Dropping Frames...

dhillhouse wrote on 11/4/2004, 10:54 AM
I recently purchased and installed Vegas Movie Studio 4.0 and actually started using it quite well. I created a 20 minuted long video and and all of a sudden when I went to add another clip from my MINI DV camera, frames started dropping right and left. I didnt alter the OS any, or update the MS 4.0 software with any updates, it just started to happen. I investigated with some trouble shooting and tried to turn sound off, nothing happened. I turned preview video off, nothing happened. I moved the capture file for the vid sections I was grabbing, nothing happened. It still drops frames like it going outa style. I mean BAD. Any hints, maybe a reinstall?

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 11/4/2004, 11:39 AM
Most likely the culprit is spyware -- especially if you have an always-on internet connection. (Spyware is using it whether you are or not.)

Definitely download Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy and run them regularly.

If you're still having problems, see if you can find a program called EndItAll. (It used to be free, but may not be any more.) It shuts down all your background programs with a single click. Regardless, make sure you turn off your virus protection during capture and output.

Also, because of the Windows using memory, captures go much smoother right after a reboot than after you've been working a while. And defragging on a regular basis is very important. And, if you can, try to leave about 30 gig of your hard drive free for "scratch files."

Finally, if you haven't already, drop a second hard drive into your computer and use it only to capture and store your video files on -- especially if your computer runs at less than, say, 3 ghz. Hard drives can be had fairly cheaply ($50 and up) and all the cabling you need to install them is already in your computer, so you can install it yourself in about half an hour. Having a video drive means that the data coming from and going to your camcorder won't be bumping into paging files going from your RAM to your C drive -- and that makes a world of difference.

And, if it's something else, we can trouble-shoot. But most likely it's spyware or some other thing running in the backround (like Indexing in Windows XP).
dhillhouse wrote on 11/5/2004, 6:56 AM
Its funny, I did a complete reinstall; even dug it out of the registry, and now it works great again. The only difference is that I reinstalled it on the dedicated 120 gig drive that I have. As far as things running in the background, that can be one of the reasons it happened, it just doesnt seem to be probable. I am running Windows XP Home, so the indexing services may be a reason. I am running NTFS so I also defragged it. However, I did that after I removed the software. That may or maynot help. It just seemed strange that it would be working great one moment, then the next it throws it hands up. The problem really gave me the impression that there was something wrong with the VidCap50.exe program it was using to capture the video. Along with the dropped frames, I started to get program shut down errors and illegal functions errors and such. So thats why I uninstalled it completely.

Thanks for the enditall suggestion, that will really speed up things. Does that program shut down applications that run in the background or does it also shut down processes? On startup, my Windows XP start 34 different processes and no applications. I remove things that I dont beleive need to be in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run folder. That dramatically improves proformance, but doesnt take care of the processes. Sp what does it stop?
Steve Grisetti wrote on 11/5/2004, 9:02 AM
When you start up EndItAll, it shows you every process and application that's running on your computer and, by default, recommends that you leave some (like Explorer) alone.

Beyond that, you just indicate which ones you want to turn off. Naturally, you'll want to experiment a couple of times to figure out which ones you need and which you don't. But, after that, you simply click the EndItAll button, and off they go!

The file is available from PC Magazine at the link below. But it must be pretty popular. They now charge $6 for it -- still a bargain.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1935,00.asp


djcc wrote on 11/5/2004, 5:08 PM

EndItAll download.

But, get it while you can - looks like Ziff Davis has decided to make money from this great little utility that has been freeware for years. Shameless on their part. If I had a subscription to their rag, I would cancel it.