Freezing while transferring live feed from Sony camcorder

[timjwilson]

First off here is what I'm running.

Sony HDR-HC1 - interfaced live feed - Orthoplan phase contrast microscope - interfaced 1394 -Legacy 400 -
ACPI x64 -pc - Intel i7 - 3.07 Ghz - 24g RAM - win7 -64
Corel VS x4pro - Nvidia 3.9 731

I've upgraded to a 'better' computer mentioned above. For years I used an 1g RAM XP and ATI. I record/transfer microbial research and educational video directly onto hard drive. No tape is involved. I edit some video to create DVDs for microbe ID etc. For this I used Ulead VS and now Corel. The only conflict I had previously was with ATI. I bought a little laptop for running seminars and found that Nvidia worked much better than ATI thus I got it for the new computer.

The new computer is awesome for rendering..so much faster, however I'm having troubles with periodic freeze up when previewing or 'capturing' video. I tried reverting to the Legacy drive which helped somewhat but am still having troubles. I shut off all updates, unplugged Internet and placed my tongue in numerous positions. It will freeze several times intermittently and then usually freeze totally so that I must reboot.

It still works flawlessly on the little laptop, even though I installed Win7 - 32 on it.

I am begining to think the problem is with the motherboard firewire and I need to install a dedicated firewire card.

I am open to any and all suggestions.

Tim

[lordsmurf]

Hi timjwilson, welcome to the site.

I read this several times in the past few days, and continue to draw a blank.

Video Studio itself is a semi-lousy video editing program, so I don't entirely discount it as being the issue. However, since you've had success with it in the past, or on another current system, I'll give it a pass for now.

The theory of a dedicated Firewire card may be valid. In fact, it might just be a crummy motherboard. Did you build this computer, or buy it?
Run the free utility CPU-Z and see what motherboard is in the computer, if you don't already know.

Did you run down the entire list of dropped frames reasons? Read it here: How to Prevent and Fix Dropped Frames (and Audio Sync Errors)

Quote:

placed my tongue in numerous positions

Sometimes phase of the moon helps, too.

[timjwilson]

My motherboard is Asus Rampage 3 Gene; http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...specifications

I think it is supposed to be decent. I purchased it custom put together. I have 24 G RAM

I started using Ulead vs back in 2006 because it was the only PC software I could find which allowed a full screen live feed preview for my method of video capture/transfer. A couple of years ago I considered switching to Mac but even their upper scale software at the time did not allow this. It is imperative to have 'true' real time full screen preview to record live microbes.

Even when I've attempted to capture using high definition there is a slight delay with live feed which makes it impossible.

If you can suggest a better program with these capabilities I'm all ears.

In the interim I've ordered a dedicated firewire card with 400 & 800 inputs so I won't entirely waste my money if that is not the problem. Thank you for your reply and the link for dropped frames. I shall check it out.

I believe your site mentions consulting. I have some plans for video which may require assistance. What is the contact method for consulting?

Tim

-- merged --

Update: The dedicated firewire card has (so far) solved the problem. I'd still like your recommendations on video editing software

[lordsmurf]

I think you'd do best to capture with WinDV. And then edited in something modern like Adobe Premiere Elements ($99) or Adobe Premiere Pro ($500+)

Even if you still want to capture in Video Studio, you can save without re-encode to DV format, then open in another editing suite. I do things like that quite a bit. Use an "all-in-one" type tool for just the 1-2 tasks it's good at, and then leave for another program. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

What sort of editing do you want to do? Basic cuts/splices, or more advanced work?

[timjwilson]

I'll try out the WinDV. Is this the best place for download?: http://windv.mourek.cz
Does it provide full screen preview?

Do the Adobe programs permit full screen preview/editing?

My needs are very basic for potential assistance required. I'll shoot you a PM later on.

[thecoalman]

As to the original issue I know the older Ulead programs had the ability to pause a DV camcorder during transfer if the buffer became overrun. On older systems say less then 3 or 3.2ghz p4 this would happen if the user was encoding to MPEG on the fly. Perhaps you had a bottle neck somewhere and the software was trying to pause the cam but since it's live feed......

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by timjwilson

I'll try out the WinDV. Is this the best place for download?: http://windv.mourek.cz

That's the official site, yes.

Quote:

Does it provide full screen preview?

Yes, for video, in reduced preview-only quality.

Quote:

Do the Adobe programs permit full screen preview/editing?

Yes, but preview is a real hog of resources for DV transfer, because it has to be decoded in addition to being written.
That can cause buffering issues, and will often result in dropped frames.