Windows 2000 vs XP for Video Recording

[ses]

Regards from Sweden everyone!
I understand that I really should have a 7200 rpm harddrive for recording. At the moment, the only large harddrives that I have are Maxtor 250 gig 5400 rpm drives.
But, using Ivan Uskov's iuVCR program with Windows 2000, I was able to get excelent results. No jerking, no sync problems. I compressed the files with TMPG and the results were great.
When I installed Windows XP, I noticed that all my recent video recordings were now just a bit off. When I recorded a new film from the television with XP, it too was off, though towards the end of the film, audio and video were again in sync.
The guy who runs the local computer store in town said that as long as he could get drivers for Windows 2000, he would never install XP for video recording.
With the help of Boot Magic, I reinstalled a Windows 2000 OS and yes, all the films were in sync again, including the one I recorded with XP.
I have a fairly modern machine with a 2.2 Celeron. I am a little weak on memory, only 256 MB of DDR.
What's the deal here, anybody got any answers? Is there something in XP that needs to be adjusted?

[WildCelt]

My guess is XP is requiring more of your memory than 2000 was, so less is available for encoding. I would seriously consider upgrading your memory to as much as you can fit/afford.

[tuco]

It doesn't really matter if you use win2000 or winXP. If you have all the eye candy in WinXP then it does use more resources. Also since I don't know if you did any special tweaks to your win2000 or winXP I can't comment on that. I personally couldn't get iuVCR to work on my system with either 2000 or XP but other capturing programs like VirtualVCR and VirtualDub I have had great success recording with mjpeg on my ancient Athlon 650 system. You didn't mention which codec you are using to capture with either so I don't know if it is a resource problem. I also don't know which program you used to play you captured material which could account for the a/v not synching.

[rfmmars]

Lets make this simple........Windows 2000pro!

Richard

[Angelus]

I agree with WildCelt, you probably need more memory. The recommended minimum for XP is 256mb, and if you're doing video capturing you'll probably need 512mb or more. The recommended ram for 2000 is 64mb :eek: . So if you like 2000 keep it the same or if you want XP upgrade your ram.

[ses]

Thanks Guys,
I think the extra East German Memory you know DDR (sorry, bad joke I know, but I couldn't resist) would help. I really have been surprised how it has worked on a 5400 rpm drive.
In reading these and so many other posts, I find it surprising what a great disparity there seems to be as far as what seems to work for whom.
For example as to the experience that Tuco has had with iuVCR. In my case, I got dropped frames by the thousands with Virtual Dub though Virtual VCR also worked well for me.
As far as Codec usuage, I have been using the Huffyuv and have used standard Windows OS without any tweaking.
The playback software has been the Zoom player.
Thanks again

[rfmmars]

I got the joke ok, and thats good for the sole when you have Video editing problems. Virtualdub deos a desent job of capture, with AVI-IO program doing better with the maxium frame rate capture for AVI files.

Most of my work I capture MPEG2 with my three ATI AIW cards at 15,000 constant bite rate per second at 720x480 29.97 fps. With MPEG2 files you don't have a slugish timeline operation as you do with AVI files of the same specs (DV excluded). Quality, you can't tell it from DV.avi or Xvid.avi. I frame serve into VD and frame serve out to my Ligos 3.5 mpeg2 encoder with still excellent video at the final data rate of 8000 fps.

Richard
photorecall.net

[Pyscrow]

I've been told that Celerons "blow" when it comes to video capture, but there are as many opinion on chips as I've had hot dinners. I prefer XP myself, I too suspect your issue is with inadequate memory for XP.

[rfmmars]

I tried XP once and wasn't happy. I think everybody who gives a opinon has some kind of experance, Im been doing this now for almost 15 years and I try to pass on what I found hoping it will help somebody.

Richard

[ses]

On the subject of frame serving Richard, I have tried to understand how to to do it but I haven't really gotten it yet. I have an MSI Personal Cinema (Nvidia) FX5200 card and I have never really been happy with it, that's why I happened into get into this site. With my card, I got fairly good results if I chose the "Half PAL" alternative, but the sound quality was never the best. If I chose the "full PAL" alternative, while the image quality was fairly good, movements in the images did not appear to be completely fluid, a little unnatural. I would also get these little jerks in the sound in both choices, rather like when I as a kid would play with my Dad's reel to reel tape recorder. I would give one of the reels a jerk to make the music sound funny. It was great then, but as a musician now, I am never happy when I hear that in a symphony orchestra program that I have recorded.
By going the AVI route, I have solved those problems but I am still only at the basic level of just recording and running TMPG.
Is there a website that explains frame serving on an easier level that I have missed?

[rfmmars]

Ok I will give you a brief over view on frame serving the way I use it.

To frame serve into VD, You create a AVISYNTH Script, using (note pad) after downloading the program and plug-ins, and it is saved as a (xxx.avs). What it basiclly does is fool VD into thinking it' importing a AVI file, when really it is receiving a video/audio stream. VD will open a file that has a .AVS extension

VD is happy, and what neat, you can have filtering before the stream hits VD, then do other plug-ins inside VD and save it back to another AVI file, or what I do is then frameserve out of VD to my Ligos 3.5 Mpeg2 Encoder. Again that program is being fooled thinking its reading a .avi file when it is not.

I don't remember where I downloaded the infomation to figure it all out, and remember there always will trial & error, but check out Nicky's video site, and virtualdub. I just used Yahoo, did it all in a few hours.

Richard
photorecall.net

[themichael]

XP v. 2000:

Having stripped both OSes of all extra services ( www.blackviper.com) and not running anti-virus or firewall programs, 2000Pro out preforms XP. The same hardware and software, out of the box install, all updates, and the same video source. In XP the cpu runs at 80-85%, in 2000 at 60-65%. More dropped frames in XP also. I can capture MPEG2 realtime under 2000. Can't under XP.

As for Celerons:
I used to capture 640x480 using a Win 98 Celeron 400 eMachine with a 5400 rpm 30Gig drive and 196M of PC100 SDRAM. Yes I pushed this poor computer to the wall. Yes I had to turn the video resolution down. Yes I had to turn off my anti-virus and some other "toys" in the system tray, But it worked!

[rfmmars]

Glad to see that Win2000pro gave you the same benefits that I received.

richard