frame drops, why? [Archive]

goemon

8th February 2003, 13:49

hardware:
dual 1200mhz athlon, 512mb ram
promise ultra100 controller
7200rpm 80gb maxtor 6L080J4, udma confirmed enabled, formatted ntfs
7200rpm 200gb western digital wd200jb, udma confirmed enabled, formatted ntfs
ohci 1394 card
sony dvmc-da2

software:
w2k with latest patches
pure motion capture 2.1.2

when capturing, i will get 1 or 2 frame drops an hour. shouldn't this be 0 frame drops, given this setup?

it doesn't matter which drive i capture to, what video source, or if i use svideo or composite inputs.

no other applications are running during capture, and networking is disabled.

OvERaCiD23

9th February 2003, 02:02

Definetly make sure all services/programs are shut down during capture (via the Task Manager). I experience frame drops occassionaly (PIII 900mhz, 256mb RAM, 7200rpm FireWire drive ~~~> all on a laptop). It will randomly drop frames for no reason, I can capture again and it will capture perfectly. At first I thought it was a fragged drive, but even with a perfectly reformatted drive, same scenario. As my solution was not a real one, I just started capturing with ScenalyzerLive, so each clip is short. If I need to recapture, I can just do that one scene. This causes less headache, and much less cursing around the house.

goemon

9th February 2003, 03:05

i have 100% made sure all applications are shut down with task manager, so that's not the problem.

i even increased capture.exe priority to realtime, and changed affinity to 1 cpu, but it has exactly the same result -- randomly dropped frames.

maybe w2k simply can't handle it?

OvERaCiD23

9th February 2003, 20:45

Windows 2K can handle it.

I used it for awhile on a dual-boot for only DV editing (same machine), and it would never drop frames. Mind you, this was a clean install, only Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, and the necessary Windows programs installed. I eventually rid of this though, as I have very little time to do any DV-related stuff lately. Now I deal with the random dropped frame in XP Pro, but with Scenalyzer it's not as much of an annoyance.

goemon

9th February 2003, 21:35

well i capture broadcast TV so I can't "just rewind and recapture with scenalyzer".

it's a mystery to me why such a powerful hardware setup still drops frames.

maybe it's puremotion capture 2.1.2 at fault?

OvERaCiD23

10th February 2003, 20:16

you didn't state your source, and this is a DV forum (usually meaning video from DV tapes....)

could be the program....try another capture program (DVIO is free, it's in the sticky at the top of the forum).

Ookami

11th February 2003, 10:26

Originally posted by OvERaCiD23
you didn't state your source, and this is a DV forum (usually meaning video from DV tapes....)

could be the program....try another capture program (DVIO is free, it's in the sticky at the top of the forum).

Er, this thread is in the "Capturing Video" forum, not in the "DV forum" :-) .

BTW, check the FAQ for the dropped frames issues. 1-2 per hour is nothing if you don't "capture" DV. With DV it always should be 0.

*Edit: Just saw that this thread was moved from the DV forum. Oops.*

^^-+I4004+-^^

11th February 2003, 19:25

>when capturing, i will get 1 or 2 frame drops an hour. shouldn't this be 0 frame drops, given this setup?

small "amounts" of frame dropping can be attributed to
different sampling clocks of video and sound cards....

solution is to "resample" audio to fit perfectly the video stream
what programs do this?
VDSync (vfw capture but will work on wdm system with wrapper)
VirtualVCR (pure WDM system for NTFS people..i hate it as i'm an FAT32 man,and it can't split to segments.....)

dar1us

11th February 2003, 20:47

iuVCR also does Dynamic Syncing!

Better support as it does WDM and VFW (i think VFW also? - but WDM more than counts).

fasttimes

13th February 2003, 20:45

Originally posted by OvERaCiD23
you didn't state your source, and this is a DV forum (usually meaning video from DV tapes....) Huh? I read the title of this group as "Capturing Video", not Capturing DV!

fasttimes

13th February 2003, 20:47

Originally posted by goemon
promise ultra100Try capturing without the Promise controller.

goemon

13th February 2003, 23:05

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
>when capturing, i will get 1 or 2 frame drops an hour. shouldn't this be 0 frame drops, given this setup?

small "amounts" of frame dropping can be attributed to
different sampling clocks of video and sound cards....

DV is perfectly synced audio and video, the audio and video is interleaved in the firewire data stream, so that's not the problem.

goemon

13th February 2003, 23:07

Originally posted by fasttimes
Huh? I read the title of this group as "Capturing Video", not Capturing DV!

i posted in the DV forum, for some mysterious unexplicable reason a moderator has moved the thread to this forum.

fasttimes

14th February 2003, 02:52

Originally posted by goemon
i posted in the DV forum, for some mysterious unexplicable reason a moderator has moved the thread to this forum.

Ah, that would explain it. :)

goemon

22nd February 2003, 09:50

it seems there is exactly 1 frame drop per hour.

my guess is it is something w2k is doing on a scheduled basis. but what it is, i can only guess. there doesn't seem to be any logs in w2k to indicate what's going on.

anyone have ideas how to track down wtf w2k is doing?

John2002

22nd February 2003, 10:16

I wouldn't worry about only 1 dropped frame per hour. It's a mystery but not a problem.

goemon

22nd February 2003, 10:20

it's a problem for when i try to inverse telecine. it messes up the telecine pattern and causes annoying visual jarring skip of varying degrees depending on where the drop was in the pattern.

it should be zero, the hardware is certainly up to the task. maybe w2k simply isn't up to the task?

Koepi

22nd February 2003, 10:29

I capture in win2k using vdub_sync (search the FAQ for finding a d/l location). 0 frame drops. Secret in there is: enable direct draw acceleration in the vdub menu - only after that the frame drops are 0. (if you use a preview that is)

So it's definatly NOT win2k to blame - it's not _always_ M$ fault ;)

Regards
Koepi

goemon

22nd February 2003, 10:45

vdub_sync can capture DV? it doesn't appear so.

dar1us

22nd February 2003, 12:56

Could you not capture at a SLIGHTLY lower framerate. It seems that your material runs at something like 24.9998 or something, capturing at 25 will at fixed intervals, drop a frame. If you could calculate a fixed capture rate.

I cant be bothered to work out how. It is a completely wild sugestion, but who knows:)

-dar1us

goemon

23rd February 2003, 06:15

say what?

dar1us

23rd February 2003, 16:26

Dont worry

-dar1us

Hey Hey Hey, enter Fat Abbot;)

Jeff D

28th February 2003, 02:27

I'm looking for help, I'm getting dropped frames maybe 1/minute average.

Setup:
2.4Ghz Dell
WinXP Home
AIW 8500 128MB
Sound card Audigy Plus for PCM SPDIF auido input
Capture drive :Promise controller for 200GB WD 7200 with 8MB cache (not that that meatters)
Boot drive is 40GB 7200 Maxtor
capture with virtualdub
720x480 HuffYUV audio 44.1Khz 16bit stereo

I try killing off all tasks (maybe I should disconnect from network too?)

Vituraldub has settings so that display is disabled during capture.
Virtualdub says CPU load is 19%

This capture will be run through a IVTC and decimate filters to get the source back to 24fps. Anyone have experience with this rate of dropped frames (I'd like to avoid them, but I can't figure out how...)

I kill all tasks that look like nothing useful. All applications and taskbar items are also killed.

SiliconSoul

28th February 2003, 04:41

im using a cannon ZR30 NTSC
and it randomly drops frames all the time. using adaptec firewire and belkin cable.

i can capture for 30 mins or 30 seconds sometimes! its just totaly random

any suggestions would be great...
ps camera is not mine is a friends and i know its not the best but it works...

amd athlon xp 1700+
WinXP pro
geforce 4 4600 128MB
Sound card soundblaster live mp3+
Capture drive : epox MB 8hka+ controller with seagate 80gb defragmented
capture with sound forge vegas 4.0 but ive tried all others out there and it does the same thing

Jeff D

28th February 2003, 11:26

I don't really understand the mechanics of everything that is going on, but I'm thinking the HD is not a factor. My ATA/100 Promise controlled 200GB drive gets around a 50MB/sec write rate. Other drives are getting down around 17MB/sec, I get roughly the same drop rate regardless of the drive.

Anyone got any ideas where to look for the bottleneck? HuffYUV settings? My CPU load in virtualdub ranges from 16-25%.

I've got no ideas, but maybe XP is doing something that blocks.

dar1us

28th February 2003, 21:09

Yuck! I'd love to blame XP. I was on beta team since beta 1 or 2 (professional) and it was legal. Mickey'o'soft send me stuff all the time. And I will blame XP, it isn't really ideal, many many cards have driver problems.

I suggest you hit the streets with Windows 2000.This is the unquestioned daddy (try to deny it:D).

The machine is fine. The problem would probably be some little program seceretly running in the back. Try possibly looking at the services that are running behind the scenes. Disable the ones in an account SPECIFICALLY for capturing. So things like network, messenger... That kind of things, disable EVERYTHING that is not required to capture. Run your PC at 800x600x32bit in the capturing profile. Making sure that there is no load. Look for CPU usage spikes when the frames drop. Is there a program which can record graph for preformance of CPU !AND! Hard-disk (do they exist).

-dar1us

Jeff D

28th February 2003, 23:18

Thanks.

what's ment by
"Run your PC at 800x600x32bit in the capturing profile"
I have no idea what "capture profile" is.

My other concern is I have no idea what processes are ok to kill. I see some for the SB Audigy, but can I kill them? I'll try. It the old days systray and explorer (I think those were the two to keep around).

I do have win3k pro so I can try that. It's running on all machines BUT my HTPC, which is doing the caputre. HTPC folks seem to like XP, OS of choice there.

Chez_Wimpy

1st March 2003, 04:45

This isn't going to make anyone happy but...

System Specs:
Athlon 750
Hard Drive 5400rpm maxtor (20 gig, 13gigs free)
1.06 gb PC133 SDRAM
Windows XP SP1 and Ulead Studio 5.0

...and I have never had an unintentional dropped frame. I think there are two possible reasons for this. First off, the amount of ram I use. My guess is that whatever slack my 5400rpm needs (does it need slack?) is taken up by my ram. The other thing I have noticed (I stream VHS video through a Sony DV deck) is that frames are NEVER dropped when TBC is enabled on my Panasonic AG-1980 VCR. Without time base correction, during edits, or tape droupouts, ulead will drop frames at that point. This results in captured avi's where the video and audio lose sync. The trick is just to feed the DV deck a constant strength NTSC signal. Perhaps tape irregularities are the problem?

Hell, if I can have a 100% success rate with THOSE specs, anyone can.

dar1us

2nd March 2003, 00:23

I can see that you can get 100% sucess with those specs, including XP, but still, making your computer as clear as possible to capture sounds like a good idea if you have any problems.

My days of taking trips down to tellytubby land are well and gone. 2k all the way. I am capturing at the moment (480x576 XVID with VHQ 4 (testing it out on a big movie captured, I havn't looked into the meaning of it much, just testing), downloading, writing this, listening to mp3's and burning cds. Nothing heavy on the CPU apart from the capture. No problems at all, guess there are no frame drops, iuVCR has turned itslef in to a tiny bar I cant revive until i finish capturing so I can restart it, then see how this lovely progressive Resivoir Dogs records from FilmFour (UK). I actually own the DVD, just want to compare the capture to a DVD after SVCD conversion. I know I can play the disc on a DVD player, but this will give the most realistic result possible.

-dar1us

Jeff D

2nd March 2003, 03:21

More and more fustrating... I've tried everything I can think of (oh wait just thought of another option for HD, although I don't think a 50MB/sec HD is my bottleneck)

I've messed with virtualdub's internal values for disk I/O and capture settings for video buffers.

I'm not sure what to do with the values in the bottom of the capture display, us jitter, and us display, total.

i'm guessing the jitter is a audio thing, display is the overlay time?

Anyone know of compatibility issues with SB Audigy 2 Plat, ATI AIW 8500, promise HD controller and dell 4550 2.4Ghz computers?

Jeff D

2nd March 2003, 09:51

Not sure if this is important, but the first dropped frame seems to always come at 2:20 seconds in. Others follow at a shorter spacing after that, and there appears to be no pattern.

I'd be willing to try and get my miniDV camcorder to do the capture, if it had inputs. -
(

SiliconSoul

3rd March 2003, 04:10

are you capturing the same tape or different ones... ive noticed that my camera drops frames on very fast motion/movement and when i stop and restart the recording and when i change profiles from low light to normal or vice versa. but this is not always when it does it. because i can recapture right where it dropped and not get another drop for 1 min to 30 mins!

Jeff D

3rd March 2003, 19:48

I'm not sure i understand the question. I am capturing a laserdisc (not even tape, sorry, but this thread was here and the original poster was talking LD too. If it's the wrong spot sorry for the confusion, but this is what searching got me to...)

I played around all weekend with the settings in virtualdub for capture frame rate, disk IO settings and frame buffer settings. Each and every time I got dropped frames. Drops happened anywhere from 1-17 minutes into the recording. Two captures with the same settings wouldn't always give the same results.

I've got a spread sheet of all the configurations I've tried and I've tested more than 20. This takes a lot of time because captures don't fail until more than 10 minutes now. I'm getting close, just not quite right yet...

4th March 2003, 07:30

Jeff D,

maybe you get drops due to audio synching. Did you try the synching mod of VirtualDub? It's included in VirtualDubVCR, available at www.virtualdub.net, and that one doesn't drop frames but adapts the audio stream.

bb

Jeff D

4th March 2003, 20:02

bb thanks. that seems to be running better. I'll give it a full run today.

arsmori

5th March 2003, 05:38

I think it's no longer relevant now with the bigger caches and UDMA, but back in the days thermal recalibration was a big source of frame dropping with EIDE HD. It reminded me this because it was exactly as described here: at regular intervals as the HD would get hotter about the same speed every time.

Just a q for OvERaCiD23: do you capture with your DV camera and FW drive attached to the same FW card? I'm thinking of buying a FW drive enclosure for portability but I've been a bit reluctant to do so, fearing it would cause problems during capture with the two devices sharing the same card/bandwith. Any concern so far with this setup?

Jeff D

5th March 2003, 23:15

bb, that seemed to do pretty well. There'd be times where it would drop 400+ frames in 5 minutes, maybe a vsync issue? I'd restart the capture and that new cap would usually be fine.

How about another question? This source is laserdisc, 29.97 frame rate, I want to go back to 23.976 framerate. Progressive images, etc. I'm looking at either filters for avisynth or virtualdub. I like the results from the virtualdub telecide and decimates better than avisynth, but I'm still experimenting. Although the telecide I'm using seems to be doing a blend, which isn't what I want. I want the real full source frame.

Would it make more sense to make one large capture (50GB or so) vs on capture per disc? With the multiple captures I see myself doing the fine tune for the IVTC on each cap file. Painfully slow...

I'm still trying to optimize the order of the filters and such for the best results, but there is lots of room to mess up here.

Maybe I should ask this in a better place... =)

6th March 2003, 07:34

What's wrong with Telecide(blend=false)?

The frame drops as you describe them may be due to some background process running. Check Task Manager for unnecessary processes.

Capturing in a single big file is not worse then capturing smaller files - quality wise. But if you don't get your frame drop scenario solved, you might want to go for smaller files.

There have been others posting about Laserdisc captures in the "Capturing Video" forum. Search for "Laserdisc" and you may get some hints.

bb

SiliconSoul

6th March 2003, 18:02

ive noticed that soundforge vegas drops frames more often than adobe premiere... vegas seems like it can not go for more than a min or two where as adobe can capture 8 mins or more of video... id like to get where i can capture a FULL TAPE! but it seems part of the problem is the canon ZR30MC minidv camera sucks. ive used a sony camera HI8 that is my friends and i can capture almost the whole tape in VEGAS and i have not tried it in premiere. but im sure it will work better capturing in preimere than the canon does...

goemon

9th March 2003, 09:08

now how did this thread get off into divx and virtualdub never-never-land?

i thought this was the *DV* forum ...

9th March 2003, 10:11

Originally posted by goemon
now how did this thread get off into divx and virtualdub never-never-land?

i thought this was the *DV* forum ...
And that's exactly the reason why I moved this thread to "Capturing Video". But someone moved it back; oh well...

bb

goemon

9th March 2003, 10:20

i posted it in dv because it was a dv-specific problem. framedrops are common in non-dv captures, but should never happen in dv.

the thread should never have been moved. when the thread was moved to the other forum, it started picking up responses like virtualdub and junk totally useless for DV,

SiliconSoul

9th March 2003, 17:38

anyway im still getting 5-15 frames a hour long tape that drop in premiere, DVIO, and vegas. ive even saw another thread that recommends running EndItAll version2 (enditall2) and im still dropping way too many frames. as i said before i can rewind and recapture where it drops but this gets annoying. anyone else out there have a ZR30MC and drop this many frames using firewire.

Premiere and DVIO drop less frames per hour but not that many less than vegas... vegas may drop about 20 an hour.

OvERaCiD23

9th March 2003, 23:09

I have the same issue with my ZR20. P3 900mhz, 80GB 7200 external FireWire drive. I get more drops with Premiere, less with DVIO, and even less with scLive. I never could figure it out either; I just re-capture until I don't drop any frames. It's quite annoying and usually invokes a lengthy series of profanity. Things were better with 2000 Pro as compared to XP Pro, but I like the extra features XP has so I've stuck with it. I don't do nearly as much DV stuff as I used to (thanks to college), so I just put up with it. I'd be curious to see how well Linux captures DV, as it might be a good alternative just for hassle-free capture....