DV capture via FireWire / IEEE 1394

[Erik.Madsen]

When I'm capturing video clips from my DV camera a lot of frames are lost.

I do get something through, and I can control the camera from the PC.

I'm using a Compaq Presario 5861 with Win 98.

Any suggestions to what the problem may be?

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers Erik

The firewire is a pci firewire card?
What version 98? Do you have all the windows updates?
Is the firewire cable good quality?
What dv camera?
What capture software?

[Erik.Madsen]

Welcome to Windrivers Erik

The firewire is a pci firewire card?
What version 98? Do you have all the windows updates?
Is the firewire cable good quality?
What dv camera?
What capture software?

My PC is a Compac Presario 5861 where the FireWire connector goes directly to the Motherboard.

My Windows version is 4.10.2222 A. It appears to be 2nd edition, but I'm not really sure; the Windows came with the PC on a restore CD.
I have some updates, but I'm not sure that I have all updates.

I guess the cable is pretty good.

The camera is a Sony DCR-PC1E.

I have tried to use VideoStudio version 6 and VideoStudio version 7. I have also tried DVDeck. They all have the same problem.

I have disabled my antivirus program to make sure it not interrupts anything while capturing.


Since I started the thread I have investigated the behaviour a little further. It seems that if I launch e.g. VideoStudio 6 and begins to capture, the initial approximately 500 frames are OK; then it begins to loose frames. If I stop capturing, and then starts capturing another video clip, frames are lost immediately. Could it be that when the RAM memory is full, frames may be lost?

[Platypus]

Erik, is your system the standard spec Athlon 800? How much memory?

This is not much above the minimum system specification for VideoStudio 6, and right on minimum for VS 7. If anything about the system is not right up to scratch, it could be struggling.

For example, is the hard drive defragmented, with adequate available space? Have you confirmed DMA is enabled for the hard drive(s) in the Device Manager?
How is Virtual Memory configured, eg Windows managing its own virtual memory, or a fixed swapfile?

[Erik.Madsen]

Erik, is your system the standard spec Athlon 800? How much memory?

This is not much above the minimum system specification for VideoStudio 6, and right on minimum for VS 7. If anything about the system is not right up to scratch, it could be struggling.

For example, is the hard drive defragmented, with adequate available space? Have you confirmed DMA is enabled for the hard drive(s) in the Device Manager?
How is Virtual Memory configured, eg Windows managing its own virtual memory, or a fixed swapfile?

My system is based on an AMD Athlon 600.
The standard configuration is listed at
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...name=c00034105
but I have the following changes:
Extra 128 MB RAM => total 256 MB RAM
40 GB Maxtor Harddisk, 7200 RPM

The HD has appx. 35 GB free space. I tried to defragment it, but it didn't help.

The Device Manager doesn't seem to provide the DMA enable option.

Windows is managing the Virtual Memory.

Some further observations:
I have realised that Windows version 4.10.2222 a is actually Windows 98 SE.
I have tried to deactivate the network driver, but it didn't help.

[Platypus]

My system is based on an AMD Athlon 600.

Ah, even more reason for it to be struggling then. What resolution are you capturing at?

For the DMA option in Device Manager, are you looking at Disk Drives, then usually Generic IDE Disk Type47, Settings tab in Properties? If the DMA option here is missing, greyed out or won't keep the enable check, we'd next need to find out if you have the motherboard chipset drivers installed. In this case for the AMD Irongate, which 98SE doesn't have built-in drivers for.

If updated drivers may help, someone more familiar than myself with Compaq may need to advise whether the standard AMD chipset drivers will do, or if the correct driver Paq should be sourced from Compaq/HP support site.

[Erik.Madsen]

Well, I'm capturing DV quality which means 720x576, but the captured footage is stored on the HD as an .AVI file in 360x288 format.

Ah, there the DMA setting is, at Disk Drives / Generic IDE Disk Type01; and it is enabled too.
(I was first looking at Harddisk Controllers.)

So now what? I still expect VideoStudio 6 to run on my PC, although perhaps not at an impressive speed when editing and rendering, but at least without loosing frames when capturing. I mean, if the data stream to the HD is via DMA, the CPU frequency shouldn't matter much.

[Erik.Madsen]

Hurray, I had a major breakthru last night! :-)

I did some Internet surfing, and came across "mightycoach.com" at http://www.mightycoach.com/articles/...viemaker2.html
and tried to play with item 7, Decrease your monitor display settings.

I decreased the screen resolution (from 1024x756 to 800x600) and
I decreased the colour depth (from 32 bit to 16 bit)
This makes the preview monitor in VideoStudio smaller in terms of number of pixels, and it makes the colour handling easier for the PC.

And that really turned the scale. I captured a footage of approximately 7790 frames / 1135 MB / 5 min 12 sec without loosing a single frame! :-)

So my conclusion is, that my old PC is assigned a tough job, but it is after all capable of performing it.
But, with increased monitor display settings it is just at the limit. When capturing the initial frames, that fits in RAM, it works. But when capturing the subsequent frames, that must be placed in the virtual memory on the HD, it fails, because the load is heavier and the PC reaches its limit. The decreased monitor display settings gives it room to breathe.


Thanks NooNoo and Platypus! Through your constructive suggestions I learned a lot new stuff about my PC, that may be useful later too.


Now, I have another problem that is a little similar. I'm loosing frames if I have a secondary HD attached. I will start a new thread for that problem.