What kind of requirements for 704x480 30fps capture?

fastfly · Messages: 648 Registration: 09.01.2003

Presently I have a P1.4, 128 RAM, 7200 Maxtor, Matrox 400 TV capture card, Win98SE. I'm getting dropped frames. What do I need to capture w/o dropped frames. (BTW, cpu utilization is only at 50% when in full capture.)

TBM311 · Messages: 71 Registration: 09.04.2002

what codec are you using for capture? mjpeg? huffy? I can do 704x480 mjpeg on my Athlon 650, maxtor 7200 rpm drive.

Lactomaniac · Messages: 31 Registration: 08.03.2003

If I'm reading your specs right, you've only got one hard drive. Add a second hard drive, (not a partition), and use this one strictly for capturing. Using the system drive for capturing adds a great deal of overhead to the capturing process. A dedicated capture drive will dramatically improve the frame drop problem.

Transporter · Messages: 200 Registration: 05.17.2003

I neglected to mention my second drive. I am not using it because even though is has an RPM of 7200, its throughtput is actually lower than my main drive. I have tested various configurations but frankly it is still faster to capture to the C drive. When I do capture to the D drive, I get more frame drops... go figure. Thanks for your suggestion though. I apprecicate the time.

M3DREAMZ · Messages: 34 Registration: 12.05.2003

@MrTibs: Is your D drive sharing the same bus as your C drive, or is it sharing a bus with a slower device such as a CD-ROM? If the latter, switch it's connection to the same bus as the C drive. (If I recall correctly, on a two device IDE/EIDE bus, the data transfer occurs at the speed of the slower device.)

Z3Don · Messages: 24 Registration: 06.01.2003

You are correct. I moved my D drive to the second IDE connector on the MB but it didn't eliminate the problem. Windows has DMA checked. I just purchased a PCI soundcard to replace the onboard. I'll give that a try tonight. (I noticed that AVI_IO doesn't drop frames when not capturing audio but Virtualdub won't even capture unless there is a sound card present so things are looking bad for the onboard sound card.)

Captain Drifto · Messages: 4,682 Registration: 12.04.2003

Thanks Vhelp. You are everwhere. You were right, the sound card didn't help at all. I'll try your suggestions but I got to tell you, my AverMeadia card doesn't have this problem. When capturing with AverMedia card the CPU hovers around 5-15% not at 50% like with the Maxtor. Too bad the AverMedia's tuner is so bad.