Problems with DV-to-PC (dropping frames) [Archive]

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Gabe

27-09-2005, 09:49

Apologies if this is in the wrong section, but it seemed to be the right place for it.

I bought one of these (product code 735358) (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump.php?url=http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/pan/TrackerServlet^QS^p=1078^QA^a=60823^QA^g=19560) at the weekend, so that I can get some old videos and video camera tapes onto my PC to edit and make some family videos from, but when I tried to capture from my video camera it dropped around 90% of frames, giving it some kind of Benny-Hill stop/start look to it (and also lost the audio).

Now this is using the standard video-out cable that came with it, and a guy in the Sony Centre said that using that lead probably would drop frames, and that you'd need a better-quality one (gold-plated I guess?). Now, three questions:

1. Is the lead the likey culprit? My PC is certainly powerful enough (3.34ghz P4, SATA HD, 1 gig of PC3200 RAM), so it shouldn't be any of that, right?

2. If the standard leads are so crappy, why do they provide them, if they would never give decent quality results?

3. Is it just the capture device itself? It was £60, for £100 I could have bought a PCI-card. Would that have given me better results?

IAmATeaf

27-09-2005, 10:14

The cable may have an impact but I'd be inclined to view that response as utter nonsense. The device is a USB2 device so have/can you confirm that it is running at USB2 speeds. Also what software are you using? try some other software to see if it's any better and also turn off the preview window whilst capturing as this can be a drain on overall resources.

I've used the Dazzle 60 I think and I have to admit it was pants, the captured output was of a worse quality then the original source so I gave up in the end.

Gabe

27-09-2005, 10:57

IAmATeaf

27-09-2005, 11:14

Would you recommend a cheapo-PCI card then?

Not had any real experience with these TBH, only ever tried it with a cheap TV card and for me the results were pretty much the same as with the Dazzle 60.

I've read that the best and easiest way of doing this is via a DV camcorder that provides analog AV-in bypass so you hook up your analog source to the DV camcorder and then use the DV-out via firewire to capture the footage.

phrampton534

28-09-2005, 08:46

Now this is using the standard video-out cable that came with it, and a guy in the Sony Centre said that using that lead probably would drop frames, and that you'd need a better-quality one (gold-plated I guess?). Now, three questions:

1. Is the lead the likey culprit? My PC is certainly powerful enough (3.34ghz P4, SATA HD, 1 gig of PC3200 RAM), so it shouldn't be any of that, right?

The video cable is definately not your problem as far as dropped frames is concerned (this guy should be shot!!) It may affect the quality of the picture being transferred but it can't cause frame drops as that's between the USB device and the PC. Are you definately running this through a USB2 port?

I assume that these aren't from a DV camcorder? If they are then you're best bet is using a fireware connection between the camera and the PC. Although this is the best way of achieving what you're after I've had satisfactory results via a PCI TV card (the Tevion one Aldi sell from time to time). Only cost £25 but it's by no means top quality.

reecie

28-09-2005, 21:01

I found that taking stuff off a DV camcorder only works well over firewire. If you use USB2 most of the s/w available switches to too low a quality setting and you can't alter it. Maybe it a similar issue with this product although it appears to drop so much as to be useless. The routing via a DV camcorder with analog in is the way I've read about doing this too. The gold plated cable stuff is rubbish btw.