Choppy video/audio on capture « Videomaker Community Forums

ldstrobel
Member

I'm not real sure where to post this to, I am having problems with my tower when trying to capture video from either of my camcorders, one digital the other analog. I'm sure it's a machine specific problem but don't know where to look to figure out what's causing the problem.
The computer...

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor
3400+
2.41 GHz, 896 MB of RAM
Physical Address Extension

I am able to connect with the camcorders and preview the videos in Vegas and Nero, but as soon as I hit "capture" then they go choppy. I'm using a Pyro A/V link to connect, and it's working just fine on my laptop at the moment with the analog camera.

Any suggestions?

Posted 4 years ago #
ldstrobel
Member

I forgot to mention that I can connect the digital camera direct to the pc via firewire and it still is choppy when capture it started.

This seems to be a problem with whatever tries to record, my winTV plays back choppy also.

Anybody go a clue?

Posted 4 years ago #
Anonymous

Is this 896 MB of RAM made up of mismatched memory sticks? Or is this the remainder of a 1 gig stick, or 2 matched 512s? What's in there?

Have you tried upping the page file size (Virtual Memory via the Advanced tab from My Computer - right-click,Properties) ? If it's at 1500, try 2000 and see if it makes a difference.

Something else to wonder about... is the power supply in your PC up to the job? The CPU clearly is and 1 gig of RAM is plenty on an Athlon 64 (I have such a PC here and it copes OK with video), but if the power supply is borderline then this is about the time you'll get signs that it's struggling. If you have a TV card in there, and maybe a couple of hard drives, and whatever else, when the processor is under pressure (as with processing video), an under-rated power supply will cause all sorts of problems, this type of thing being one of them. Shutdowns and restarts are also common. Ever happen?

Taking out the TV card and temporarily disconnecting one of the hard drives would be a way of testing that. If it performs OK after doing that, my best guess would be that your PSU is under-rated. Probably a 300.

Any help? If not, post again.

Posted 4 years ago #
ldstrobel
Member

I forgot to mention that I had been capturing video on this computer earlier with no problem, so I'm thinking that it's a driver problem or program conflict? No problem with shutdow/startups. I believe the RAM is two 512 but I'd have to ask my son for sure.

I attempted to record a show last night and it played back choppy just like the movie capture does. The ONLY program I've found that seems to work for video capture is one that I downloaded from the A/V link site. It's Windows Media Resource Kit, WM Capture, Version 7.0.22 from Microsoft. The problem with using this program is that after it captures it takes as long again as the capture to render it. So my hour and half video takes three hours to capture (which I guess is better than not at all).

Posted 4 years ago #
Anonymous

OK, none of those things, then...

Have you tried reinstalling the software? Or maybe a registry/system cleaner will help speed things up. Has Windows been installed for a long time? If it once worked fine then (if it's an option) a complete Windows reinstall might be worth considering. I've seen huge performance improvements on my own machines doing that.

Hope you find the cause, though - problems like this can be a pain to figure out straight away.

Not that you need me to tell you that... :D

Posted 4 years ago #