"Jumpy" video

D Stanley · Post by **D Stanley** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:13 am

I have recently started using VideoStudio 8 SE DVD to create home DVD's from my 1998 Sony Video8 CCD-TRV45E analogue camera. The camera has only the red-yellow-white RGB A/V output connection.

I have carefully followed the advice given in this forum as to how to successfully capture, edit, create video file and burn a DVD. It works, but the result is a little disappointing, in that the picture is very jumpy (otherwise the picture and sound quality is good). The capture settings I have used are:

PAL (25 fps)
MPEG files
24 Bits, 720x576, 25fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-PAL), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max 8000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 224 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 KHz, Stereo

My computer has an 80GB HDD (21GB free), 480MB of RAM (+960MB paging file) and a 1.5GHz processor.

I have experimented with a large number of different capture settings (different video bit rates, frame rates, speeds and formats) to try to minimize the jumpiness in the captured video, but to no avail.

I would be very appreciative of any advice anyone can offer as to how I can obtain a smoother result.

Thanks,
Don

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:18 am

I can only guess but it seems like your PC is not up to capturing mpeg in real time. It's dropping frames, hence the jumpyness.

D Stanley · Post by **D Stanley** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:25 am

Thanks for your quick response, Heinz. I'm pretty keen to get this problem solved. Do you have any advice on how I'd have to upgrade my computer to overcome this issue?
Thanks again, Don.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:39 am

All I know about your system is that you have XP

how could I suggest an upgrade?

Furthermore, I don't believe in capturing to mpeg either. You can see my system spec's in my profile. It is certainly up to the task, I have tried it. However, for how long I could go on and capture to mpeg, I don't know. I'm certain though, that after a certain period of time my system would stop to flush the transcoding buffer.

I'm fortunate enough to have a digital camera with AV through function. I simply connect my VHS playback device to the AV In on my camcorder which is connected to my PC via IEEE1394 (iLInk) fire wire cable and capture to DV-AVI type 1. After I have done all my editing, I get MSP 7.3 to create the DVD compliant mpeg file and use MF4 to create the menu and render to DVD. I have used MF3 to burn directly to DVD with no problems and have also created DVD folders on my HDD, to be burned to DVD later (I do this if I need more than 1 copy of my final DVD)

I'm not sure if you have similar possibilities but there are capture devices around that do a similar job. Be careful though with USB based devices. I personally have not seen one that was up to the task but there are people here claiming that they have used them successfully. Do your homework before you commit your money to one.

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 1:24 pm

Hi Don,

you haven't mentioned how you are getting your analogue footage into the pc from your camcorder!

You need to supply us with some information on your capture box/capture card. Some of these can be problematical, especially if they are conected thru USB ports on your pc.

D Stanley · Post by **D Stanley** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:32 am

Thanks for these responses. I appreciate any help I can get!

To get the video from the camcorder to the PC, I am using "X-PERT DVD MAKER". this is a V-Stream product, which has the RGB and S-Video connection at one end and a USB2.0 at the other. It says it will handle:

"up to 30fps @ 720x480 size for video processor and compression USB 2.0 Isochronous Video pipe up to 24 Mb/sec and audio to 1.4Mb/sec...also high quality real time MPEG."

I don't understand all of this, but one thing I do notice is that it recommends 2.0GHz, whilst my computer has a 1.5Ghz processor. Could this be a problem?

I will update my profile with as much information as I know about my computer to assist in the giving of advice.

Thanks.

Don.

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 3:04 pm

Hi Don,

I took a look at the X-Pert web page, and it does recommend a 2.0Ghz cpu for 30fps 720x480 capture, using USB 2.0.

You need to make sure that you do have USB 2.0 ports on your pc - if you let us know your pc model, we can determine that easily enough.

With your 1.5Ghz cpu, it will be important to optimise it by eliminating uneccesary processes - we've had many posts on that topic, but as a first step, look at Task Manager to see how many processes you have running.

Depending on your operating system, there are several things you can disable to free up resources. Typical resource hogs, that slow your pc down, are things like the indexing service, used to speed up file searches, and XP's "System Restore". Although the latter can be quite useful, there are far better alternatives for more experienced users.

It might just be possible to squeeze enough performance out of your pc to be able to successfully capture at 720x480 - but then again, it may not.

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 5:01 pm

Don,
Your computer is a "bit" light for Mpeg2 capture, but if your capture box has an internal CPU for Mpeg2 encoding, that may not matter. However, if the capture box is relying on your computer to do the encoding, you are probably overloading it.

As 2Dogs said, open the Task Manager Performance tab while capturing. If the CPU is maxed out, the capture box is the problem. X-PERT DVD MAKER is very inexpensive (~$25) and it may only be digitizing the video and pushing all the video encoding onto your computer.

You might get by just upgrading your capture box.

BTW, I have used an ADS Instant DVD2 capture box (with an internal CPU), and my computer loafs along at about 20% busy during Mpeg2 capture.

D Stanley · Post by **D Stanley** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:04 am

Thanks Heinz, John and 2Dogs for your recent responses.

As far as the USB goes, I think it is a 2.0. The computer I use is not an off-the-shelf one. A friend built it. It has a Gigabyte 2004 RZ Series mother board, model 7VM400AM-RZ with a VIA KM400A chipset. It has 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports, which I think are 2.0, because the CD that came with the motherboard (VUCD Ver. 2.14) says on it "Chipsets/ATA/133 RAID/USB 2.0 MS,SD&SC/Audio/Network Drivers/Serial ATA". I've had a look inside and the USB connection has 4 wires: red, white, green and black. I hope this gives you the information that you need! (I'm not aware of how to get information on hardware such as sound and graphics cards, USB ports etc. Device Manager doesn't seem to clearly state the brand or model of these things).

Thanks for the suggestion to check the Task Manager. I found that watching the information in the Performance tab, as soon as I start capturing, CPU Usage jumps to 87 to 100%, with my guess of an average of 95%! (Watching the CPU usage associatied with VideoStudio in the Processes tab shows 77-95%, average around 89%).

I'd appreciate your advice on what I should do.

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:32 am

Don,
Your CPU is maxed out during capture, which shows that your capture device is using it to encode the video stream. If it were me, I would buy an ADS Instant DVD 2 box because I know that it encodes mpeg2 within the box.

BTW, the video properties that you were using look fine and should result in good quality video - limited only by the composite video (red-yellow-white RGB A/V) connection.