#1  
10-15-2004, 05:14 AM
strangepork strangepork is offline
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Dell Poweredge 400SC
P4 2.39 HT
800FSB
1 gig dual ram 3200

NTFS
40gig
OS and apps

NTFS
raid 0 7200rpm seagate
223 gig
storage/editing


aiw 9800 128pro

liteon 811S latest firmware 8x

MMC Tv 8.5 for capture



First question:

Iam getting dropped frames, with most of my services turned off. I have
tweaked
unmercifully and disconected my network cable. Most of the services are
disabled. Im running about 23 or 24 services with antivirus and zonealarm.

I am still getting dropped frames. I have heard from other sources that
the best thing
to do is defrag, capture, defrag. Iam using onboard sound, but that
shouldnt matter.
My source is from a commercial VHS tape, not a home vid/recording. the vcr is a sony 4 head, about a year
old with hardly any use.
I have cleaned the VCR. I am using gold tipped video cabled ( y, r, h).
All my connections are secure, capture, all that good stuff. I have captured successfully but im still getting dropped frames.

I have gone thru your FAQ, on capture settings and used them, and
modified some of the settings.
Do you have any suggestions? Antivirus is turned off, and most
background services(zonealarm windows firewall, etc).

whew!!!!







- strangepork
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  #2  
10-15-2004, 06:35 AM
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RAID ZERO is one likely culprit. I've seen this before. Few RAID boards work well with RAID enabled. I've seen it do more harm more times than good. Aside from server situations (web, render farms, etc), RAID is actually pretty worthless.

ONBOARD SOUND is definitely another one. It does make a huge difference. The stuff "on board" is known to be a monkey wrench in the CPU. This goes for many things, include firewire, graphics cards, onboard RAID, etc.

DEFRAG is one good suggestion, but RAID is a fragmented system.

Some commercial VHS tapes are known to be bad. I've hit many, many of them in years past. The source can cause dropped frames. Just poor sync. They whip those tapes out en masse, not with any special care. Generic BASF tapes most of the time.

How are your capture through the tuner, directly to the non-RAID hard drive? Use a cable or satellite signal if you can, maybe a good strong tv channel otherwise (no noise, no flicker, no static, etc).

The ATI MMC 8.5 is always not a very stable one. Moving to ATI MMC 8.7 or 9.0 maybe help you. Not the drivers, not the DAO/MDAC, none of that ... just the MMC update. The 8.5 I remember when it came out, was at fault for loss of frames.

CONCLUSION
1. I would start with the tuner test on 8.5. See results. Still dropping? Move on...
2. Try to move to 8.7 or 9.0. Redo test. Still problem? Move on...
3. Try to get another audio card, disable onboard sound in BIOS. Do tuner test, see results. Still dropping? Move on...
4. Try to add another HD, not RAID. Do tuner test, see results. Still dropping? Move on...
5. Get back to me.


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  #3  
10-15-2004, 07:02 AM
strangepork strangepork is offline
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RAID is actually pretty worthless.

ill try a different configuration if my attempts fail. I was basically using the Maximum PC vid editing article.

ONBOARD SOUND is definitely another one.

Ill invest in an audigy z.

How are your capture through the tuner, directly to the non-RAID hard drive?

I capture directly to the raid 0 drive.

Moving to ATI MMC 8.7 or 9.0 maybe help you.

Ill look for the update link to 8.7 on your forum.

The tuner test should be on the options of my MMC 8.5, ill run it.

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  #4  
10-15-2004, 07:17 AM
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I mean "test" as in, you capture some footage from a coax input, and have the file save to the OS drive (NTFS, non-RAID). There is no "test" option that matters in MMC.

Are you sure that you are ALREADY capturing to a RAID drive (not OS drive) and from composite inputs? Just wanting to verify. I'm trying to get away from what does not work, to something that might work. This is step one in process of elimination.

I have almost zero respect for most of those pretty PC magazines. They scream of little research and no hands-on. I just got done ripping up an article from one magazine on another site. It was one of the most misleading pieces I've ever read on video, so full of flawed facts it was disgusting to think some unsuspecting person would actually rely on that information.

The SB AUDIGY cards are sometimes known to have driver conflicts with ATI and other other devices. If they work great, but if not, you may want to look at TURTLE BEACH cards instead. I have one TB and one SB card here. Bought the TB when the SB refused to cooperate.

I'm also curious what you settings are for ATI MMC. Are you following either the MPEG or AVI guides on digitalFAQ.com? The ATI MMC presets come miserably setup.

And lastly ... good luck. Let me know how this goes.



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  #5  
10-15-2004, 08:09 AM
strangepork strangepork is offline
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Are you following either the MPEG or AVI guides on digitalFAQ.com?

Yes, your guide are most helpful. I always recomend peeps to your site. I followed them word for word, and when i still got dropped frames, i decided to "tweak" settings.

you may want to look at TURTLE BEACH cards instead
Please provide a link, to one you would recomend, 120 dollar range is appropriate for my budget. The audigy below the platinum is going for 90, only difference is that it does not come with the front face w/ knobs.

Are you sure that you are ALREADY capturing to a RAID drive (not OS drive) and from composite inputs?

Yes to the Raid drive, no to the OS drive. Ill test that out. Yes to composite, bought gold tipped hoping that would help.

This whole dropped frames matter is very interesting.
Thanks for your suggestions.

I found the link to the 8.7
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mmc-8-7-0-0.exe

ill just install over 8.5 and let you know the results.
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  #6  
10-15-2004, 08:58 AM
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I have this sound card:
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/282...sr:SEARCH:MAIN _RSLT_PG
The TURTLE BEACH SANTA CRUZ, it's $39 on sale at this store. I paid $60 some months back for mine. Just needs to be decent, nothing hugely fancy over $100.

Gold tipped will help on signal quality.

You need to remove/uninstall 8.5 before putting on 8.7. Trying to install on top of other ATI software isn't always cooperative.



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  #7  
10-17-2004, 08:00 AM
strangepork strangepork is offline
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upgraded to 8.7 "ZEOR droppped frames" on both of my drives. The Raid and the ordinary OS drive.

This is coming from a DV cam, i left the settings default and just captured. I got one more test later on in the week, to actually confirm the dropped frames issue.

Thanks for getting back to me and steering me in the right direction.
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  #8  
10-17-2004, 08:08 AM
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I would not use ATI's default settings (bad for video, use the ones on this site), but it is good to hear that MMC 8.5 was the problem, and that moving to 8.7 fixed it.

I'm guessing that you are capturing MPEG from the DV cam, skipping the AVI/DV steps?

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  #9  
10-17-2004, 03:50 PM
strangepork strangepork is offline
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I'm guessing that you are capturing MPEG from the DV cam, skipping the AVI/DV steps?

Yes...... I was in a hurry to see if frames were dropped.
Many thanks...
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  #10  
10-21-2004, 07:06 AM
strangepork strangepork is offline
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I read your faq settings on capture for the ati, but what were your VHS capture settings??? for older tapes?? You have ls cartoons and movies, but i could not find your ls vhs settings??
Also Iam going thru a TBC, and the picture is slightly soft, what are the soap settings to make my transfer sharper??
This will be my final test to check for dropped frames.

And you were right about raid being fragmented by nature. Capture, defrag, edit, export seems to be the best bet for raid and its speed.
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  #11  
10-21-2004, 10:44 AM
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The "cartoons" one is mainly from VHS.
For live action, I slightly adjust the bitrate.
This is because toons require slightly less bitrate.
These are good for anything, VHS, off tv, satellite, cable, S-VHS..

toons =
352x480
MPEG2 interlaced
VBR 3.4 avg, 4.0 max

live shows =
352x480
MPEG2 interlaced
VBR 3.8 avg, 4.5 max

If you're a compression fan, you can chop bitrate down as low as 2.5, though 2.9 is more reasonable for max compression (on ATI AIW). While the ATI AIW is a great card, it down not look as great as a MPEG hardware encoder for max compression (few people like this anyway).

Is the image soft on the monitor or the tv? It'll look soft on a monitor, but crisp on a tv. If still soft on a tv, not much. You can try to use a sharpen filter, but you'd be better off with an enhancer unit (like a TBC). Just pick any ATI MMC VideoSoap filter, and then alter it on the next screen, pick sharpen, play with amount in preview window. Somewhere under 50% should work.

The software sharpening often enhances noise too. Yuck. My favorite model is the SignVideo DR-1000 (signvideo.com, $300, works really well), but you can get the old VidiCraft Detailer units for about $50 on eBay (somewhat decent, especially for the low cost).

As far as RAID goes, even defrag has no effect. You see, with RAID, you've got one file on two drives. By it's nature it's split, and unevenly. If you get it to work well, then I'd leave it. If it acts up again, you may want to just ditch that and go with two normal drives.
= NORMAL: 123456789010
= ON RAID
= drive1 124689
= drive2 357010
If the RAID is not perfect, there goes the quality of the file. RAID was never made for ultra-huge files, it's for faster access on smaller ones.


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