Odd DV capture error

mayberryman wrote on 1/23/2002, 8:21 AM
Once in a while, I get an odd DV capture error while capturing using VV3. The error is..."An error occured while capturing from the device. An invalid argument was specified."

I'm using win98se, dedicated 7200 rpm video hard drive (always defragged), 1 gig ram, 650MHz P3, nothing running in the background, etc. etc. This does not have anything to do with fat32 drives and the 4 gig limit, as VV3 captures long files just fine by creating multiple 4 gig files.

I never lose any frames, the file is saved up to that point, and I can continue on my merry way. This problem is very sporadic. I can capture for a long time (say 45 minutes) without any trouble..then...during another capture I can go for 5 minutes and this error pops up.

Any thoughts as to what is causing this?
Thanks

Comments

deef wrote on 1/23/2002, 10:57 AM
Does you capture automatically stop when this problem happens?
mayberryman wrote on 1/23/2002, 11:53 AM
Yes! Any ideas on what's happening or how this can be eliminated?

Appreciate any help you can provide :)

mayberryman wrote on 1/24/2002, 8:05 PM
SF (deef)...sure am hoping you can help me track this down. The last two times the error has appeared, it has been several hundred MB into the second sequenced capture. I'm using win98se and each file tops out at 4,184,311KB. If it were having trouble staying up to speed, I'd think I'd be losing frames, or perhaps VV3 wouldn't even get the next file created.

But it DOES create the next file and then record several hundred thousand bytes before presenting the error. Still many many GB of empty disk space left. Appreciate any help as this error, while baffling, effectively prevents me from capturing any more than ~19 min of video at a time.
deef wrote on 1/24/2002, 9:43 PM
What type of DV device? Canon?
chewbonkay wrote on 1/25/2002, 5:49 AM
I too have experienced this error with the same unpredictability. I am using Win98se with almost an identical setup to mayberryman.

I thought I had "fixed" this by making sure my Sony DV camera was connected and on when booting into windows. (I also sometimes get an error with something about a communication problem). My errors always seemed to occur at about 6-8 minutes into the capture. Recently though I had it happen at around 15:00.

I rebooted and was able to capture a 30+ minute clip with no problems. It really does seem sporadic.
mayberryman wrote on 1/25/2002, 7:57 AM
No, it's a Sony. And sporadic it is. Just after I sent my previous post, I captured over 1 hour flawlessly. I can't discern a pattern. Please note this is not a frame dropping situation...I never have trouble with that..it's just this mysterious error...which stops the capture at that point. Sorta frustrating to set it up for a long capture, and come back in an hour to find out it died at 25 minutes.

I'm inclined to believe my rig is capable (7200 ide dedicated video (>20 gig free), dma on, no background tasks, win98se, 650MHz PIII, Asus P3B-f mb, running VV3 (and, as noted above, have had success in >1 hour captures)
Cheesehole wrote on 1/25/2002, 8:37 AM
which camera / 1394 Adapter do you guys have?
mayberryman wrote on 1/26/2002, 10:35 AM
sony dcr-trv320 ntsc / dazzle 3 port firewire with TI chips (don't really know how to tell who actually made it for dazzle)
mayberryman wrote on 1/28/2002, 8:42 AM
sf..deef..anyone...have we run dry on this? Anyone else experiencing this error?
mcwill wrote on 1/28/2002, 4:30 PM
I experience two errors trying to capture.

1) Capture terminates as though stop capturing had been pressed. Preview continues playing behind finished capture dialog.

2) The same error as you are experiencing. Device disappears and I have to unplug/replug the firewire cable to make the DV-in device availale again.


My hardware - Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge and a two port Dazzle firewire card.

Problem 1) as I understand it is to do with timecodes getting confused. Every 3-5 mins the timecode resets to zero which then makes the VV3 Capture utility think that it has dropped hundreds of frames. This I understand will be fixed in the forthcoming update.

Problem 2) I had always assumed to be a problem with my AV/DV Bridge. Maybe not?

Iain
mayberryman wrote on 1/29/2002, 11:59 AM
This is VERY interesting. My problem sounds more like your first problem...my device doesn't disappear...it merely stops capturing and gives me the (cryptic) invalid argument error. I can begin recapturing without having to re-connect to the device. It's especially interesting since my IEEE-1394 card is a 3-port card from Dazzle as well. So now I'm wondering...could it be some flakiness inherent to the Dazzle card(s)?

Where did you pick up the info about the time codes confusion, and it being solved in the update?

SF techs...any thoughts on this?
mcwill wrote on 1/29/2002, 3:40 PM

See this earlier thread, specifically the first response from deef.

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=85737&Page=0

Iain
mayberryman wrote on 1/30/2002, 8:11 AM
well...i'm waiting for the update to be posted...not thrilled with installing other demo software and then uninstalling it just to get the update...with my luck...too many things can go wrong.

I'm 'hoping' that the update cures my ills...but i'm not very confident :( In the posts/threads you referred to I notice that a poster went with a Sony digicam for analog/dv conversion. That is exactly what I'm doing as well.