Drop Frame Problem

[paticio]

Hardware:Sony TRV20 DV using DV tape,Intel Duo Core 6400 2.13GHz, 2GB Ram,Gigabyte MB DS4 ver-1, on board IEEE1394 port
Window XP Home, VideoStudio7, patch installed, v7.01.0000
VS7 installed on C-Drive 500GB SATA Drive (stand alone) new Drive
Capture File on D-Drive 160GB SATA Drive (stand alone)(Enable write caching on the disk ----disable)old drive re-formated, checked disk, defragmented.
Virtual Memory>paging file size for all drives currently allocated 4092MB
Sony DV is connected to my PC via IEEE1394, Source:sony-MSDV, format DV type-1, I am able to see a smooth video on the preview window. I try to do the video capturing, but the video and the audio are not smooth and i can see a lot of drop frames. at least 10 to 20% of captured frame were dropped. What could be the problem? Even under applications tab of tast manager with only VS running. The first DVD I created was OK, then I tried to do more video capture after the PC make-over, all the video clips were bad.

[heinz-oz]

cable connection lose? Either that or there is too much going on in the background, like app's calling home to check for updates, virus scanner or malware scanner kicking in. There must be something causing this and it has absolutely nothing to do with your software. DV-Avi type 1 is virtually just a direct copy of data from the tape to the HDD, no conversion, no compression etc.

I have captured in the past on a PII 800MHz machine with 256 MB RAM and had no dropped frames.

[Ken Berry]

To test whether it is VS7 or something else causing the problem, either try capturing in DV format (not WMV) using Windows Movie Maker, or else download the small freeware program WinDV from windv.mourek.cz This is a program a lot of us use to capture DV. It usually does so without any dropped frames.

If, using either of these two methods, you still get dropped frames, then like Heinz, I too would be suspecting a hardware problem. Apart from a loose or faulty cable or something going wrong with either firewire port (either in the camera or the computer), I have found that the placement of the firewire card in the motherboard is also worth checking. This is to ensure that it is firmly seated.

I have also found that it is often better to place the firewire card in one of the 'higher' AGP slots i.e. nearer to the CPU. Not exactly sure why this is so -- but one of my computers gave dropped frames when placed in the lowest AGP slot away from the CPU, but when I moved it up, the problem went away.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Capturing to DV-format via firewire is transferring the data, there is no re-coding. Firewire is fast enough to cope with this data.

Can you explain what you mean by ¡¥Stand Alone¡¦?????????

Re:-

Capture File on D-Drive 160GB SATA Drive (stand alone)

[Ken Berry]

Trevor -- although we will need to await confirmation by the OP, I was reading that as meaning 'unpartitioned'..., though I acknowledge in relation to the D:\ drive in particular, it could also literally mean 'stand-alone' in the sense of external...

[Trevor Andrew]

and if external is it connected via firewire to the pc or USB ??????????

[Ken Berry]

... or e-SATA...?

[paticio]

HI, thank you for all the suggestion. Drive C and D are unpartitioned, internal, SATA drives are connected to the on board SATA2 3Gb/s connectors. I read from the Internet saying for best performance is to separate the program drive(VS) and capture files. I upgraded my PC with new Harddisk, re-installed all the softwares, including VS7, applied the patchs(build#7.01,2003/04/29) and Mpeg Vio Drive Update Patch(2003/1/16). I stopped all the virus, quick start, spybot detection, stopped the wireless LAN, and local LAN, messengers....etc. I tested again with a 2mins video capture with VS7, first 30s oK, then after no good with 10 to 20% drop frame. I tested with window movie maker, with PC normal start up with only no messenger running, digital device format set as DV-AVI, same 2mins clip, captured 412MB. I playback the captured video clip. They are all smooth video and audio. I did not change any cable connection, IEEE1394 port are on board on the gigabyte DS-4 ver-1 motherboard, no IEEE1394/firewire card is used.Any suggestion? Should I unstalled VS7 and re-install again? could it be the problem on the patch to the software?

[Ken Berry]

Can you capture to the C:\ drive? If so, how is that by comparison?

[paticio]

Hi Ken, Thank you so much for your suggestion. I tried again to capture the video on the same program drive, ie C Drive. I monitored the drop frame counter and saw zero frame dropped. I was very surprise. I continued with the video capture for the whole tape, ie 1 hours. It was a perfect capture, drop frame counter zero. I played back the clip. They are all fine. I am so happy now. Before my PC was not good enough for video editing, I stopped for long time to play with this software until I have a better hardware. Now I can do it again.
I read the system tweaks on learning center section hoping to get a better performance, http://www.ulead.com/learning/general/video_02_1.htm. Unfortunately, it turn out to be the opposite.

Finally, why the video quality of a home made DVD is not as good as the direct video feed from a DV cam into a LCD TV?

[Ken Berry]

I am glad the alternative DV capture worked.

As for the change in quality when you convert the original DV to DVD quality, in fact there should not be any obseravable change at all. If you capture in DV, edit in DV, and then, after all editing is done, convert to high quality DVD properties, then you should not notice any fall in quality.

But that is the trick. If you start with DV quality captured video, then after editing, you should be using properties likes 8000 kps frame rate and LPCM audio (or Dolby or mpeg layer 2). If you use a much lower frame rate than 8000 (say 4000) then you will get much lower quality video on your DVD.

[heinz-oz]

Because your video gets compressed to DVD compliant mpg2 format. The settings used in the encoder are vital to the quality of the output.

[paticio]

Thank again to all of you.
I will do further experiment on the video Capture and DVD output.