how many is too many dropped frames??

[DaveQB]

i constantly get dropped frames...
tried then with HuffyUV and in one i get 35 dropped frames

is that normal???

if i use DivX its a little bit better, probbaly 10 dropped frames a minute

system specs

1900+ XP
GA-7VRXP
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
40 gig Viper (Maxtor 7,200 ATA 133)
w/ ATA 133 IDE cable

the HDD is its on its own cable too to optimise overall performance.


thanx for any tips

OH PS i use VD to capture
Capture card is AverTV studio

[Belgabor]

Wow, thats much to many! I have a Athlon 1.4 GHz with no particularely fast capture hd and get NO dropped frames over about an hour of capturing with HuffYUV at 704x576. Dunno what your card is based on, mine is bt878, if yours is too, try the btwincap drivers and VirtualVCR or the non-dropping VDub mod.

Cheers
Belgabor

[DaveQB]

yeah its based on the btb878 chip,
pretty sure it is, i lost my chip checker proggy :(

(my HDD decided to dump its entire 40 gig contents and UNpartition itself, dunno :( )

so too many huh ??

hmmm,
can you elaborate a bit more on this VD VCR,btwincap and the non-dropping VDub mod

thanx heaps !!

[Swede]

You shouldn't get any dropped frames with that hardware. Like Belgabor I use btwincap (http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/) drivers and virtual VCR (http://www.digtv.ws/) and get zero dropped frames (P4 1.7) no matter how long captions. Try them out, especially the btwincaps.

[DJ Bobo]

1) Check that you have DMA enabled for your HD.
2) Using the regular VirtualDub version you should become one dropped frame in a regular intervall. On my system, every 3 to 4 minutes. There is a modified VD version that won't get dropped frames, I forgot on which adress one can get it.
3) If you're capturing from VHS, no matter what, don't ever use a capture resolution like this:
If it is PAL: avoid something*288 or something*576
If it is NTSC: avoid something*240 or something*480
So go to custom format and use for example:
PAL: 384x280 or 704x568
NTSC: 320x232 or 640x472

[Belgabor]

You can find a link to the modified VDub in the FAQ to this forum.
I'll elaborate later when i get home.

Cheers
Belgabor

[DaveQB]

thanx guys for all the info, keep it coming :)

i am studying hard for an exam tmw morn, but will get stuck into this after that.

downloaded a few of those and will play with them later

and yes my HDD is UDMA, UDMA 6 in fact :D
(ie ATA133)

[DaveQB]

thanx guys,
i found if i didnt ecode the audio in MP3 and just left it raw too that my dropped frames were much less.

it got to 11mins and had 9 frames dropped.

didnt see it to its completion and some how the system crashed; think i had my VGA colcked too high (was playing games before i did the capture)

then from there i trimmed it and added the sharpen filter.

somehow doing that made the file go from 10 gigs to 12.5 gigs ?!?!

AND the audio dropped out after about 5 mins of playing.

i dont know how or why the audio was lost by simply trimming it down and adding the sharpen filter through VD :confused:

the raw HuffyUV file was fine.

any ideas??

just encoding it now with direct audio and video so no change to that, just trimmed it down.

see how she goes.

[DaveQB]

yeah tried that and the same thing :confused:

so to re cap.

captured raw file in HuffyUV, play back is perfect

used VD to trim the excess at the start and finish and applied the sharpen filter, play back loses sound and also WinMedia Player says its an invalid format, when the sound is lost, and closes

used VD to just trim the ends and DIDNT apply the sharpen filter = same result as above.

any ideas what VD is doing to it to make it invalid and lose audio ??

[ohliuv]

@DJ Bobo

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
If it is PAL: avoid something*288 or something*576
If it is NTSC: avoid something*240 or something*480
So go to custom format and use for example:
PAL: 384x280 or 704x568
NTSC: 320x232 or 640x472

Can you please explain why?

[Ookami]

> tried then with HuffyUV and in one i get 35 dropped frames

How long was the capture time?

And, BTW, to answer the question:

The one you see are too much, the rest shouldn't matter.

[Belgabor]

Originally posted by ohliuv

Can you please explain why?

If I remember correctly someone stating this: bt based cards can be (mine usually is fine) a bit picky with the 'garbage lines' at the very top and/or very bottom of the picture and start to drop frames. If you take vertical resultions a bit off, that problem would disappear.

Cheers
Belgabor

[DaveQB]

Originally posted by Ookami
> tried then with HuffyUV and in one i get 35 dropped frames

How long was the capture time?

And, BTW, to answer the question:

The one you see are too much, the rest shouldn't matter.


they are 50 minutes in length

i still get dropped frames, ranging from 18 to 350 in these 50 min long captures,
it appears the sources vidoe dictates the amount of dropped frames
for eg, theres one section of one that i have captured a few times and it amasses a heaps of dropped frames (about a 1:3 ratio)

for some strane reason that very same section will capture much better if i start capturing from the start of the video rather then just that section,
go figure :confused:

[Ookami]

For a few more infos about dropped frames, you can take a look at the FAQ.

Also, have you noticed so much dropped frames with other sources to? For example have you so many dropped frames when you capture from:

-VCR
-tuner

etc. ?

> for some strane reason that very same section will capture much better if i start capturing from the start of the video rather then just that section,

Try to make a few minutes of test capture (F7), before the real capture. This could help, altough I think it is your source (if you've checked and followed the FAQ!). With a certain VHS tape I get over 100 dropped frames with the VD sync version (forgot how long the movie is :) ).

Cheers,

Mijo.

[theReal]

There's a few things you can check (most already mentioned).

-Don't use a compression method that is too CPU intensive
-Try other color formats (YUY2 instead of RGB, for example, or RGB24 instead of RGB16)
-Try another audio sampling rate (the soundcard may be to blame for the dropped frames if it doesn't record at the correct sampling rate)
There's a VDub modification which corrects the audio sampling rate, someone mentioned it before.
-Don't use any audio compression, use PCM
-Use a defragmented HD, better an empty partition or best an empty partition on a second HD.

[avih]

to eliminate audio related problems, you can disable audio capture alltogether.

this way it'd be clearer whether it's a video problem or sync related.

[snooty]

I used to drop frames all of the time. Eventually I realised that this was due to Spyware running in the background. Control-alt-delete and see if any of the following are running as processes:
gmt.exe
cmesys.exe
anything with 'gain' or 'trickler' in it...

If they are, stop the processes. It worked for me.

Paul

[DaveQB]

ahhh it might be an audio problem,
snooty,
none of those processes are running on my PC.

i dont think it is a matter of runing too many things

i mean i have like 30-35 windows open , ICQ, Outlook Express, Daemon Tools etc etc and i can get a minimal dropped frames,
other times fresh of a re-boot and dropped frames galore.

i tried capturing off a VCR tape that was taped off pay TV.

first time through it started looking good, 0 dropped frames, did some other things and then come back to see dropped frames esculating.

800 dropped frames in 3 minutes
ERRR
:(

and the was no sound when i played back ?!?!

did the it again the exact same way and got 0 dropped frames and full sound on play back,
captured for longer too.

seems like it might be sound card related

i only use onboard sound

(again, had 32 windows open, 52 processes and got my first perfect capture, although it was only for 4 minutes :D )

[ktx2000]

Originally posted by DaveQB



they are 50 minutes in length

i still get dropped frames, ranging from 18 to 350 in these 50 min long captures,
it appears the sources vidoe dictates the amount of dropped frames
for eg, theres one section of one that i have captured a few times and it amasses a heaps of dropped frames (about a 1:3 ratio)

for some strane reason that very same section will capture much better if i start capturing from the start of the video rather then just that section,
go figure :confused:


With your system, you shouldn't be getting any dropped frames. My system is a PIII 966, 256mb PC133, UDMA66 HD and my videocard is an old ATI All In Wonder Pro based on the BT829 chipset (slower than yours). I record directly to divx and I don't get any dropped frames.
I read through the messages here and you didn't mention what frame rate you were recording at. If you are PAL your input is 25 fps. If you are NTSC your input is 30 fps. I have tried recording at a lower frame rate than the input to try to reduce file size. I ended up with large amounts of dropped frames. If this is what your doing, try recording at a frame rate equal to the input.