Dropped Frames while capturing VHS video

ac37174 · Post by **ac37174** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 10:52 pm

Hello all,

I have finally decided to switch back from capturing video from USB (dvd express2)to my pci tuner card, as the quality just seems to look closer to the original video. I tried capturing in VS10 with the pci card for the first time (I had previously used the bundled VS8 which came with the pci capture card) In the prefs I chose to show drop frame information, and after about a minute of capture, the count had risen to 202! Could this possibly be due to other applications running on the computer such as antivirus, internet security, etc?? The VHS video is a short 25 minute presentation I am wanting to convert to dvd before the tape deteriorates in quality. So i chose 8000 VBR since it's only 25 minutes. I am not sure what caused the dropped frames, can anyone make any recommendations to help lower that number?? My Dell is pretty fast (2.8G), but there are probably too many processes eating up the processor. I am hoping that is the only issue. Video plays back great in the preview mode, but I don't want to have that much frame dropping going on. Thanks...

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:12 pm

We don't know anything about the system you are trying this on. My hunch is that the PC's power is not sufficient to handle the load of converting analog video to 8000 kbps mpeg2 in real time. Switching off background operations is always recommended but at the rate you are dropping frames, I doubt that it will fix it all.

We need more info.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:20 pm

In addition, capturing at 8000 kbps is probably not needed, given that your source is analogue. At most, you probably need set it at no more than 6000 kbps. After that, there is unlikely to be any increase in quality over the original anyway...

ac37174 · Post by **ac37174** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:47 am

Ah, my apologies, I will fill in the blanks here..

And I know 8000 is way too much than is necessary for analog, but I am just tired of always seeing the slightest difference in quality.. it's almost as if nice smooth videotaped footage becomes filmlike or grainy...

Dell Dimension 4600 2.8Ghz
1G RAM
ATI Sapphire Radeon 9250 128 MB display card
Leadtek TV2000 PCI a/v card
Creative Sound Blaster Live! USB 2.0
Windows XP SP2

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 2:19 am

Some capture hardware and software just don't work well together. Did the Leadtek board come with any other capture software? If so, that software was probably written specifically to work with your card.

Does it work better with VS8 SE? Your SE version may have been tuned to work with your card. I'm not sure if Ulead actually does that. All of the SE versions may be the same. In fact, I suspect that Ulead does not require any testing before they allow a hardware manufacturer to bundle their software.

Could this possibly be due to other applications running on the computer such as antivirus, internet security, etc?? here are probably too many processes eating up the processor.

Maybe, but probably not. Your Leadtek card probably has a built-in hardware MPEG encoder, and that takes most of the load off of your system. (Your USB probably had a hardware encoder too... most USB devices do.) All the computer has to do is transfer the data from the PCI bus to the hard drive. This data is already compressed when it hits the bus, so there is less data to deal with.

ac37174 · Post by **ac37174** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:22 am

[quote="DVDDoug"]Some capture hardware and software just don't work well together. Did the Leadtek board come with any other capture software? If so, that software was probably written specifically to work with your card.

The only other software bundled with the leadtek card is Winfast PVR, which is pretty mediocre because it limits certain capture options... And the quality looks too grainy no matter what capture settings you choose in terms of higher or lower quality.

VS8 worked rather well.... should i go back and install that again? I already have VS9 and VS10 on my system. I couldn't notice any dropped frames after capturing with VS10, even though it showed that high amount.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:14 am

ac37174 · Post by **ac37174** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:25 am

Madrummer,

Where do I find that setting in VS10 to change to I_Frames only? I have always wondered what difference that makes in capturing.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:26 am

Sorry, My mistake, I couldn't find it in VS10+. I can capture I-Frames only with the ATI software for my ATI Capture Card.
.

ac37174 · Post by **ac37174** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:06 pm

maddrummer3301 wrote:Sorry, My mistake, I couldn't find it in VS10+. I can capture I-Frames only with the ATI software for my ATI Capture Card.
.

I just found this option under Project Properties... in VS10+....would setting to I_frames only help my situation at all? I am running a defrag on the hard drive I capture to, so perhaps that will help the situation.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 6:40 am

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 6:47 am

If your capture device is already choking on a normal capture, only I-frames is certainly going to ascerbate any problem you are having and the capture file is going to be huge. You would be better off to capture to DV-AVI then but I doubt if your device can do that.

ac37174 · Post by **ac37174** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:47 am

Well after spending several hours trying different settings, wondering why I keep getting dropped frames with the leadtek card, I gave my DVDxpress 2.0 box another chance with the bundle VS9. Zero dropped frames, over and over. It is strange after you stop capturing with the box the screen freezes a moment and the hard drive spins hard then finally the captured video shows up in the timeline. Now I'm torn between pci vs usb 2.0. I am eager to try a different pci capture card. Any recommendations for a higher end pci card capable of capturing composite video superior to leadtek cards??? This is pretty much a matter of opinion of course, but I welcome your suggestions. Thanks.............

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:07 pm

A lot depends upon if you want to do any heavy editing in which case you need to look for something that can capture in DV (avi) format.
Otherwise look for a TV card that has a hardware MPEG encoder built into it so that the TV card is doing all of the hard work and not your computer.

I transferred several hundred VHS tapes for friends family and myself using a Hauppauge PVR PCI 350 TV card. The only drawback is as mentioned above - MPEG format only and so for any heavy editing I have to use another piece of software (Womble) though I do then import the edited MPEG2 files into DVD Workshop 2 for authoring the DVD.

Should you decide to follow the Hauppauge route (and this will apply to most other similar devices) you will normally find that the software that ships with the card has been specially tweaked to work with that device.
therefore use that software to capture to the hard drive and then use your Ulead Software for editing/authoring.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 2:57 pm