P4P800-d and dropped frames while capturing video

[Rick]

Hi, hope someone might have an idea here.

I'm getting a ton of dropped frames when trying to capture video from
my Sony High 8 camcorder to my P4P800-d motherboard. I have 4ea WD
8mb cache 7200 rpm hard drives configured in raid pairs on the via
raid connectors. Basically my computer sees 2ea 240g hardrives. I have
a gig of ram, and a 2.8g p4 cpu which is not overclocked at all while
this is happening. I have tried capturing to both drives with the same
terrible results. I am using the on board Firewire.My drives seem to
benchmark normally in SiSandra and are defragged.

Any Ideas of what I could try? Could it be the on board Firewire? My
older slower system captured video just fine, albeit through an Audigy
soundcards Firewire connector. Could it be the via raid?

I have no other cards in the computer except for the ATI 9700.

I'm at a loss at what to try next.

Rick

 

[daytripper]

Hi, hope someone might have an idea here.

I'm getting a ton of dropped frames when trying to capture video from
my Sony High 8 camcorder to my P4P800-d motherboard. I have 4ea WD
8mb cache 7200 rpm hard drives configured in raid pairs on the via
raid connectors. Basically my computer sees 2ea 240g hardrives. I have
a gig of ram, and a 2.8g p4 cpu which is not overclocked at all while
this is happening. I have tried capturing to both drives with the same
terrible results. I am using the on board Firewire.My drives seem to
benchmark normally in SiSandra and are defragged.

Any Ideas of what I could try? Could it be the on board Firewire? My
older slower system captured video just fine, albeit through an Audigy
soundcards Firewire connector. Could it be the via raid?

I have no other cards in the computer except for the ATI 9700.

I'm at a loss at what to try next.

Rick

Well....you still have that Audigy?

 

[Rick]

Well....you still have that Audigy?

Well, yes I do. I guess I'll eliminate that possibilty by trying it
again.

 

[Paul]

Well, yes I do. I guess I'll eliminate that possibilty by trying it
again.

This thread mentions that VIA RAID read performance is bad. But,
you are doing write...
http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=20&threadid=51343

The following thread has some people trying to do video capture, and
they note better results with the Intel IDE interface, than via the VT6410.
See, for example, the post by "Arlo" Wednesday August 13, 2003 6:12 AM:

http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=20&threadid=42499&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=&STARTPAGE=2

What is interesting, is he says his CPU doesn't suffer high utilization
during capture, and he thinks the VIA raid driver doesn't multitask well.

On Page 3 of this thread, the problem is solved with a separate Firewire
card. So the VIA VT6307 Firewire chip is implicated... This implies
that the VT6307 cannot handle a stream on the Firewire interface, if
another device puts even moderate traffic on the PCI bus.

I was going to suggest you try reducing the PCI Latency Timer setting,
but it won't go below 32.

In any case, I think a Firewire PCI card is cheaper than buying a
separate PCI RAID card, so that is probably the easiest fix.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Rick]

This thread mentions that VIA RAID read performance is bad. But,
you are doing write...
http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=20&threadid=51343

The following thread has some people trying to do video capture, and
they note better results with the Intel IDE interface, than via the VT6410.
See, for example, the post by "Arlo" Wednesday August 13, 2003 6:12 AM:

http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=20&threadid=42499&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=&STARTPAGE=2

What is interesting, is he says his CPU doesn't suffer high utilization
during capture, and he thinks the VIA raid driver doesn't multitask well.

On Page 3 of this thread, the problem is solved with a separate Firewire
card. So the VIA VT6307 Firewire chip is implicated... This implies
that the VT6307 cannot handle a stream on the Firewire interface, if
another device puts even moderate traffic on the PCI bus.

I was going to suggest you try reducing the PCI Latency Timer setting,
but it won't go below 32.

In any case, I think a Firewire PCI card is cheaper than buying a
separate PCI RAID card, so that is probably the easiest fix.

HTH,
Paul

Hey, thanks Paul.
Interesting reading. I'll try some things and report back what fixes
things. Rick

 

[Rick]

I fixed it by disabling the on board FW in the bios and re-installing
my pci based audigy sound card with its Firewire port. Not a single
dropped frame now on a 45 minute capture. Using the ON board FW, i
would get litterally hundreds of dropped frames in less than 30
seconds. Must be a poor implementation of something on the board.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Philip Callan]

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Rick wrote:

| I fixed it by disabling the on board FW in the bios and re-installing
| my pci based audigy sound card with its Firewire port. Not a single
| dropped frame now on a 45 minute capture. Using the ON board FW, i
| would get litterally hundreds of dropped frames in less than 30
| seconds. Must be a poor implementation of something on the board.
|
| Thanks for your help.

Well, if its any consolation, they must have fixed the implementation on
the P4C800-E, as I can transfer a whole 60 mins of MiniDV via the
onboard FW port, and have 0 dropped frames.

What program do you capture with? I use Adobe Premier 6

Have you tried capturing to a NON-RAID drive?

you also mention capturing from a Sony Hi8, what model, and why are you
using a digital port to transfer analog information? (or was this one of
their A/D hybrids?)
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[Rick]

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Rick wrote:

| I fixed it by disabling the on board FW in the bios and re-installing
| my pci based audigy sound card with its Firewire port. Not a single
| dropped frame now on a 45 minute capture. Using the ON board FW, i
| would get litterally hundreds of dropped frames in less than 30
| seconds. Must be a poor implementation of something on the board.
|
| Thanks for your help.

Well, if its any consolation, they must have fixed the implementation on
the P4C800-E, as I can transfer a whole 60 mins of MiniDV via the
onboard FW port, and have 0 dropped frames.

What program do you capture with? I use Adobe Premier 6

How do you like adobe? I have read that the mpeg2 encoder in some of
these programs are better than others?

Currently I'm using the entry program Pinnacle studio 9. I also have
vegas Video 4 but haven't really got the hang of that yet. I'm just a
beginner at this.

Have you tried capturing to a NON-RAID drive?

Right now I don't have one. I just have 4 WD 120g 8mg cache drives,
all in raid 0 on the primary and secondary via raid ports. (probably
going to put 2 of them on the standard ide port, and put the Operating
system and apps on those, and use the raid for video only)

you also mention capturing from a Sony Hi8, what model, and why are you
using a digital port to transfer analog information? (or was this one of
their A/D hybrids?)

Oh my bad, sorry. Its a Sony "digital" 8. Not an expensive one..the
trv-240. Works fine for me though.

Rick

 

[Philip Callan]

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Rick wrote:


| How do you like adobe? I have read that the mpeg2 encoder in some of
| these programs are better than others?

I use the adobe for doing all my editing and POST, and then if I'm
exporting to a web format (streaming etc) I use the great plugins, and
Cleaner 5 EZ to finish.

|>Have you tried capturing to a NON-RAID drive?

| Right now I don't have one. I just have 4 WD 120g 8mg cache drives,
| all in raid 0 on the primary and secondary via raid ports. (probably
| going to put 2 of them on the standard ide port, and put the Operating
| system and apps on those, and use the raid for video only)

Hehhe, ok, you missed my question, 'capturing to a NON-RAID drive'
I believe the VIA implementation of RAID is cpu intensive, and I will
assure you that the majority of 7200rpm IDE drives, and most assuredly
your 8mb cache version, will have ample speed to capture video to. I
capture to a single SATA as well as PATA (depending on source) and both
drives are in non-raid configurations. (I trust DVD-R/CD-R/Tape backups
more than RAID at home)

RAID to me was always about redundancy, so you had time to get in and
fix before it all went down, but also for places that didnt want the
'hassle' of performing proper backups (daily/weekly/whatever)

For the amount of traffic you using, RAID is just adding mileage to your
drives for no good reason, those WD 8mb carry a three year warranty, set
one aside for scratch, one for finished product, one for OS and one for
applications, buy a slower speed DVD-R, perform incremental backups.

And god forbid one does drop out, trust me, in 2.5 years, you RMA a
120G, they'll probably end up sending you back a 160+ I cant count the
20/30G I've sent Maxtor and was shipped back a 40G+ (this was before
they did the whole ooops, our bad, 1 year warranty from now on crap)

| Oh my bad, sorry. Its a Sony "digital" 8. Not an expensive one..the
| trv-240. Works fine for me though.

Its a handly little unit, used a friends before, but ended up getting a
Canon ZR65MC, just had to jump into it full bore, although in
retrospect, I may have gone with the higher model, as its still frame
quality is supposed to be better.

Philip
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