dropped frames and virtualdub

[sh03z]

I'm capturing via S-video.

Some captures are having dropped frames.
I know dropped frames produce jerky motion in the resultant video.

However, my question is:

How many dropped frames per minute (if i'm using 29.9697 as my framerate) is acceptable for a capture in virtualdub?

My worry is that the dropped frames will produce jerkiness in my final mpeg-2 video.

For instance, I captured about 5 minutes of video with around 19 dropped frames.

The next capture gave me 22 dropped frames in 2 minutes.

Now, by my calculations, the first capture lost 19/8991 (00.2%)
and my second capture lost 22/3596 (00.6%)

So that means that the capture with %.2 dropped frames will be more fluent than the second, and that the second will be more jerky to my knowledge...

Is it possible to tweak my settings to obtain a lower percent dropped frames? Or is this margin acceptable?

Thanks,

-Mike

[toysoldier]

I think drop fields being caused by your hdd speed, compress codec,
and your cpu.

If your hdd is 7200, use morgan or pic mjpg codec, cpu is amd2500+,
there will be no one drop after 1 hour.
this is my experience,but I use "iuvcr" capture soft,
maybe you can try this soft.

[sh03z]

my hdd is a 250 gig 7200 rpm with an 8mb cache.
I'm running xp on a 2500xp+ (1.8 mghz) AMD
my memory is 2 sticks of 256 (512 total)

lastly, i'm using huffyuv.

I'm trying that iuvcr, thanks for the input

[Mac Sidewinder]

If you are using huffy, go into the codec setup and select predict left under the yuy2 compression method, this is the fastest mode for huffy and may help reduce your dropped frames problem. By the way, your computer setup should be fast enough to be able to capture a full 720 x 480, 29.976 with stereo audio @ 48Khz with no dropped frames. I can cap for three hours from a good source with no dropped frames using huffy.

Mac

[pdottz]

I dont get any dropped frames using the vdubsync.
with regular vdubmod and vdub and all other variations of vdub I dropped frames like crazy. about 30 or more per second.

but I use the picvideo mjpeg for capping cartoons since I dont have the space for huffy.

my specs are small compared to newer machines.

2.20 ghz
128megs ram
and an 80gig for capping.

[sh03z]

@pdottz

Your dropped frames are probably due to inadequate I/O capabilities.

Mine is software related...

I just bought iuVCR...still waiting for the delivery =(