dropped frames please help

[toocool]

when I try capturing dv video using sharp camcorder, I end up with at least 50 dropped frames out of 500. I have Radeon 8500 vid card, 512ddr, p4, 160G HardDrive, I have all the updates and very little running on my computer in the background....Any help would be greatly appriciated.

Please and THankyou,

[jchunter_2]

What is your CPU speed?
Are you capturing to AVI or MPEG?
Is DMA enabled on your capture disk?
Do you have hyperthreading enabled?
Have you run AdAware, etc. to remove bots?
Have you shut off your firewall and virus checkers?
Please list all your capture properties.

[toocool]

CPU 1.6
tried avi and MPEG both same problem.
DMA yes checked it for enabled
Hyperthreading ???don't know where this is?
Yes run Adware
Not so funny, but I don't have a firewall or virus software at the moment!!
Capture properties?
MPEG Files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
(DVD-NTSC)
Video Data Rate 4000 Kbps
Audio Bit Rate 384 Kbps
Layer 2, 48 kHz, Joint stereo
Is this my properties???(above)

Hope I have answered all questions you need to help...if not keep asking cause I am getting pretty frustrated with my video editing adventure !!!

[robertpcx]

toocool;

What bitrate are you trying to capture; if you are useing to high a bitrate and you have a slower p4; this could be the problem, allso I would mpeg and not avi as the capture format

If you want to create a DVD when you are done It seems to make sense to capture in the DVD format, 4000 kbps will give you 2 hours approxamately.

Without knowing more about your system its dificult to give you good advice.

robertpcx

[toocool]

I don't know what bitrate I am trying to capture...?Where to look?
(trying to go from dv to dvd after edited)
Please tell me what you need to know about my CPU/System to help.

[jchunter_2]

Your CPU is too slow to capture mpeg but capturing AVI should work fine.

If hyperthreading is enabled, you will see two CPU graphs side by side in the Task Manager / Performance tab (Ctl-Alt-Del).

How much free space do you have? Have you defraged the hard disk?

I assume you are capturing thru a firewire cable?

If you don't have a firewall, you could have a virus... Download one of the virus checkers such as Trend Micro PC-Cillen, etc. and make sure that your system is clean.

[jchunter_2]

Also, display the Task Manager and monitor page memory usage while you are capturing AVI. If page memory exceeds real memory, there could be problems...

[toocool]

avi...I will keep trying.

Yes...I am using firewire to capture.

I don't have virus protection as of two days ago. I know my system is clean. I will be purchasing new virus software this weekend.

Oh...160gig hard drive available and I just defraged today.

Should this hyperthreading help solve this problem?

[jchunter_2]

You have an older P4 and I'm not sure that it has hyperthreading. It may help by giving you more CPU headroom if your system is running background tasks while you are capturing.

To enable, press restart, and tap F8 while it is rebooting to get to the Bios. Then find the processor section and Hyperthreading will be listed if you have it. If so, enable it, save, and continue the boot sequence.

[toocool]

I will give it a try...thanks...I will reply my results.

[THoff]

That P4 is too old to have HT support. Hyperthreading was introduced with the 3.06GHz P4, and then later added to some of the slower 800MHz FSB processors when the Northwood core was rev'd. I think the slowest P4 with HT support is a 2.6GHz processor.

Also, since he's capturing DV, CPU speed is essentially a non-issue, since no encoding needs to take place as long as he records to a DV AVI file. I suspect the system is thrashing due to a lack of RAM.

If you can't capture using VideoStudio with your current setup, try a less resource-intensive program to capture your video, and then use UVS to edit and render. WinDV is an excellent little utility for capturing and outputting DV.

[rjgeisler]

I have a 1.6ghz P4 with 512 meg of ram and you can capture MPEG without dropped frames. I found that VS8 drops frames no matter what settings. You stated you have a radeon card! Try using ATI MMC which came with your card or you can download copy from web.

Go to "Personal Video Recorder" setting in TV capture. Set it up to capture "MPEG2-DVD", "Encode interlaced", turn off "inverse 3:2 pulldown" and Select 48khz audio 16bit stereo LPCM.

Check box "Closed Group of Pictures (GOP), P-frames=4 and B-frames=2.

Set up Variable Bit rate and Max Bit Rate=7200, Target bit Rate=5000, Motion Estimation Quality=95 and select videosoap=none.

This will record 2+ hours of DVD compliant video!

It is common to get a few dropped frames when you first begin capture.

Move mpeg into VS and edit and burn to DVD!

If you still want to capture in VS, try turning off virus programs and all programs running in background. Change your video color setting to 16 bits.

[maddrummer3301]

Using the ATI card to record is the way to go with these cards.
Not all ATI's drivers work with Ulead products though.

If you choose Mpeg audio for variable bit rate instead of Lpcm this will
increase the video_bit_rate of the video resulting in a better video quality.
or
using Constant bit rate then the video_bit_rate will be 5000.
The resulting overall bitrate will be 5000 + 1536 = 6636 Total_Bit_Rate.

[rjgeisler]

I agree!

ATI MMC relies on hardware features which minimizes software overhead. I very seldom experience dropped frames even at high bitrates.

I capture and edit video with LPCM audio and then create video file. I find there is less chance of audio sync problems.

Quality is much better and I have not had the jitters when I record with ATI MMC!

[Ken Berry]

If capturing with DV/AVI, you may also want to change the Encoder from Type 2 (silly default) to Type 1. Many people have problems with Type 2 including dropped frames (lots) and out of sync video and audio, or corrupted audio... In the Capture screen, click on the cog wheel icon about half way down the left hand side. That will show the Encoder Type which is set. Change it to the other, and see what happens.