Sony PC100 Dropout During Copying to Camcorder

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jay G.
  • Start date Start date
J

Jay G.

Hi,
Here's my problem:

When copying a movie back to my PC100 there are frequent
two to three second dropouts. The dropouts are not
periodic, they occur randomly. Some times 2 minutes
between dropouts, other times 5 seconds. Not related to
transitions.

I have just spent three hours reading the various
postings on PapaJohn's website, various discussion groups
and seemed to have run out of things to try.

System configuration:
Sony PC100 Camcorder
Dell Dimension 8200 (1.8 ghz)
768 MB RAM
80 gb harddrive
120 gb harddrive
Dazzle Mojave 13394 card
MovieMaker 2
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1


Things that are working:

Copying from PC100 to computer works fine.
Editing files works fine.
Writing movie to a DV-AVI file on the computer works fine.
Viewing the movie with Real Player works fine.
Viewing the movie with Windows Media Player works fine.

Things that I have tried:
Used Ulead Media Pro 7.0 - dropouts still occur
MM2 - dropouts occur
WinDV utility - dropouts occur
Change acceleration values in settings section of Windows
settings had no effect.
Copied movie file to second harddrive had no effect.
Monitored system process and performance - all well under
30% of system resources
Increased virtual memory to 1.2 gb

Interesting note when using WinDV utility:
When hitting the record button the first time in WinDV,
the Camcorder displays the first frame of the movie I am
about to record before I hit the record button again. If
I just leave the WinDV application in this mode without
hitting the record button in WinDV a second time, the
dropouts also occur even if recording is not started or
the movie is not being streamed to the camcorder.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jay G.
 
Hi there,

Well your system spec looks good.

It seems to me that the only two things you have not dealt with are the
Firewire card and the cable. Is there any chance you know someone local who
has either/both and would help you out? If not then ...

1) Power the machine down
2) Remove the firewire card
3) Very very gently with a damp lint free cloth using either proprietary
electrical contact cleaner or otherwise pure spirit, clean the contacts..
Too much pressure or cleaning fluid can do a lot of harm, so use as little
as you can.
4) Get Hoover and carefully use it to extract dust /hair whatever from the
PCI slot. Do it even if you can see nothing wrong.
5) When the card contacts are dry replace it firmly, but not so firm as to
bend the motherboard (This can cause hairline cracks that cause a resistance
and consequently the card may work badly or not at all)

If that does not fix it, consider using a test meter on the cable...this is
a very awkward job because of the nature of the connectors.

The actual problem as you probably know is a data rate issue. As you seem to
have eliminated the computer and assuming that the little things above don't
help then there is only one other area left. Your Camera. So if everything
else fails, Is there a chance you could borrow a camera from someone?
 
Hi John,
Thanks for the reply. I've done a few more things since
I've written the original email.

1. I hooked up the camera to my wife's Macintosh which
uses iMovie. The problem went away. I used the same
cable as with the PC. So I've eliminated a problem with
the camera and the cable.

I don't think I understand your suggestion of a data rate
issue. Is it likely that I may have a data rate problem
only when I send data to the camera? Things work well
when copying data from the camcorder to the computer
(however, there is an occasional tiny bit of noise in the
captured video image).

I will try your suggestion of reseating the card and
cleaning the contacts.

Once again, thanks for your suggestions.

Regards,

Jay G.
 
Hi Again,

Well you have eliminated the cable then, that's good.

So you are left with firewire card or data rate.

Fixing the card if at fault is easy...get another one. Fixing the data
rate, that could be a big problem. It will involve looking at the settings,
confirming which IRQ is in use, whether it is being shared with another
device or not, if it is you can force it to have a dedicated IRQ, but that
will have effects elsewhere on the system and this is already beyond the
scope of this newsgroup. If you eliminate the IRQ as an issue you then need
to wonder about the driver for the card , if any. It is also not impossible
that a problem caused by allocation of memory by XP for the card can be a
problem (less likely nowadays, but still there) and that would also be way
beyond this newsgroup...and me!! In the days of DOS and up to Win 98, I
could have easily guided you...not now though.

I should say after painting such a doom and gloom picture. It is almost
always the simplest solution that will be needed, it is unlikely you will
need to do anything very special...

The tiny bit of noise you mention...I take it that you do not hear that on
the Mac. That too can be a pointer to Data Rate issues, and as you have
eliminated all firmware other than the card, there is still hope that you
may find a solution there.

With regard to cleaning the contacts of the card etc. If one of the
contacts does not make a good connection an increase in resistance is
caused. This in turn will change very slightly the characteristics of the
card and how effectively it can process data, hence the suggestion.
 
John,
Thanks again for your help in working through the issue.
It appears that the problem was a cas of use error.
Here's the story in case somebody else has similar
problems.

Last summer I had a hard disk crash and I thought I had
restored all drivers to the system. Unfortunately, I had
not reinstalled the Dell Dazzle Mojave Driver.

The thing that made this particular problem so
challenging for me was the fact that the system mostly
worked. As you may recall, the system worked fine with
recording from the camcorder to the computer. It did not
work from the computer to the camcorder.

This is not the first time I have had problems with the
drivers.

If I can be of any help to you or others, please don't
hesitate to call upon me.

Regards,

Jay G.

(e-mail address removed)
-----Original Message-----
Hi Again,

Well you have eliminated the cable then, that's good.

So you are left with firewire card or data rate.

Fixing the card if at fault is easy...get another one. Fixing the data
rate, that could be a big problem. It will
Click to expand...
involve looking at the settings,
 
Jay,

I've been following this thread closely because I'm having the same problem
with my Dell Dimension 4100 and Sony TRV22 camcorder. Can you provide some
more detail on the "Dell Dazzle Mojave Driver" that you reinstalled? What
is it? Where do you get it?

Thanks,
Dan
 
I have read with interest the problems with the drop out
which I too have experienced using a Sony RX1 Computer
and the PC 100 E. I changed the menu setting on the PC
100 E to DV Editing 'Ready' and the also cleaned the
connections. There was an improvement but I am still
getting video drop out and no audio. Any other
suggestions wouyld be welcome?
 
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