What hardware is needed to capture 704x480 at 30fps?

[MrTibs]

Presently I have a P1.4, 128 RAM, 7200 Maxtor, Matrox 400 TV capture card, Win98SE. I'm getting dropped frames. What do I need to capture w/o dropped frames. (BTW, cpu utilization is only at 50% when in full capture.)

[mrlipring]

well, you ain't told us what software and codecs you're capturing with.

i can capture at pal dvd res/frame rate to divx5 @ up to 16mbit/sec on this:

athlon 1700xp @ 2127mhz (11.5@185)
256mb corsair xms pc3200
asus a7n8x-deluxe
winxp SP1
gainward 650xp (geforce4 ti4200 w/vivo) <-- using to cap
iuvcr <-- using to cap

cpu usage hovers at about 90%, no dropped frames at all when capturing for hours etc.

[MrTibs]

@mrlipring

I am using Virtualdub and Huffy.

Looking at your spec and knowing that my cpu almost never goes above 50%, I should be able to do it.

I think that I may be a little low on RAM though.

Thanks for your input.

[mrlipring]

i think it'll be a memory thing as well.

although my pc'll be about twice as fast as yours in real world tests, you're capping to huffyuv, and as you said the cpu usage never goes above 50%.

i'd take a look at capping in different progs. i use iuvcr. give it a bash.

[MarsOfOld]

I use Instant DVD 2 (external hardware usb mpeg1/2 encoder) to capture to DVD-compatible video and have found no significant problems. About $185. It will also do VCD capture if you don't have a DVD burner. Only possible issue is that it has realistic hardware requirements of a 1.6 Pentium4 CPU, 512Mb RAM, and a big fast harddrive, though a 1.4Ghz P4 would probably work if you got more ram and defragged and rebooted right before capture.(I have a 3GhzP4, 1 Gbyte RAM, and 2 raided WD-JB hard drives). I recommend it...

[mrlipring]

ok, after reinstalling, and installing the new nforce2 drivers, and upping my ram timings to 6-3-2-2, it now hovers about the low 60s, with spikes to 75%-ish when capping. yay me :) bitrate's 13.5mbit/sec recording average tv stuff.

[MrTibs]

In a couple of longer caps, Vdub complained about my audio card. The cap was OK but I was suspicious so I did a cap without audio and... no dropped frames.

The Audio driver says that it is using a WDM driver.

I had this problem about a year ago on my other system but I can't remember how I fixed it. Any ideas?

[mrlipring]

is it using the drivers that come with windows? if so, get real ones.