Grisetti,

Your right I have 512meg Corsair XMS PC-3200 (Twin Pack) DDR. Thanks for the input, and I will download SpyBot and give that a try cause spyware never occured to me, but that could very well be a problem. Also for capture I'm using my MSI GeForce TI 4400 VIVO and the video plays back ok and seems to be in excellent quality and sound is in sync, but in a 1:25min capture VideoFactory shows about 30 dropped frames. Before I got my DVD burner I was capturing at 352x240 and then making the movie in mpeg1 and burning to CD as a VCD which worked great with no dropped frames during capture. Anyway I will try your suggestions and post back latter.
Thanks again for the help

Lonn

Lonn--

Just one more thought on dropped frames.

I had some problems last year, but found out they were related to the fact that I had two computers networked together. Even when only one is on, they "ping" each other, interrupted intense workloads like importing and exporting DV.

The solution was to use the Device Manager to disable my network card. It made all the difference in the world and, once you enable it again, the network connects without your having to re-install anything!

Related to that, do you have a DSL or cable modem connection to the Internet? Remember, you are "always on" with these connections, and spyware and other programs may be "pinging" or sending out messages in the background.

If so, use the Device Manager to disable your modem while you're working. As before, this doesn't do anything to the software you have installed, and you can turn it back on simply by enabling the hardware again.

Whatever you find, please let us know. It could help someone else.

Take care.

Probably some very good advice here. Thanks Grisetti - I had not even considered the "distractions" an operating NIC passes on to a computer's CPU! My computer runs Windows XP, so I utilized MSCONFIG, Startup tab, to de-select pretty much everything that loads at startup. But MSCONFIG doesn't control the NIC and I hadn't thought about the NIC at all. (To get to Microsoft's MSCONFIG mini-app, click Start, click Run, type msconfig, then click OK.)

By the way - for those wondering what "Device Manager" is - go to Control Panel, double-click on System to pull up the System Properties window, click on the Hardware tab, then click on the Device Manager button. In Device Manager, locate Network Adapters and expand that branch (if necessary) by clicking on the (+). The Network Interface Card (NIC) is what you are after. The item labelled "1394 Net Adapter" is your FireWire connection, so make sure to leave that alone.

Once you locate the NIC, bring up its properties by double-clicking. On the General tab locate a pull-down with the heading "Device useage." Click the down-arrow and select "Do not use this device (disable)." REMEMBER - as soon as you disable the NIC, you will lose your connection to the Internet. So make sure to complete any pending forum posting or downloads or e-mails, etc., before disabling your NIC.

I know probably most of you already knew how to get to a NICs "Device useage." But at the firm in which I work as an IT manager, I am very used to explaining computer concepts day in and day out for everybody's benefit, so it is just in my nature I'm afraid!

One last thing about extracting the last iota of power from your computer -

If your computer is running Windows XP and is slower than 800 MHz (or so) I HIGHLY recommend disabling System Restore. System Restore IS is a very powerful and extremely handy utility bundled with Windows XP. But it does rob your computer of power. I routinely disable System Restore on all computers 500 MHz and slower in my firm. (If they performed video editing, I would probably disable it regardless of the computer's speed.)

To switch off System Restore -

Go back into System Properties (as previously described), click on the System Restore tab, place a check mark by "Turn off System Restore."

WARNING - Before you install any questionable piece of software, DO re-enable System Restore and leave it enabled until you are sure the new piece of software is okay.

While you are in System Properties, I would also recommend disabling Automatic Updates. This is less an issue of robbing CPU power than one of potentially crashing your computer - as has happened twice in my firm (and which rendered the computers completely unbootable in both cases, requiring a complete rebuild from the ground up). Also - it can't do be doing video editing software any favors by trying to update your computer in the background.

For many reasons, it is better to just turn off Automatic Updates and, instead, make regular visits to the Windows Update web site and manually download and install any necessary updates. (You should have a Windows Update icon somewhere in the Start Menu for this purpose. If not, go to http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp and, once there, drag an icon for that web site to your desktop.)

If you're going to disable the NIC on a regular basis you can define a new h/w profile that doesn't include it. Once it's disabled you can turn off your firewall and av s/w, too.

Ian G.