program locks up after 20 minutes of capturing from GL2 cam

[hawkewolfe]

The program works fine when capturing straight from GL2 camera using firewire cable, for about 10-20 minutes and then the program just locks up for no reason. I record church services at my church and the record time is about 2 hours since I record everything-music and sermon. When I set up the system for analog capture using s-video and capture card, it works fine, but the video is not as sharp as recording using firewire. The computer is fast enough as it is a p4 3.0 GHz with 1 GB of Ram. It would seem to me that recording using firewire would be easy on the program as it is just straight data stream. Any help out there? Has anyone else had this problem?

[hawkewolfe]

I know that there are some who will say that I should go ahead and just capture to tape and then do a batch transfer, but the problem with that is the tapes only go for 90 minutes and as I said earlier, I need about two hours.
I tried on both VS9 and VS10. Same problem on both. and the operating system is Windows XP. I hope it is just some setting that I cannot find. Also I tried turning off the "Allow access to capture device settings" as well as the "stop DV tape when capturing stops" just in case there was some miscommunication between the camera and the program.
Thanks,
Ron

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Ron

My first thought is Fat 32 or Ntfs.

If your hard drives are set up to Fat32 file system then you will have a 4Gb limit on individual files.

Capturing via firewire to Dv uses 13Gb per hour.

4 Gb would be approx 20 minutes.

Afaik converting to Ntfs is not difficult, but I have never had to do it, Others on the forum will guide you in this if it proves to be the problem.

Other than that how large is your hard drive/s

Hope this Helps

Trevor

[joosuna]

Ron, I have used a Canon GL-2 for about one year with VS9 and now since May 10th with VS10+ without a problem in capturing video. So the issue is not entirely with VS10+ in capturing with the GL-2. Although I have to admit I captured it in DV AVI format and was successful for one video clip of one hour and 19 minutes in duration. I haven't tested it more than that time length in capturing video ( for just one contiuous video clip).
signed
Joe

[hawkewolfe]

Trevor, thanks for responding, but it is not the hard drive. It is formatted for NTFS, and the analog recordings that we capture are usually around 6-8 GB in size. The hard drive is a 200GB 7200rpm harddrive. I am at a loss as to why this is happening, since it captures analog just fine. I was hoping that someone would know about some special setting that I am possibly overlooking. I tried using both avi format and mpeg format and it still locks up no matter which format I use. It would seem to me that analog capture would be more cpu intensive so why it locks up under firewire and not S-Video leaves me scratching my head.

Joe,
can you tell me how you have your preferences set up and what ie1394 codec you are using? I am assuming that you are using firewire to capture your videos? I am also taking it on faith that you are capturing and not doing a batch transfer from dv tape? Is there any kind of special drivers that you might have used?
Thanks,
Ron

[GeorgeW]

I just want to make sure I undertand how you are capturing...

It seems like you are using the camcorder to transfer "live" video directly to your computer (via firewire) without ever really recording it to tape in the camcorder -- is that correct

Do you have any background tasks running -- like antivirus or anti-spyware, screen-savers, task scheduler, etc... If so, disable all non-essential background tasks before recording.

Are you capturing DV Type-1 or Type-2? Try the "other" depending on what you are currently capturing.

Also, there's a free utility called WinDV (search web), it has a little buffer to handle slight hiccups -- perhaps that might help your situation...

btw, what are all your computer specs OS, version of directx, and which dv codec are you using?

Regards,
George

[hawkewolfe]

George,
Yes you are correct. I am trying to record straight to hard drive do to time constraints on DVtapes. I need to record on average about two hours worth of video and tapes do not handle that much time. I have disabled as many of the TSR services that I can and do not have any antivirus software running.
I have not tried switching between the two DV types just between DV and MPEG. My Computer is a:
P4 3.0GHz Intel chip with 1 GB Ram.
Windows XP OS, with DirectX 9.0c, and I am not sure what you are asking when you say "what DV codec". the IE1394 codec is MS1394.
200GB 7200rpm harddrive.
Thanks,
Ron

[Black Lab]

That's easy! You need to buy another GL2

[joosuna]

Ron, in answer to your question. I capture in DV AVI type 1 compression.
The rest of the settings are the default setting of VS10+. When I captured the one hour and 19 minutes, the video came from a VHS machine via AVI-Svideo cable, through my "pass through feature" of the Canon GL2 via firewire to the computer.

Another problem I encountered in trying to pass an edited video file of over one hour and fifteen minutes is that the mini DV tape limit is one hour. So I played " Share" "DV recording" set up the firewire to the GL-2 and AVI - S video cables from the GL-2 to the VHS machine. It worked fine except that at the end of the hour when the mini DV tape ran out, I got on the VHS tape the following recording for a few seconds "tape end", but the video clip continued all the way to the end of the one hour and fifteen minutes.

I guess I should give this problem to my teenage grandson to solve for me.

signed
Joe

[Trevor Andrew]

Another problem I encountered in trying to pass an edited video file of over one hour and fifteen minutes is that the mini DV tape limit is one hour. So I played " Share" "DV recording" set up the firewire to the GL-2 and AVI - S video cables from the GL-2 to the VHS machine. It worked fine except that at the end of the hour when the mini DV tape ran out, I got on the VHS tape the following recording for a few seconds "tape end", but the video clip continued all the way to the end of the one hour and fifteen minutes.

I guess I should give this problem to my teenage grandson to solve for me.

signed
Joe

Hi Joe

When you connect your digital camera as pass through you should be able to remove the tape.

There should be no need for the tape.

I have a Panasonic NV-GS400

I connect the Av-In on the camera to the Vhs recorder
I connect the Dv-Out to the firewire terminal on my pc
I set my camera properties/menu Dv-out to be ‘on’
I REMOVE the tape
I turn the camera on to playback mode.
I capture to DV-Avi

The capture will continue for ever, or until I stop it.

You should be able to capture more than 60 minutes.

Trevor

[hawkewolfe]

Hey guys.
Well, I tried using Windows Movie Maker since it was already on the computer and it had firewire capture ability-- it lasted all of about 24 minutes before it locked up. I made sure that the camera had it's own IRQ so no conflicts there, and no screensaver and no suspend features...all of that was already turned off. I am at a loss...
The only thing that I can try next is to try to capture to an external harddrive. If that does not work I do not know what else to do.
Ron

[Ron P.]

Ron,

Have you tried the freebie program suggested by GeorgeW, WinDV
http://windv.mourek.cz/. It's really a lightweight application, that allows you to capture via firewire..

Ron P.

[Ken Berry]

If you do use WinDV, just be aware that by default it sets a maximum number of frames it can capture in one sitting, and that works out IIRC to around 20 minutes. But you can get around this by setting the maximum number of frames to 999999. Be aware also that WinDV allows split by scene.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Ron

On your pc do you have ‘disk quotas’ set to limit your hard drive usage.

I have just tried this on my pc using XP. When the limit is reached during capture the program (VS) freezes. Although I do get a warning note re ‘capture fail’.

I then had to use Windows Task Manager to close Video Studio.
Then restarted VS
The captured file / clip were not saved to the hard drive.
This reduced the usage and allowed another capture, which again failed when the limit was reached.
The program just locked up.
I was now going a-round in circles.

Trevor

[GeorgeW]

I'm wondering if your computer is doing some sort of "Firewire Polling" (I don't remember the exact terminology at the moment, and I am running out the door to go to the day job).

But in a nutshell, the computer might be "checking" the firewire connection every "x" minutes -- this can cause a problem during capture. There was a way to check/turn it off -- I think I saw something at microsoft.com when searching for "Firewire Polling"

Regards,
George