video capture

l.a.richard · Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

When I copied from my camcorder to a DVD, the sound quality was terrible. It skipped and had static. When I check the intermediate files, even the original capture file (AVI) sounded bad. Is this enough info for you to tell me what to change on my video capture to get a clean copy?

Michael Szabo · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject:

Are you using a IEEE1394 (aka FireWire) connection to the camera, or is the camera conntected to an analog capture card using a/v cables (red, white & yellow/s-video)?

l.a.richard · Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

It's a firewire connnection.

Michael Szabo · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject:

Please fill in the following...

Computer:

Processor:
Hard drive capacity (free space):
How much content are you capturing (min > MB):

Camcorder:

Manufacturer:
Model:

There are no settings for the capturing dialog, as GEAR captures the content as raw DV and saves it to an .AVI file.

l.a.richard · Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

Computer:HP media center 864n

Processor: Intel Pentium 2.66 GHz
Hard drive capacity (free space): 143GB (57 GB free)
How much content are you capturing (min > MB): 45 min I think about 8GB

Camcorder: Canon ZR80

neilwilkes · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:48 am Post subject:

Oh no - Not Media Centre.
What is running in the background when you are capturing?
Media Centre edition of XP is a bit of a hound, as it adds in all manner of codecs & media players that cause definite problems with serious authoring applications.

What I suggest you try here is to turn OFF everything you can possibly turbn off in the background:
AntiVirus applications
Internet
Firewalls
ANYTHING in the system tray you can seriously do without should be OFF.

l.a.richard · Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

I went through all the services and turned off everything I could (20-25). I also unplugged the network cable. Still the same results.

I noticed that when I play the video in the capture preview window, it looks and sounds fine. As soon as I click start capture, it starts skipping and when I play the resulting AVI file, it looks and sounds the same as the preview (with skipping). Is there any way to turn off the preview, and might this cure the problem?

neilwilkes · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:03 am Post subject:

Lets try a few things.
Firstly, XP MCE is notorious for things not working properly. ALl the major software companies advise against using this for Video & Audio work - they will all (Steinberg, Adobe, Sony, Focusrite, etc) tell you that MCE adds in stuff that just gets in the way. I have a Toshiba Laptop (for live work) that shipped with XP MCE, and when I installed my Nuendo & Vegas had nothing but crash after crash & problems with crackling - and this on just 8 audio tracks.
Remove MCE & Install XP Pro, it all went away.

Anyway.
HDD - How many do you have? I recommend a separate HDD (physical, not a partitioned drive) for capturing Video files to.
Also, when was the last time you defragged the HDD?
Services. This is a bad thing - do NOT, I repeat - do NOT fiddle with these unless you really understand what you have done. You save almost nothing in terms of performance, as it's not the services that cause problems but applications running in the background, often invisibly.
What services have you turned off?

l.a.richard · Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

Here's the services I stopped before video capture:
ATI Hotkey POLLER
Background Intelligent Transfer
COM+ Event System
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DNS Client
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IPSEC Services
Logical Disk Manager
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Remote Registry Service
another burning application hard drive watcher
Secondary Logon
SSDP Discovery Service
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telephony
WebClient
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMDM PMSP Service

I also disabled NAV auto protect and disconnected the ethernet cable from my computer.
I have 2 HDD, but I use C: for everything and backup to the other. I defragged 3 months ago.

neilwilkes · Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 9:33 am Post subject:

l.a.richard · Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

I followed all your suggestions and finally got a clean copy. Thanks.