Dropped Frames with VV 4.0D

RonR wrote on 8/29/2003, 12:57 PM

I recently upgraded to VV 4.0 D and have started having problems with dropped frames. I looked back a long way in this forum and didn't see any complaints about this problem so I am wondering is just me that is having it. Throughout this time I have been using the same computer with no changes to it. It has a P4 1.5g, 512 Mb RAM, 7200 RPM UDE hardrives.

I had been using VV 3.0 for about six months and never had a dropped frame problem. Then I upgraded to 4.0 A and did notice the DF counter at 1 & 2 occaisionally, but I was not aware of any effect on the finished video. A week ago I upgraded to VV 4.0 D and have had nothing but dropped frames ever since. I find this ironic because in the list of improvements was something about "fixed dropped frame bug".
Everything seems to go fine for the first minute or two of a capture session, then the occaisional frame is dropped. Then 1 or two frames are dropped about every 1 to 5 seconds. Eventually at about four minutes into the session it is dropping 5 to 10 frames each time. I did once see the counter at 55 dropped frames, but that was a week ago when I first set up 4.0 d and I didn't take note of the circumstances. This, at first sight would suggest to me that the computer is being overloaded in some way, but I don't think so. I have captured 20 minute downloads from the same D8 camcorder before with no problem.

Thanks for any help
RonR

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RonR wrote on 9/19/2003, 7:08 PM

Thanks for the overwhelming response, guys. I think the problem has been solved. My computer friend, and I, read all the postings to this thread and thought the first and easiest approach would be to lessen the inputs into the CPU. I first of all completely disconnected all USB inputs into the computer and tried a capture. No dropped frames in three minutes! I then tried a lot of stops and starts and jiggling the mouse around. No dropped frames! I then let it run for ten minutes with a lot of mouse movement and included 77 clips of all kinds(still shots, rapid camera movement, etc.) and again no dropped frames. I checked the Task Manager CPU Usage window and the usage had dropped from better than ninety percent to one hundred percent for much of the time previously to 30 to 60 percent now. This looks like success to me! I will check it again on a real project tomorrow.
Thanks again to everybody who responded, and I hope it helps other people having the same problem.

RonR

rmack350 wrote on 9/19/2003, 8:30 PM

Would love to know what device was the culprit. One item or maybe all the USB gadgets in concert?

Rob Mack

rmack350 wrote on 9/19/2003, 8:33 PM

Oh yeah, Congratulations!

We'll all have a beer for you. (Or a non-alcoholic beverage if you like)

Rob

RonR wrote on 9/19/2003, 9:53 PM

Yes, I would like to know the culprit myself. I still feel a little uneasy because after all the suggestions made, and the things my computer friend tried, that was too easy. Also, it doesn't make sense because at the computer shop we didn't connect any USB devices, but we definitely had hundreds of DFs shown there. I have my fingers crossed that VV4 behaves itself when I use it tomorrow.
Thanks again, everybody. Have a virtual beer on me.

RonR

CrazyRussian wrote on 9/19/2003, 10:48 PM

RonR, please keep us posted

rmack350 wrote on 9/20/2003, 1:58 AM

The mouse activity was sounding vaguely familiar but from something many years ago. Might have been a mouse on a serial port conflicting with another serial device that time.

Hope you find out.

Rob

RonR wrote on 9/20/2003, 1:48 PM

Rob,

I tried three different mice, two on the serial port, one with the round connector (not sure what that is called) but they all acted exactly the same. My computer friend thinks that I have more than the average number of boards and devices sharing interrupts and one may be getting overloaded at times. At a later date we will check through them all to see if we can streamline them a little.

I will keep you all posted how things progress.

RonR

RonR wrote on 9/20/2003, 6:46 PM

Well! I don't know what to say. This afternoon I sat down to do some serious work on my project and I got the same old dropped frame problems from VV4. I started capturing and within a second it was showing 36 df's. I let it run for a minute and the df's built up by ones and twos and got up to forty something. I then moved the mouse around and they shot up. The final summary showed 2 clips, 173 df's and a time of 1 min. 2 secs. I then tried a second capture which showed zero df's for a while until I again moved the mouse around. The summary for that capture showed 1 clip, 302 df's over 39 secs. I have tried to be as patient as I can, but I am now so PO'd that I am quitting before I start beating the wife, or something worse. It is pretty obvious that VV4 and/or my computer are incompatible in some way. But what is it? I can't keep taking it to the computer shop. That has already cost me nearly as much as the 4.0 upgrade, and he says he has done about as much as he can, anyway.

I guess I'll go back to 3.0 again while I figure out what to do next.

rmack350 wrote on 9/21/2003, 1:06 AM

What exactly do you have in the system? And in what slots, just for yucks?

Have you tried adaware form http://www.lavasoft.de/ ? It's worth a try as it might find things running that you really don't need or want.

Have you tried pulling cards out of your system? Everything but the graphics card and the 1394 card could go. Yes, everything.

Another option would be to pull the cards, swap in a blank spare drive, install windows and then Vegas. This is about as isolated as the problem can get.

Unfortunately, computers aren't simple things and you really need to troubleshoot them. The general method is to elliminate everything first. If the problem goes away start adding things one by one until you find the problem.

Many of us have little or no trouble capturing so I can tell you it's possible to do so. I think that knowing that Vegas usually captures without fault is your starting point

Rob Mack

craftech wrote on 9/21/2003, 7:43 AM

When it comes to troubleshooting problems with an application or trying to ensure that the application runs smoothly the absolute best course of action is to reduce the number of variables. That is why many of us use a dedicated computer to run Vegas. Many people who post problems here and elsewhere in which they are running in to seemingly unresolved problems with a technical program are trying to run said program on a do-it-all computer. That makes resolving the issues much more difficult even for a computer guru. It is unlikely under those circumstances that anyone here will be able to help you (barring a successful wild guess) including SF tech support because of the large number of variables.
After reading through this entire thread I am reasonable sure that you fall into that category. If you have two computers, consider wiping one clean and starting over. One or several devices and/or software combinations are stealing resources away from the capture process and they may be intermittent. A system resource monitor may verify that statement but will still not indicate the source of the problem/s.
I would recommend a dedicated setup for video editing.

John