Dropped frames when capturing

[Anonymous]

I recently got a Canon ZR830 MiniDV camcorder and I use it to document my 2-year-old’s wacky antics, so I’m not trying to do anything fancy.

When I capture the video (via firewire) and go to edit it in Premiere Elements 4, it tells me frames were dropped (and the resulting video is obviously choppy). Or, if I capture it and edit in Movie Maker, it plays back at double speed. I’ve also tried using Nero (can’t remember specifically which program) and get a ton of dropped frames. Even WinDV (which I’ve heard is “idiot-proof” in terms of dropped frames) drops tons and tons of frames.

I can’t figure out what the problem is, and Adobe’s online “help” is not all that helpful, and neither is Canon’s e-mail support.

I’ve got a P4, 2.0 GHz CPU with 1 GB RAM, GeForce 6600GT video card, and I’m capturing the video onto a secondary hard drive (80 GB with 45 GB free, 7200 RPM) so I feel like my system is more than capable of handling this job.

Even after (coincidentally) re-formatting my C: drive I tried capturing to my D: drive and still got a ton of dropped frames.

At this point I’m wondering if it’s possibly related to my Firewire card or Firewire cable (both of which are brand new, but inexpensive). It’s getting really frustrating, so any help or insight is appreciated!

[Anonymous]

first, do not capture to a system drive (i.e. drive containg operating system and programs). second, defrag the drive before capturing the files. this ensures that the files will be placed on the hard drive in one spot rather than chunks. third, you are right to suspect the firewire cable, but also throw in possibility of issue at the camera firewire port. since it’s a relatively new camera, i won’t think that there is a problem there right now, so let’s focus on the firewire cable. make sure you have a really good cable. be very cautious when plugging up and handling the camera with the cable connected, those firewire ports are infamous for breaking. there could be a resource conflict with the firewire card, but doubt it.

p.s., the other thing you can do to make sure you don’t drop frames, turn off or disable any programs that you don’t need running, i.e. virus scan. you are simply transferring data to the computer, so you don’t need to worry about a virus coming in during the transfer from the camera.

Hope this helps.

John

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback.

I’m capturing to my D: drive; my C: drive is where the operating system is located, so I don’t think that’s the issue. And I’ve defragged both drives numerous times and closed all “background” programs (anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, etc.), so I don’t think it’s a resource problem.

So that leaves the firewire card/cable. I’m going to look into trying to capture with a different cable.

[fsc11341]

I’ve experienced similar problems with various cameras (Canon only) using Premier Pro (all versions to-date). Anytime I encounter a ‘dropped frame’ issue I use Scenalyzer to import my footage. For some reason I never encounter any problems with any capturea attemps – regardless of the camera. Scenalyzer is available as a download directly from Videomaker.com/download

http://www.scenalyzer.com/download.html

[Author]

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