Problem saving to DV tape - please help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark Jeghers
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark Jeghers

I am using a Sony TVR-22 and a 1Ghz Toshiba laptop,
512Mb RAM, WinXP Pro, Movie Maker 2, and firewire.

I can capture video fine (with minimal dropped frames)
but when saving a video back to the DV tape, the audio
cuts in and out intermittently, and the video seems to
stutter very slightly.

Could this just be that I need more COU speed? Isn't
1.0 Ghz enough? Anyone had experience with optimizing
the export to tape?

Windows Movie Maker lacks settings for saving to DV tape
like slower frame rate or smaller size. If I could adjust those
might it help?

Are there any other "save-to-dv-tape" tools that might
work better?

Thanx-in-advance
Mark
 
Hi there,

You should not be dropping any frames at all when capturing to your hard
drive, but I am assuming that you are using a firewire connection. If you
are using a USB2 connection then possibly your results are about right. If
you are using USB 1.1 then you are doing very well.

With regard to Capturing the faster your CPU the better. I may be wrong,
but I think 1GHz is tending towards being a bit slow.

The cutting in and out of audio is a symptom of a system struggling to keep
up. Again if you are using a USB connection this could be as good as it
gets.

Exporting to tape. Make sure that no other programs are working.
Disconnect from the internet.
Defrag the drive containing the file to be sent to tape
If different defrag drive C as well
Touch nothing while the transfer is in progress.

That would be more or less it as they say.

There are ways of changing the settings, I have no need so have never
looked at them. A chap by the name of Papajohn will be able to advise much
better than I can on that aspect. His website www.papajohn.org has loads of
useful info. You stand a good chance of finding the solution you need
there.
 
I am using Firewire, not USB.
Capture works great (dropped frames are pretty rare,
and depends on the app and system loading)
The issue is really just with exporting...
 
Actually, I have tried that. It worked a lot better, until about
7 minutes long, then the dropouts get extremely bad.
 
Mark,

The exporting process is the most difficult step for your computer's hard
drive to perform smoothly.

Laptop drives are much slower than desktops. You have two routes to go..
tune up the drive and keep it tuned up for exporting - and even then, you
might not even be able to tune it up sufficiently.

If you can't get it working when tuned up well, then an external faster
firewire drive might be the next step. Others with your situation have had
to resolve it that way.

I have a new (6 month old) Toshiba laptop and I don't usually use it to
export to a camcorder. The one test I did of that process resulted in
problems like yours. But as I usually distribute via websites or burning
CDs/DVDs, I didn't go so far as to get an external drive for it.

PapaJohn
 
Back
Top