Dropping Frames like crazy

steveandbelinda wrote on 5/30/2009, 6:19 PM
On my one computer I am using V6.0 and on the other VP8. But on the one that has V6, I have always used my Sony HandyCam TRV720 to get my footage from with no problem capturing. Now I have HandyCam HDR-HC5. The problem is that when I try to capture from this camera, sound is choppy and I am dropping frames like crazy. For example just for last footage I captured, I had almost 800 dropped frames. I would try to blame it on something else like internet or something, but that don't fly because someone told me on a Vegas forum that they always use WinDV for capturing. I can use WinDV, and perfect each time, and I could just use that, but that doesn't fix Vegas.

Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 5/30/2009, 6:51 PM
ONE dropped frame is too many. It almost always means that either your PC or hard disk can't keep up with the DV data from the camera.

I have never used the Vegas capture, preferring to use Scenalyzer. Well, I did use Vegas capture once, and it worked fine.
farss wrote on 5/30/2009, 7:04 PM
Scenalyzer will not capture HDV. I'm assuming that's what Steve is trying to capture from his HC5 but it'd be good to know that for certain. Also good to know how the camera is setup for capture and how Vegas is being used to capture. There's quite a range of options involved and that needs to be sorted out first. I should include a question about using virgin tape as well.


Bob.
steveandbelinda wrote on 5/30/2009, 7:36 PM
Actually I am capturing in DV not HD. The cameral is setup to record in DV, as well as playback in DV. I AM using a tape that I recorded over, as I never did that before. All hard drives have been defragmented. I spoke too soon about not dropping frames in WinDV. I just captured about 10 min,. and dropped about 300 frames. I did have my spysweeper software as well as two others running also. (Not actually running their sweep, just not disabled.
farss wrote on 5/30/2009, 8:43 PM
So long as the tape has only DV in it that shouldn't be an issue unless the tape is worn out.
Seeing as how your problem is not limited to Vegas I'd start to consider trying a new firewire cable, they're the cause of many capture problems.
I'd also make a heroic effort to disable all unnecessary background processes. Which version of Windows are you running?

Can you try the new camera on another system?

Does your older camera still work OK?
If so can you capture the tape recorded on the new camera using the old camera?

Bob.
Steve_Rhoden wrote on 5/30/2009, 8:53 PM
Hi steveandbelinda,
Could be that WinDV recommendation came from me...i always
recommend that little magic. But from even that is dropping frames,
something is really wrong and as farss mentioned, make sure you dont
have anything running in the background or online...i always use
(ctrl+alt+del) to bring up my task manager and view the process tab to see
what maybe running in the background and kill it.
Anyway if all else fail, restart, defrag, clean up and try again.
I use CCleaner to do all my cleaning.
LoTN wrote on 5/31/2009, 5:16 AM
For what it weights:

I faced similar issue while capturing tapes from my A1E in DV format (either downconverted or native). HD footage is always fine.

What I do to fix this is to let the camcorder plugged and reboot the laptop.

With the hope it helps.
Zelkien69 wrote on 5/31/2009, 7:01 AM
Just wandering if you had recorded HDV on the tape previously then tried to record SD? That can often lead to problems.
steveandbelinda wrote on 5/31/2009, 12:50 PM
I want to say no that I didn't try recording HD, because it is a DV tape, not HD. I don't think that you can record HD on plain DV tape can you?