Choppy preview, choppy end product

[Calstvns]

My system has been restored, v10 re-loaded. I followed most tutorials, tips, tweaks that I could find, but still the video is choppy during capture AND the final video product is choppy too. Sound is popping. Yes, the manual says "turn off the sound during capture, choppiness does not affect final product" but that's not true for me..final product is just as bad.

Yes, my system lacks some beef, but I did not have this problem with v10 before I restored my system. It was fixable before because I would de-frag and re-start to clear out the cobwebs, and I was good to go. That does not fix it this time. I have completely re-updated my XP OS, and installed latest v10 service pack. Also I have followed the manual tweaks about DMA, turning off cache-writing, etc.

Any other suggestions for getting the snap, crackle and pop out of my videos?

UPDATE: This is curious! (But maybe after I say this, some of you experts might say "no duh! -- no WONDER this guy is having problems!")

The manual says to capture in the same properties as the video I'm providing through my camera, which I thought was AVI (well, whenever I try to set capture to AVI, it automatically renames it as DV). So I've been capturing in AVI or DV (whatever) but I tried making the capture as MPEG or DVD and the popping went away! After capture, VS runs a routine something about flushing frames, and then it's good to go.

So the popping is gone, but am I doing anything crazy by capturing in MPEG2 / DVD instead of AVI? Please tell me I'm on the right track.

From "Not As Expert As You" in Northern California

[Ken Berry]

I think you will find that VS10 installs with one of its defaults being that it sets the Type 2 Encoder as the default for DV/AVI captures. I don't know why they do this because Type 2 Encoder is the most problematic for most users. Unless your computer has enough grunt, the usual result is choppy video and/or audio. To correct this, in the Capture screen and the the Capture set to DV, go to the Options cogwheel icon and change the Encoder Type from 2 to 1.

By the way, DV is a special version of AVI, and uses .avi as its extension. It provides the same quality in the same format as is in your mini DV video camera.

If you have such a camera attached via Firewire to your computer, then if you try to set AVI as the format, it automatically resets to DV, as you have found. That is what it is supposed to do, so don't worry.

[Calstvns]

When I was capturing in AVI, it was type 1. Still had the problem. But as I said above in my post, I found that if I set capture to MPEG-2 / DVD that it went away. This is against the manual's advice, but it worked! The manual said to capture in the same format as my camera, but that's AVI and that's what was giving me the choppiness. So my capture settings are now set to MPG2/DVD and it's working fine. I may have solved my own problem, unless I'm inviting other problems by doing it that way. Comment? Thanks for your expertise.

[Ken Berry]

On the positive side, you can capture DVD/mpeg-2 format successfully, and this is the format required for video DVDs, so you are half way there. Also on the positive side is the fact that VS10 seems to have ironed out most of the problems associated with this format.

But on the negative side, some users have still reported problems. Mpeg-2 is both a lossy format and not particularly well suited to editing. And VS10 is not a specialised mpeg editor. There are special programs out there for that such as Womble or for simple corrections Video ReDo.

With earlier versions, a lot of people had trouble keeping video and audio in sync when they edited mpeg-2. Some still do with VS10, but the numbers have dropped. If you do get any sync problems, try not using SmartRender after you have finished editing.

As to the lossy nature of the format, if your original captures are high quality (esp. high bitrate), and you maintain those properties throughout the editing, then any re-encoding of the video which takes place should not produce any deterioration in quality which is visible to the naked eye. And there are some users who say that you can re-encode mpeg-2 2 or 3 (or even more) times without detectable loss of quality...

I am mystified, though, why your DV/AVI captures are not working. Have you checked to make sure that your Firewire card is seated correctly in its slot? Do you have, or can you borrow another firewire cable to eliminate that as a possible source of error?

[Calstvns]

Ken, thanks. Your responses have helped a lot. I appreciate the cautions about MPG2/DVD capture. So far I have had no problems with it, and smartrender appears to be off right now, though it does render every time I playback my project (high quality playback). I share your puzzlement over the choppy AVI/DV capture. The firewire appears to be fine, and it is after all the same wire that brings the signal from camera to computer when I'm capturing in MPG2/DVD anyway, so it appears to be working fine. I'm not likely now to try to fix my AVI/DV capture since this new strategy is working, unless I get an idle moment and I get the urge to work on it. Again, thanks.

[Ken Berry]

Don't worry about those 'High Quality Playback' renders as they are only temporary files and in no way affect the final permanent file you render from your project.