Video capturing stops for some seconds

[ProfDrMorph]

I've got a problem capturing video. I get about 1 dropped frame every 100-120 frames. That's ok for me. But every 50-60 seconds my system stops capturing frames for 2-3 seconds ( 50-75 frames; PAL ) and the stastics aren't updated either. It looks like my computer hangs for a short time. Only audio playback + recording works flawlessy even if the rest ( I'm not sure but I think the mouse cursor hangs, too ) hangs. I tried capturing at 640x480, 768x576 and 384x288. I did tests with 15 and with 25 FPS. I also tried reducing the audio quality to 11khz, 8bit, mono instead of CD quality. For video compression I tried to capture uncompressed or with PicVideo MJPEG ( with different quality settings ). I always leave audio uncompressed. I use VirtualDub to capture.

System:
Duron 800 ( CPU usage is at about 50% )
512 MB Ram ( 133 Mhz; 2x256Mb )
Windows 2000 Professional ( Service Pack 2 installed )
GeForce2 Ti ( Hercules, 64Mb, Detonator 23.11 installed )
Sound Blaster Live! Player 1024
Pinnacle Studio PCTVpro
Maxtor 40gb harddisk ( 5400rpm; UDMA100 )
(I don't think the other hardware is important but I posted it anyway. Just in case. )
Realtek 8139-based 10/100mbit/s network adapter
ASUS 12x DVD Rom
Teac CD-RW Writer ( 4x4x32x )

[Cart]

Have you made sure that no programs are running in the background?

Some things to try:
-Disable unused hardware/drivers during capture.
-Turn off unnecessary services.
-Capture to a drive your OS is not on.
-Defragment your capture drive.

-Cart
http://www.geocities.com/lukesvideo/index.html

[ProfDrMorph]

Yes I already tried that.

[mrbass]

did you disable file indexing on all hard drives? just a guess

[ProfDrMorph]

File indexing?

hmm whatever. I found a workaround: I have to remove my capture card from the device manager ( or how it's called in English ). After rebooting Win2k automatically reinstalls the card and until I reboot again I can capture in VirtualDub without problems.

[jako77]

I have the same problem with a PCTV RAVE and WIN XP. Everything is fine under WIN98.
Your solution works also for me. Not very satisfying though.

[mrbass]

right click on your C: drive or whatever and Properties..turn off [ ]Allow file indexing for faster file searches. It's like the infamous findfast.exe with Office97 which slows down your computer to a crawl. Ok a little over exaggerating there.

[ProfDrMorph]

thx for the hint mrbass but I think it's an driver issue. But I'll turn off file indexing anyway ;)

I don't have problems with the workaround. Since Win2k installs the correct driver by itself after rebooting the only slightly annoying thing is rebooting. But's ok for me.


File indexing couldn't have been the problem anyway: a capture on a FAT32 partition.