please help me with capturing video

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:31 am

i'm investing on my pc.
i bought a 19'' monitor

(before i had 15''), i bought a dvd writter

and just today i bought a video capturer.

it's a Pinnacle Dazzle dvd recorder (external with usb wire). with which i could capture to avi or mpg or make a dvd fastly.

seems to be i have all the minium requirements.
but it doesn't work good for me. it captures with many dropped frames. the software tell me that i haven't a pc good enough.

i have the money, but i don't know what can i buy to solve it. i have around 600 mb ram and an Athlon 1500 (or 2200, i'm not sure) and mother plate integrated (i don't know how tell this in english, sorry).

what should i buy? (i have money now, but no so much)
more ram?
another video card?

please help me. i'm sad and maybe could do the worse.

thanks!

Hiddicop · Post by **Hiddicop** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:53 am

I have never got a Pinnacle product to work as it should... There's always something wrong.

Do you have USB 1 or USB 2? What resolution are you capturing at and at what frame rate?

I have experienced difficulties capturing video. The best I could capture at was 768x576 at 15 fps, but you have got a much better pc than me, so you should be able to have it higher.

Can you preview video perfectly at wanted resolution and frame rate?

ingie01 · Post by **ingie01** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:48 am

I found the hard way that anything integrated means less than adequate for graphics or video or gameing. I have an HP Pavilion a1250 with an ATI x1300 Radeon video card (add on) 2 internal HD 250 gig and 180 gig
1gig memory AMD Athlon 64 x2 processor. I am very happy with it.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 5:09 pm

i have usb 2.0 and the preview doesn't look good.
an amd athlon 1500+

Bones3D · Post by **Bones3D** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:08 pm

I typically keep no less than 1GB of RAM installed on any system I use for video work. Much of the system's RAM gets used by the OS and applications, leaving very little space for your video data to be recorded into. Once your data begins to exceed the amount of available RAM, your system begins paging memory to the hard drive, which can significantly reduce your hardware's overall speed.

Two things I'd recommend doing, would be to first max out the RAM on the computer, then add a dedicated hard drive (preferably using a dedicated bus, such as one on an add-on card) that has a built-in cache. With a combination like this, you should have relatively few problems capturinging large amounts of video reliably.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:27 am

i will try. thank you very much.

phlux0r · Post by **phlux0r** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:20 am

The Pinnacle site states that the minimum system requirements for the Dazzle DVD Creator are:

* Windows® XP (SP1 or higher)
* Intel® Pentium® or AMD® Athlon® 1.4 GHz or higher (2.4 GHz or higher recommended)
* 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
* DirectX® 9 or higher compatible graphics card with 64 MB (ATI® Radeon® or NVIDIA® GeForce™ 3 or higher, with 128 MB recommended)
* DirectX 9 or higher compatible sound card (Creative® Audigy® or M-Audio® recommended)
* 1 GB of disk space to install software
* 1 USB 2.0 (Hi-Speed) port
* DVD burner for creating DVDs

It appears that your CPU is just at the bottom end of the requirements and if you're using a motherboard with integrated graphics, it will most certainly choke on the task of Video capture and playback since all the capture encoding work is done by the computer's hardware.

In my humble opinion, there are two scenarios. You can either get rid of the Pinnacle device and try to find a device or card that will provide you with hardware encoding so that your PC hardware won't have to do it or you can upgrade some of your PC hardware. Adding RAM as Bones3D said, is a good idea and in any case you won't regret it (it's cheap anyway). The key in your case is to identify the bottleneck. So, I'd add some RAM first. Chances are you might still not get perfect capture so next I'd stick in a decent graphics card. If your motherboard supports AGP video cards, I'd try to put in one of the cheaper ATI Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce cards as per specification above and see if that helps. Maybe you can borrow a card from a friend before you buy one to try. If your motherboards doesn't have an AGP slot, then I'm afraid your options are very limited. You could try a PCI NVIDIA card or replace the motherboard. Replacing a motherboard is quite like opening a can of worms and you would most likely have to re-install Windows. Plus, all the current AMD boards use 64 bit architecture and won't take your CPU so you'd have to go for a second hand one.

A dedicated hard disk and data channel is a good thing but if the above steps haven't improved your capture, I'm not so sure if that will help either. The main work is done by the CPU and your task is to take off as much load off the CPU as possible. A decent graphics card would be your best bet in my opinion. You could also try to overclock your CPU if your motherboard settings permit it and if you have sufficient cooling in your case (make sure you are aware of the risks of doing that!). You could also get a second hand AMD Athlon CPU of higher specs like a 2500+ or higher. Shouldn't be too expensive these days. Just make sure your motherboard can support that kind of CPU.

Anyway, whatever you do, make sure when you're buying components to use google and read some reviews and user opinions about it. Also always check if your current gear meets the requirements for what you want to buy.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:06 pm

phlux0r, really thank you for your time.
i gonna to find out what kind of mother board i have and what i could do.
your answer have been very useful. thanks.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 8:14 pm

If you are capturing from a camcorder and it has a firewire/1394 output, get a firewire card off ebay for around $15 USD. Firewire doesn't capture, it sends data and there for you don't get dropprd frames.

If it doesn't have a firewire output, up your memory to a GIG if your system can handle it and kill all processes that aren't needed at the time of capturing. Such as anti-virus and other programs that aren't needed during that time.

Also, you can get alot of information about video editing at http://www.videohelp.com

jorgy · Post by **jorgy** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:27 am

I have to agree with J. Baker - go firewire (IEEE-1394). I wasted a lot of time (it seems like years, but it was actually months of free time) trying to get vide to capture successfully with a variety of hardware combinations. Plain and simple, USB relies on the CPU while firewire has more smarts in the controller and offloads the CPU.

And one of the best ways to capture is a Canopus box, especially if you are going from old VHS tapes you are trying to preserve old material. It has rock solid video sync, and the audio-video sync is always perfect.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=can ... tnG=Search

jorgy

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 7:25 am

I have an ancient Sony analog/digital converter (firewire). It has to be at least 5 years old or more. I don't even think they make it anymore and it cost a bundle new... now days.. you can get that kind of thing much cheaper.

Still works like a charm. Does a fantastic job. I use it with VHS, DVD... anything that has those RCA jacks or S-video.

My father is using it to put old movies on DVD... funny... super 8 to VHS... to DVD... quite a trip.

I use iMove to capture... and also something called HackTV. It was some free utility from Apple for Mac OSX.

------

I was just at the Walmart... they have DVD recorders that hook to your entertainment center for under $200... amazing. My father is thinking of just getting one of those and run the VHS through the TV and record DVDs that way. He can then transfer to the computer later if he wants to edit.

-Vern