System 

 Pentium D  2.66( dual core), ecs RC410l/800-m motherboard, 1g 667 DDR2, ATI HD 3450 video card 1g DDR2, WD 80g 7200 ata133 hard drive, Seagate baracuda 320g 7200 sata2, 2 dvd burners. Windows xp pro sp2 I am running.

I am using Studio plus 11 with the pinnacle movie board plus package. Transfering laser disc to DVD.  I have all the updates for studio.  Into 10 minutes or so into the capture of AVI at best quatity at 16:9  I have frames that drop.  In 30 mins maybe 40 frame drops.  Even if I use the better setting I have frames that drop. I reloaded my computer twice, doesn't help. I used msconfig to disable programs, doesn't help.  I am using the preview and do not want to turn it off, I need that feature. I overclocked my cpu and my graphic card. Still I have dropped frames. I ran a performance test on my hard drives. os drive has a sustained rate of 39MB/S. Video drive(sata) has a rate of 64mb/s.  I tried the onboard ati video and that config drops frames. It works perfect for 10 minutes and then it starts to slowly drop frames. Cpu usage is 25 -39% during capture.  What is the problem? Can it be my video card or mybe I need a firewire hard drive? My video card has 1g of ram for goodness sake. Pinnacle is worthless for support, I already called the 4 times. They do not even know what will cause a dropped frame. The told me my computer has a problem. Very fusturating.......

There should be no issue with the power of your computer for capturing SD DVD quality. My whole setup is less powerful than yours, with a movieboard plus.I never drop frames, even when surfing the internet at the same time as capturing. Unless there is something wrong with the source.

How about another capture source? If you try to capture from a VCR, DVD player or even off air, do you get the frame drops then?

Oh, and welcome to the Forum  

I agree, try to capture a few minutes worth of a home made DVD or VHS and see if it does the same thing. Try testing with AM Cap as well.

Hi Chaseme5 try and capture via Firewire to see if you still drop frames.  I had a big problem capturing with S11U and dropping frames it was not in the same place on the same video clip so it was very random. I found my problem was I was connected from my camcorder DV output to the Firewire port on my motherboard and I was dropping frames,   so I added extra Firewire  ports on my computer via  PCI slot and have had 100% since

Thanks for your responses I appreciate it.  The only problem is I do not have any fire wire devices except for a epson scanner.  Does the pci capture card that came with my package use its own internal memory or does it use system memory? Or perhaps memory on the video card? I transfered video from vcr at 100% but it was less than 10 mins.  I tried to transfer more than 10 mins from a vcr and you guessed it, it starts to drop frames. I was thinking it might be copy protection that might cause this but I did some research and laser discs never used any copy protection. And my vcr tapes of course has no type of protection on them at all.

When you are talking about a firewire device are you suggesting a firewire hard drive to record to? Or are you talking about a firewire device like a camcorder to capture from?

You may have missed something in msconfig, and still have a process jumping in. Have a look at Enditall, a link is HERE.

I found out that if  I turn off the preview window during capture I have 0 dropped frames.  What does this mean?  What is the problem if the preview window drops frames.  about 200 frames are dropped per hour.

Have you read THIS ?

What do you mean have I read this. There is nothing that says what is the cause. That is what I want to know.

I think Mike has posted a bad link - he'll be back

I haven't come across a case of needing to switch off preview to prevent frame drops for years now - unless the CPU and disc speeds were very marginal. Having looked at the specs of your video card, it's a pretty new looking, but low-end device. I wonder if there are any newer drivers out for it yet?

I also wonder if there might be some sort of PCI bus conflict going on. In the past the cure for that was to put the capture card into the first slot.

jjn:

I think Mike has posted a bad link - he'll be back

Yes, I've goofed up ! Lets give it another try with THIS link.

Sorry, I'm fighting a bad cold, but I'm trying..............

As Jeff mentioned, moving the card to a different slot has made a difference in some instances. And the updated drivers for the card would be a good suggestion too.

Personally, I would try updating the latest patch 11.1.2 as listed HERE, and the latest device driver listed HERE.  If you have already done that, you should apply the patches again.

Also, did you ever tried the program "Enditall" as previously suggested ? 

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Jeff, thanks for backing me up here, you know that I never make misteaks.

Thank for all your information. However Pinnacle still does not tell you what the root or the problem is to the preview window causing dropped frames.  They just say to turn it off. Ok.....What do I have to do to turn it on, and not lose any frames?   I tried a 10,000 rpm raptor drive and a firewire drive. It still drops frames.   Perfect for 10 minutes. After ten minutes it starts dropping frames just as it did before. 

I have also tries end it all.  That does not fix the problem. I ran mem check on my memory, no problems there. 

One more thing, there is nothing wrong with my source. That is not an issue.

Chaseme5:

  Perfect for 10 minutes. After ten minutes it starts dropping frames just as it did before. 

Open your task manager, and start a capture with the preview window turned on. Study the task manager real close when the dropped frames start happening. You might be able to see what process is jumping in and hogging your resources.

Are you using a disc management program, such as Iolo System Mechanic ?

Also if you use enditall, did you try "Kill" instead of "Close" ?  In my experiences, the close command will still leave some things open that may affect your capture.

**ADDED** I think the culprit is the 10 minute mark. Something is being instructed to start up and run. Just an guess........

When frames start dropping there are no bogging or spikes in the system. Nothing changes, it is crazy.

Crazy ? You are being nice, yes ?

Try going to Start/Ctrl Panel/Display/Settings/Advanced/Troubleshooting, and try moving the Hardware Acceleration Slider one notch to the left,(or two or three),  this will (supposedly) relieve some pressure on your GPU.

Sorry if these suggestions are given to you piecemeal, but that's just the way I work.

Chaseme5:

Thank for all your information. However Pinnacle still does not tell you what the root or the problem is to the preview window causing dropped frames.  They just say to turn it off. Ok.....What do I have to do to turn it on, and not lose any frames? 

The capture preview consumes resources and that could be the cause. Try eliminating all other non-Microsoft services and disable all startup programs just to test it out.
 

Will a new processor like a intel E8500 dual core duo fix this problem. Well of couse I would also need a motherboard too. Or maybe a new AMD setup. Any recommendations?

A new CPU (dual core system no less) should do you good. But have you tried our recommendations above? What was the outcome?

Marc, I spent almost 2 weeks trying to resolving this problem. I have tried everyones recomendations. I bought a $200 video card and returned it because I do not think that is the problem. If you look at intel processors there are so many different types.  They have a 3ghz dual core, a 3ghz single core, a 3ghz dual core duo, one with a bus speed of 800, another 3ghz dual core duo with a 1300 system bus. Then different models have 2m cache, or 6m cache.  Just maybe studio does not like my pentium D 805 with only 512k X2 cache. My system bus speed is reporting as 133mhz with a program called cpu z. My motherboard states on the box of a FSB of 800. Not even close at 133.  I can get it to work without the preview but I do not like it. What I am trying to get at is that pinnacles system requirements have not been helping me out because my system far exceeds them. What instruction set was studio written for AMD or Intel?

It may not be your hardware at all. Its how your configuration is most probably set. Im using a Pentium 4 system with 1GB DDR 400 of Ram and an FX5200 AGP 128mb which is lower than your specs. I am able to capture from a Dazzle 100, 130, 170, Studio USB 510, 710 and PCI 700 without any dropped frames with MPEG and AVI and with capture preview. However I only have Studio on this computer and nothing else and on XP SP2. Your specs should be good enough for this task, my hunch is that a software of somekind is eating up your precious resources which cripples Studio at the time of the capture.

Ok we are getting somewhere marc. You  can  be right about this. I reloaded my system to windows xp  and studio only.  I still have dropped frames.  This is my question to you and if you can answer it asap I would appreciate it. What motherboard are you running with what chipset. What p4 do you have.  I think this might be my answer. My current motherboard is using an ati chipset. Which I believe does not know how to prioritize instructions like  intell or via chipsets do.  I have to load software on my computer for instructions for the Ati chipset. I think this is the software that is causing the problem. Do you think if I buy a board with a intel chipset that might fix the problem?

What motherboard are you running with what chipset. What p4 do you have.

Please see the attachments

Dxdiag info sheet (attached)  

My Motherboard uses a Via Chipset. 

My P4 processor.