Studio - Capture

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

Marc P. — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:43:28 GMT

Well that's great to hear. I'll continue to cross them fingers.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

scoahayn — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:33:57 GMT

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Captured 30 minutes of DV with only 2 dropped frames (that didn't come until after minute 20). I played the file back with Windows Media Player without issues.

Now running Studio 10.8 for Vista 32 bit. Took 2 hours to download the 10.6 patch/update.

Finally back on track. Crossing fingers it continues to work. I'll post back tomorrow or Monday to let you guys know if everything still going well.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

Marc P. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:41:33 GMT

I'm crossing my fingers with you on this one. I'd be pleased to hear about your results.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

scoahayn — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:51:12 GMT

bittmann:

@ scoahayn: As far as capturing: How well can you capture in Windows Movie Maker (if you have that installed)? If you can't capture in WMM either, then you don't have a Studio issue -- you'd have a "something else is wrong" issue.

If you don't have WMM installed, or if you want a 3rd opinion, you can also try capturing using "WinDV", a free DV capture app, and see if it acts any differently. If you can't capture in 3rd-party software, then you can pretty much assume that you have "other issues".

Windows Movie Maker failed on the desktop. So I definately have the "something else is wrong" issue. I don't think it's Studio. I thought I could do the clean boot last night, but with the family I didn't have time last night...action packed night.

My eggs are all in the basket of this 4/4pin cord coming in the mail tomorrow cause there's no PCI card for it to run through....I have 4 pin firewire from the factory on my laptop....I feel like a moron for not seeing it earlier, but I got my money back on the failed Firewire PCI card experiment. Even if I could get the desktop to work, my memory, processor, and graphics card are all dated....the software was manageable when I could get it to work....it crashed from time to time, but I read everyone has that problem. :) After reading the recent comments on this second page, my hopes/spirits are up. I know I sound like a broken record, but I appreciate all of you guys. Will keep everyone posted.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

bittmann — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:08:58 GMT

Yah, it's those blanket statements that'll get one in trouble (don't I know! ). You remember all of the GPU requirement discussions that we've had since S10 was released, I'm sure...e.g. "what the heck is DirectX 9 compatible anyway?" and all of the surrounding silence by Pinnacle, don't you? Not exactly a plethora of information, there.

I once positied that the Studio hardware requirements should say something along the lines of "a Studio-compatible GPU with a lot of the right kind of video RAM"...which would at least be CORRECT and unhelpful, as opposed to the currently merely "unhelpful" spec that PRETENDS to give you information, but really doesn't.

I looked up the X1200, and believe that by spec it should be fully compliant with S10. Remember the old S10 hardware spec said:

DirectX® 9 or higher compatible graphics card with 64 MB (ATI® Radeon® or NVIDIA® GeForce™ 3 or higher with 128 MB recommended for SD 128 MB required for 720p HD; 256 MB required for 1080i HD)

The X1200 GPU spec shows that it is in the R400 ATI series (in other words, "it's a Radeon"), can address up to 1024MB of video RAM, albeit via Hypermemory (in other words, it has more than 128 -- even more than 256MB of RAM), and is therefore, by the S10 spec, not merely a "compatible" card, but is most definitely a "recommended" card. Pity that for all that it seems we can't expect this card to work.

@ scoahayn: As far as capturing: How well can you capture in Windows Movie Maker (if you have that installed)? If you can't capture in WMM either, then you don't have a Studio issue -- you'd have a "something else is wrong" issue.

If you don't have WMM installed, or if you want a 3rd opinion, you can also try capturing using "WinDV", a free DV capture app, and see if it acts any differently. If you can't capture in 3rd-party software, then you can pretty much assume that you have "other issues".

I used to be able to capture DV video just fine on a Celeron 300A clocked to an amazing, blazing 450MHz, and while doing so was able to do full-resolution preview (with sound!) on an old integrated 8MB SIS video chipset. Decidedly bottom-feeder equipment, but then again, it doesn't take a 3GHz CPU to simply capture DV video over Firewire.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

colour — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:34:01 GMT

Marc P.:
Maybe we can call it insufficient? If I've learned anything about video cards and Studio, It's all for responsiveness and preview. You atleast need 256MB of video memory (dedicated) to be able to work with less hair loss. Though some cards are slower even with more Video memory. Things can get tricky at this point. But I'd recommend turning off flashy windows effects to maximize performance. And do more testing, rather than jumping the gun for a new hardware upgrade.

Maybe we can call it insufficient?

Yes - Thanks for that Marc. In fact if you had time to read through my 5000 odd Posts , you would find a fair number of Posts re: GPU's which are/were correct. If they were incorrect, I'm sure that they would have been picked-up at the time However I made a mistake in this one Thread & it was picked-up.

The more one Posts, the more one leaves oneself open to making errors & therefore criticism from certain others on the Forum. Perhaps a more subtle approach would be appropriate from them, in future, Thanks.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

Marc P. — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:45:53 GMT

Maybe we can call it insufficient? If I've learned anything about video cards and Studio, It's all for responsiveness and preview. You atleast need 256MB of video memory (dedicated) to be able to work with less hair loss. Though some cards are slower even with more Video memory. Things can get tricky at this point. But I'd recommend turning off flashy windows effects to maximize performance. And do more testing, rather than jumping the gun for a new hardware upgrade.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

colour — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:08:46 GMT

bittmann:

S10 requires a separate GPU not integrated within your Motherboard

No it doesn't.

S10 requires a COMPATIBLE GPU. If it's integrated with your motherboard, that's file -- as long as it's compatible. (I have 2 separate laptops that can demonstrate this quite easily).

And you can easily purchase an incompatible "separate GPU".

Now: Is the "X1200" compatible? I don't know -- not really sure what an X1200 is (I know what an X1270 is. for certain, because I have some limited experience with it -- but am not sure what an X1200 might be). But just to make a blanket statement that ALL integrated GPUs are not Studio-compatible is a bit of a broad brush, because SOME most assuredly are. (And as an aside: Some are fully Studio-compatible but not Magic Bullet Looks compatible, etc., but that's another story). So, just wanted to get that out there before someone makes a strange decision based upon information that isn't necessarily correct.

BittMann

Thanks for the clarification

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

bittmann — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:13:39 GMT

S10 requires a separate GPU not integrated within your Motherboard

No it doesn't.

S10 requires a COMPATIBLE GPU. If it's integrated with your motherboard, that's file -- as long as it's compatible. (I have 2 separate laptops that can demonstrate this quite easily).

And you can easily purchase an incompatible "separate GPU".

Now: Is the "X1200" compatible? I don't know -- not really sure what an X1200 is (I know what an X1270 is. for certain, because I have some limited experience with it -- but am not sure what an X1200 might be). But just to make a blanket statement that ALL integrated GPUs are not Studio-compatible is a bit of a broad brush, because SOME most assuredly are. (And as an aside: Some are fully Studio-compatible but not Magic Bullet Looks compatible, etc., but that's another story). So, just wanted to get that out there before someone makes a strange decision based upon information that isn't necessarily correct.

BittMann

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

scoahayn — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:58:16 GMT

colour:
ATI Radeon X1200 (ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x791F
Hmmmm........Well, since that GPU is integrated within your Motherboard, irrespective of whatever-else you try, IMO, you're still going to be limited by the fact that S10 requires a separate GPU not integrated within your Motherboard.

Colour, or anyone, is it going to give fits or will it just flat out not work at all? I had forgot you made a similar comment earlier. I ordered the cable, but I can always send it back. This is the most frustrating deal ever. If the clean boot doesn't work, I'm screwed. I guess I can see if a friend of mine has a spare graphics card (one better than mine) laying around for my Desktop and see if that works.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

scoahayn — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:37:20 GMT

Mark P, on the cable, the guy swore that he used a higher end 6/4 pin cable and more than one. He said it sounded crazy and that people would say he was crazy...but said it worked.

But from what else was said on here, looks like my laptop might not work cause of the integrated motherboard video card thing...I can't remember. :)

It seems crazy to me that you can't download video to a laptop made a year ago though.....I've seen in forums all over the place of people doing it....but maybe not in the higest AVI 13gig for one hour of video format.

I just want to scream. I didn't have a chance to do the clean boot last night, but I'll get to it this week fo sho.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

joeoski — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:30:44 GMT

4/4 vs 6/4, doesn't make sense to me, but then again udma ide cables have twice as many wires as standard and work better even though none of the extras are hooked up.

dma and pio, have seen that on other forums, and was always suggested to just reset it, because windoze can report it as dma even though it was in pio. And of course they never solved the problem of why it kept reverting to pio

It was neccessary on my first P4 to go daul boot so pinn8 would have a clean machine to operate in( don't share your video machine with the family!!!!!!!!!). Otherwise it dropped excessive frames (30%)

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

Marc P. — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:57:30 GMT

4/4 or 6/4 pin?? I'm not sure how that would make a world of a difference. IMO it should work the same, unless its a funky cable that you're dealing with.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

colour — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:41:17 GMT

ATI Radeon X1200 (ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x791F

Hmmmm........Well, since that GPU is integrated within your Motherboard, irrespective of whatever-else you try, IMO, you're still going to be limited by the fact that S10 requires a separate GPU not integrated within your Motherboard.

Re: DV Capture now dropping frames after years of no problems - using Studio 10 Plus

scoahayn — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:21:14 GMT

I'll try the clean boot. Thanks for providing that term so that I could google it. Makes sense with me having the network and everything.

I got a PCI card for my laptop, then later saw that I have firewire (4 pin) on the side of my laptop (I told you guys I wasn't that great with computers :(

After searching message boards, a guy swears that if you use a 6 pin /4 pin firewire, you will most likely have problems because the Sony manuals (and SOME other manuals) say use only 4 pin /4 pin. The guy said he knows it sounds silly and shouldn't matter, but he had two computers, two different operating systems, and the 4 pin / 4 pin cable solved his problem. Strange.

So, I'm going to try a 4 pin / 4 pin firewire cable on my laptop and see if it works. On my desktop I'll try the clean boot. The firewire card I bought for $99 (I think) 4 years ago has 6 pin.

So that's where I am now. We just had our toughest time of the year here at work, so I had to abandon the camera issues for a while.

I'll let you guys know how it goes, and again, appreciate all of your comments. There are some really kind people on here.