Is the drive full?

I'm sure you know this already but...If this stuff is critical I would back it up to another hard drive as soon as possible.

NEVER compress a hard drive! NEVER!!

You've discovered why. In order to access the files Windows first needs to uncompress them. This is done on the fly, which probably explains why frames are dropping like crazy.

In the days when hard drives were small and very expensive various compression schemes were common (I used Stacker) but today with the prices of drives so cheap you should never need or want to compress a hard drive.

Advice? Yea, buy a couple new 250 GB or larger drives and uncompress what you compressed and write it off as a lesson learned.

Ok, lesson learned. Never compress a HD. Won't do it again.

How do I uncomrpress the compressed files? Is there a system utility? Can I dump everything on the drive and start over?

Does the VAIO machine have an unused bay for a third HD?

The HD is not full, and I will be picking up a couple of Seagate HDs to replace the C: and D:


I 'm very happy to see the replies. This is a big deal for me and my family. Thanks, guys. Matt, your comment opens my eyes.

Eric

>> How do I uncomrpress the compressed files? Is there a system utility? Can I dump everything on the drive and start over?

Right click the drive from desktop and uncheck "compress drive". I've never compressed a drive so I suspect one of two things will happen:

1) your drive will go nuts for hours uncompressing everything
2) or, more likely, once a file is uncompressed by accessing it, it will stay uncompressed

Get that new drive pronto and copy it over before right away, probably before attempting to uncompress, just to avoid any full drive issues.

Good luck!

- Rick

What happens if the compressed data, once it's uncompressed, is more than the drive can hold?

Hi Rick,

I right clicked but there is no option or box for uncompress on my XP machine. I checked and double checked, only found options to compress the drive.

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks for your patience !!

Eric

If the decompression routine is smart, it will stop and give a warning that it can't go any farther, and you'll be stuck with an extremely fully drive. That's why it's probably better to copy the files to a new drive first. As long as the new drive isn't compressed, the files will be decompressed and stored uncompressed on the new drive.

right click on the drive and choose properties, there is the box to check or uncheck . Never having compressed a drive , if you uncompress I have no idea whats going to happen, as someone else suggested I would back up on another drive before attempting.

Apparently all you have to do is uncheck the compress drive option for the drive in question. Then as you access the files that were previously compressed they will un-compress and stay that way...

The smart approach is to first buy new drives then simply copy the files over. Do it in batches, like certain folders, several at a time, depending on how much you have in each. Windows will automatically decompress when it copies. Be sure you COPY and don't use the move feature. Otherwise if you get into other issues like corruption or some hang during the process or the dreaded write ahead issue the risk while slight (can happen to regualar drives too) avoids damaging any files during the copy process. If you use move then something can go wrong, rare, by no need to risk it. Once everything is copied and you have confirmed it, then you can reformat the older drive and use it for something else.

I second what BB said. Copy EVERYTHING to another drive before you do anything more to your main drive.

DON'T PANIC!
There's probably nothing wrong at all. What I suspect aero has done is let XP Compress Old Files as part of its disk cleanup procedure. I do this pretty regularly and so far not had anything go wrong.
Windoz does this I think based on the Last Accessed date of the file, quite handy if you've got lots of old clients files hanging around on drives.
Now what will happen when you first access them is they'll playback very badly as both the CPU and disk I/O is in a mad scramble unsqueezing the file(s). Once that's over and done with though things will be back to normal, assuming of course there was enough room on the drive for the unsqueezed file(s).
This is quite different to telling Windoz to compress everything on a disk, this was a scheme uStuff came up with long ago which IS fraught with danger but I'm pretty certain that's NOT what aero has done.
Certainly if the stuff is valuable then having another copy on another drive is a very wise move regardless.
Bob.

Hello everyone,

I went ahead and backed up my D: files to a pile of DVDs, then cleared the drive and reformatted.

Explorer no longer runs at a sustained 100%, but the main issue of not being able to capture in Vegas w/o 70 percent of the frames dropping continues.
Playback in Vegas stutters badly, but the problem goes away if I dim the video track. Plays just fine then.
Turning off preview in capture does not make a difference in dropping frames.

In WMP .avi files will not play without serious stuttering

I re-installed Vegas hoping to fix any CODEC problems, but no help there.

I discovered that a driver (SONYDV.dll) is missing. I am flat broke and can't pay a site for a download.

I genuinely appreciate all the responses from everyone. This computer is the key to the next phase of my family's future and I cannot afford to replace it. I meant it when I said this is a critical issue for us. This problem is coming at such a wrong time !

Ok for more help?

thank you,
Eric

I'm confused by your problem.
The video is already on a hard drive, why do you need to capture it again?
Once it's on a the disk how it plays back doesn't matter. All that matters is that you can render it out to a new file, what you're going to do with it from there I don't know as you haven't said but if you're going out to DVD, again nothing needs to be realtime.
Bob.

Check the dropped frame FAQ at VASST:

Dropped Frame FAQ

Have you checked for virus/adware background processes? You can run a scanner (Norton for virus or Adaware or Spybot for adware). You can also do a quick check simply by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and then clicking on the Process tab. Sort by User Name. Look at the processes under your user name. If no applications are currently running, you generall should see nothing running. If you suspect a process, go to Google and type the exact name of that process into the search box and you'll be taken to a site that describes whether that process is legitimate or not.

Glad to hear everythings backed up - computer problems do indeed suck - don't give up :)

I'm kind of confused to - if capturing is the problem but it worked before...

Is some new process running in the background that's sucking resources? You could try "end it all" or some other system stopper utility. Can you capture to your C drive? Is the D drive another, seperate drive?

Any more info yo could give us?

Bob,

The video is still in my camera (VX200). It never was captured due to the frame dropping problem that appeared w/o warning.

It wil be edited and rendered to .avi then submitted to DVD Architect for prep. Then I burn using another utility.
The sale of this film ( a 2-hour feature on professional top fuel drag racing lifestyle) to the client wil pay for admission to grad school for me.
In the 14 months it took to shoot / edit / compose the project, this is he first issue I've ever had with my VAIO or Vegas.

John,
There are no other processes active when I am working with video. I turn them all off. Checking Task Manager is a regular routine for me. CPU time is all zeros save for either system idle, explorer, or Vegas.

I check pretty often with AdAware SE. I will go with your suggestions and use another product to check fo spyware / trojans / etc.

Yoyodyne,

Yes, the C: and D: are separate drives, not partitions on a single drive.
Capturing to C: does not fix the dropped frames.

I will also go to the dropped frams FAQ as suggested.
Eric

Additional info:

When in capture mode in Vegs, image plays fine until I hit the capture button, then the dropping / stuttering begins.

My version is Vegas4.

Computer set to DME, not PIO, on both 1 and 2.

I downloaded an XVid codec to watch a friend's disc he made.
About the same time I mistakenly "compressed old files" on the D: that I use for film work.

Registry scan shows SONYDV.dll missing or broken.

Thanks,
Eric :-)

I'm assuming you meant DMA (DMA 5 if available) for the disks?

I believe XVid is a Divx codec? I've got Divx loaded on my Vaio laptop and have not had problems.

I'd assume you can download the missing codec from this site or a clean install / repair of Vegas should fix that.
How bad are the dropped frames?
I have this happen all the time when capturing from camera tapes which is I assume what you're doing. The frames are only dropped when the camera is buttoned on and off, this is normal as some cameras don't record a clean start and stop.

If it's during the middle of a clip then you sure have a problem. I'm easily able to capture on my old 900MHz VAIO laptop withour any real problems or dropped frames, your machine should eat ip up.

One thing you might try is running VidCap standalone withot Vegas, just to see how it goes and get one more thing out of the equation. You could also try using Windows Movie Maker to capture, again just to see how it goes.

I assume you've checked that the tapes play back fine in the camera, I really hope the answer is they do but it's sure worth a check. If not you might need to try a VCR rather than the camera.

Bob.

Yoyodyne,

Sorry for my typo, it is in fact DMA as you said. My mistake !

Yes, DivX is a VidX codec that allows encoding out-of-sequence b-frames (i.e. IPBB) for huge compression. It is actually MPEG4.
I downloaded M-soft's MPEG4 development CODECs for MPEG4, but then axed them all from my machine after all the problems started.
Personally, I don't think they are a problem either, unless the drivers are conflicting. That is something I don't know how to determine.

Bob,

I will try to find the missing CODEC on this site. Great idea.
I figured that the clean re-install (uninstall first) of Vegas would fix the missing SONYDV.dll, but apparently not. On Google I see that a lot of people with this particular .dll problem are Adobe Premiere users. I have that, and it is way inferior to Vegas, IMO. The only thing I use it for is to de-interlace footage (does a good job at that). Premiere gives you a choice of using the Sony DV encoder, and I think that may be the actual use for the SONYDV.dll file. It doesn't look like it is in a Vegas folder.

The dropped frames begin immediately, and the amount is massive- about 70% of uploaded footage.

I will try to run DV Gate and WMM capture to double check, but last time they were dropping just as bad.

I think the main clue of all is the fact that footage on a Vegas timeline will only play smoothly if the video track is dimmed or deleted. With the video track enable, it stutters just like the dropping frames problem on capture.
It sure is starting to look like some kind of defect or conflict restricted to the video area. Windows Media Player is completely useless now.

I have a fair amount of experience as a filmmaker, but not in Windows nuts and bolts.

The help I've gotten here so far has helped me to solve some problems I didn't know I had, and I've been learning a lot.
Thanks again everyone, for your patience.

Eric

.

It no longer seems to be a Vegas problem, or a D: or explorer.exe problem.

Both WMM and DVGATE capture programs drop frames badly.
I ran DVGATE alone, as it usually is.

I'm very perplexed, and getting scared as the deadline approaches.

Ran LavaSoft AdAware SE (current buid and updated file descriptions), found 5 low-risk spys, no big deal.

I'll try a PCCillin virus scan next, or find an eval download from a better company

Eric