the model of the drive ?
psychogenic wrote on 5/3/2002, 12:01 AM
this is a lacie se2100 with firewire.

still can't seem to find out how to make sure this is DMA enabled....

there is no mention of it in device manager or in the driver utility.
Nat wrote on 5/3/2002, 12:05 AM
Since your drive is recent, i would assume it is already DMA enabled, and since it's external I don't think it's an issue.
As for the dropped frames I don't know what can cause this apart from a slow harddisk, you might want to ask if somebody who has a Lacie experiences the same problems
psychogenic wrote on 5/3/2002, 12:06 AM
ok...thanks for your help.
Nat wrote on 5/3/2002, 12:07 AM
Np

how much dropped frames do you get ? ( and from which source do you capture ?)
psychogenic wrote on 5/3/2002, 12:12 AM
i'm capturing from a canon miniDV handheld and i've ended up with as much as 20-30 dropped frames in capturing about 30-40 seconds of footage. ridiculous.
vonhosen wrote on 5/3/2002, 1:51 AM
I alwyas make sure that the drive is defragmented before capture as well, I find this helps.
Zoogie wrote on 5/3/2002, 9:08 PM
I just upgraded to a dual system. Before that I had no dropped frames , after the upgrade to dual athlon 1800 (2GB RAM.etc 200GB video drive etc.) I started getting dropped frames. Turns out it was my network card (built into the mobo Tyan Tiger 2460)
The moment I unplug network cable, there are no dropped frames. (even though on different irq's)
You might want to try that and see.
cheers
Myxo
mdsh wrote on 5/6/2002, 9:33 AM
Excuse me commenting to your message so late.

I have a Lacie 120GB 7200RPM firewire drive. It is easily fast enough to capture DV onto.

But that said, I have a similar problem to you, I am getting about 2 frames dropped per second when capturing DV from my Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge with the VV3a capture software. My system is W2K on a Sony PCG-Z600NE laptop with all drives NTFS and it does not matter whether I capture onto the Lacie FW drive or not. I have watched the processor load and it is never above 50% when capturing.

Previously I had W98 on the same laptop with the same drives and everything worked fine.

If I use the Sony software DVGate (which comes with this laptop) I can capture with no dropped frames.

Therefore I have narrowed my problem down to VV3a capture not working properly on W2K.

I don't think that you have mentioned what OS you are using, but maybe some of my message may give you some pointers.