Dropping frames -- try more memory!

[Don Tolson]

Hi y'all... just wanted to let you know of something that I found with Pinnacle Studio 9i.

Originally after installing on my 512M RAM, 120G HD, 2.3G CPU machine, I was finding that during capture, Studio 9i was dropping fairly significant numbers of frames, even after turning off the preview window and automatic scene detection. We're talking in the 500+ frames range over a 20 minute capture. It was definitely noticeable, both on the video and audio tracks.

Well, because Studio 9i is also a bit of memory hog, I also decided to upgrade my RAM by an additional 256M.

It didn't make too much of a difference to the responsiveness of Studio 9i (it's still a bit slow to my liking), but it definitely helped out with the capture side of things. Now, I can go through over 90 mins of capture, with only the first 10 or so frames dropped. Usually, this is due to coordination of the camera to the software.

[Crocuta]

Hi y'all... just wanted to let you know of something that I found with Pinnacle Studio 9i.

Originally after installing on my 512M RAM, 120G HD, 2.3G CPU machine, I was finding that during capture, Studio 9i was dropping fairly significant numbers of frames, even after turning off the preview window and automatic scene detection. We're talking in the 500+ frames range over a 20 minute capture. It was definitely noticeable, both on the video and audio tracks.

Well, because Studio 9i is also a bit of memory hog, I also decided to upgrade my RAM by an additional 256M.

It didn't make too much of a difference to the responsiveness of Studio 9i (it's still a bit slow to my liking), but it definitely helped out with the capture side of things. Now, I can go through over 90 mins of capture, with only the first 10 or so frames dropped. Usually, this is due to coordination of the camera to the software.

Hi Don,

If everything is working correctly, you shouldn't lose any frames at all. One of the most common causes for dropped frames in Studio (really tends to be true for any video capture program) is in trying to capture to the same physical drive that your OS and program are on. IDE can only do one thing at a time so runnning your OS and Studio (and probably some other things like anti-virus, etc.) while capturing a constant high-volume stream of data can overwhelm your HDD. The heads can only be in one place at a time and the channel will only transmit one thing at a time. Since you only mentioned a single drive in your system description, I'm wondering if that's what's happening here.

For best results in video capture, you want to capture to a completely separate physical drive that is located on the 2nd IDE channel. Having the separate physical drive seems to be the most important part of that. Some people (me included) do fine with their second drive on the primary IDE channel with their system drive, while other people still drop frames that way and have to move their capture disk over to the other channel. YMMV.

My best guess as to the extra RAM helping is that you've provided enough extra buffer for your disk so that it can store more in the cache until it gets a break and can catch up to the capture, but you're still probably skirting right on the edge of your HDDs ability to cope. If you drop in another drive and dedicate it to video, you'll probably end up with rock solid captures.

If you can't get another drive, then you can give yourself a bit more leeway by turning off all those little things that run in the background like your antivirus scanner, messenger clients, etc. whenever you capture.

[backpackerx]

In addition to that I've read that defragmenting a hard drive before capture can help. I do this and get 0 dropped frames with Pinnacle even though I have a VERY modest laptop setup and capture to the main drive.

My CPU is only 900Mhz with 256 RAM and I don't do anything processor intensive while capturing, I just let it sit and I don't have any dropped frames. I'm guessing my notebook drive is only 5400rpm also.

[tank25]

Hi all

I justed upgraded to Pinnacle Studio 9.4.3. I had 9.1.X. Before, I capture from my VCR with no Frames dropped. Now, I average 6 per 25 minute capture. I do have a 2nd hard drive that I use for the capture. I also use the preview back in the "9.1.X" days and now. Has anyone have this same issue.
Thanks
Jason

[Don Tolson]

Hi all

I justed upgraded to Pinnacle Studio 9.4.3. I had 9.1.X. Before, I capture from my VCR with no Frames dropped. Now, I average 6 per 25 minute capture. I do have a 2nd hard drive that I use for the capture. I also use the preview back in the "9.1.X" days and now. Has anyone have this same issue.
Thanks
Jason

Hi Tank25, as you can see from the thread, I had no end of problems with Pinnacle dropping frames, jerky playback, etc. I changed to Adobe Premiere Elements and all my problems went away.

I suspect there was just something in my hardware that Pinnacle didn't like.

/drt