Problems capturing to other than C: drive...

GerryLeacock wrote on 11/11/2003, 7:05 PM
I've added an external 120 gig drive to the 2nd computer which is networked to the main computer.

I try to capture from my TV card (Hauppauge TV Card). I go to Capture Video, which opens the capture screen. From there I hit Options --> Preferences --> Disk Management tab. It shows me the capture location being "C:/Documents and Settings/Gerry/My Video......" I then add the F: drive on the other computer and it says there is a problem.

Yet, before I added the 2nd drive, it said I could capture up to 26 minutes. Now it says I can capture 1hr 20 min. Both drives are checked off. But when I hit OK, it says "Some disk Management options are not properly configured. It may work poorly over a network". Ok, I can live with that, but if I hit OK again, it says "The device Hauppauge WinTV driver could not be opened. In other words, nothing is going to be captured. If I un-check my C: drive, or move the other drive to the top of the list, I get the same thing. Can I capture over a network or not??

2nd question: If I go to the trouble and expense of adding a USB 2.0 card to my computer and then hooking up the external drive to mine, will I get the same error message when trying to capture to it? It seems to want to fill up my C: drive before starting on the external drive. This is, I guess, my main problem.

Running WinXP Home.

Thanks in advance. Gerry.

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 11/12/2003, 9:03 AM
As long as you set up your second hard drive properly, everything should work. (Did you check your BIOS to make sure it recognizes your F drive as your slave? Also, check you Device Manager in Windows to make sure it sees it as a second/slave drive.)

That done, you may want to either re-install Screenblast or let it run its automatic repair and see if that helps.

(Occasionally, I've made the mistake of using another editing program to do some editing and then I've found myself unable to capture properly in Screenblast without running a repair on it.)

Finally, try setting up your F drive as a default for capture and auxiliary files in your Options rather than setting it up manually when you start a new file.

Hope that helps!
Former user wrote on 11/12/2003, 9:04 AM
Is a network able to transfer data fast enough for real time video capture?

Dave T2
Steve Grisetti wrote on 11/12/2003, 9:06 AM

Sorry, Gerry. I read your post too quickly and assumed you were talking about an internal second hard drive rather than an external.

My bad.

Hope someone with my experience than I in that area can help you out.
Chienworks wrote on 11/12/2003, 9:30 AM
10Mbps should just barely be able to handle a low-end MPEG capture, maybe 3Mbps max.
100Mbps can handle a DV capture at 30Mbps
1000Mbps can handle uncompressed captures and hi-def.
Former user wrote on 11/12/2003, 9:38 AM
Thanks Chienworks for that answer. Math is not my strong suit.

Dave T2
GerryLeacock wrote on 11/12/2003, 10:20 AM
OK, here's where it's at now...

My computer:

C: where the video drivers, capture prog, Screenblast, etc is.
D: a small FAT32 20 gig HD for backup purposes only.

Other computer:

C: Yep, it has one.
F: The external HD with "shared" status.

I normally capture to my C: drive. I tried to capture to the other F: drive, but it now says it can't find the video capture drivers.

So I tried to capture to my D: drive, seeing as how it's on the same computer as what it needs to run. Low and behold, it worked. It's a bit choppy playing it from the D: drive, but it will play. It can also be loaded into Screenblast.

Interesting to note that I sent a file over to the F: drive on the other computer and was able to access it from the Media Pool in SB on my computer. So this network thing is working fine - I just can't use the F: drive to capture video.

Next step: Bite the bullet and buy a USB 2.0 card for my computer, and hook up the external drive on my side. If it still doesn't work, back the whole thing goes.

I'll advise on how goes. Thanks to all who suggested ideas here.
GerryLeacock wrote on 11/12/2003, 3:52 PM
I went and bought the USB 2.0 card for my computer. Installed with no problems. Connected the external drive through the USB 2.0 port. Captured 1 minute of video through my TV card. Did it twice to be sure it worked.

In 60 seconds, it dropped 875 frames (on both tries). If there are 29.97 frames/sec, then in a minute there is 1798.2 frames, and it dropped 48.6% of them! I then tried capturing to my C: drive - zero frames dropped in 60 seconds.

I thought USB 2.0 was supposed to be rocket fast. Is this my problem? USB is a bottleneck for the data going on the drive?
jlh wrote on 11/16/2003, 1:04 PM
What USB 2.0 is suppose to be does not always match reality. I'm using firewire Matrox 250GB DV drives on the same firewire chain as my camcorder and haven't dropped a frame yet. I don't close a thing when I capture, surf, music, firewall, etc. For anyone else on this list who is thinking about an external drive, do yourself a favor and at a minimum only buy drives that support firewire/usb like my Matrox and Sony DVD burner. Also, don't putz around with USB for high bandwidth needs.

This machine is a dual boot Win2K/BeOS. I used to do all of my editing/capturing using personalStudio and BeOS. Loved it but it's fallen behind in certain features compared to MS3. I should mention that machine is a dual PIII @600Mhz with Dual Monitors and a total of 1.5 TB of storage. I love this machine very much.