PC Hardware Annoyances

VIDEO CAPTURE/PLAYBACK ANNOYANCES

ELIMINATE DROPPED FRAMES DURING CAPTURES

The Annoyance:

At my cousin’s wedding, I shot some great footage that I want to edit and drop to DVD. But I can’t capture the video without dropping frames all over the place. The capture looks like crap, even though I properly installed everything.

The Fix:

Overburdened computers, outdated or conflicting drivers, and inappropriate capture settings can cause lost frames and jumpy, sporadic video. This handy checklist will help you prevent catastrophe:

Use a current capture solution.

If you have an antique Intel SVR II card, dump it in favor of a contemporary solution (e.g., a Dazzle 80 external USB capture device, a new internal PCI capture card, or even an integrated video card like the ATI All-In-Wonder AGP). Newer capture devices use far more efficient chips, and often apply on-the-fly compression for smooth captures and small file storage.

Check the system requirements.

Even with new capture hardware, the host computer will need adequate processor and RAM support, along with about 1GB of drive space for every 20 minutes of captured video. Old or underpowered PCs will not support video capture properly.

Check for device conflicts.

System resource conflicts (e.g., IRQ or memory space contention) can cause the internal video capture device to stutter and hesitate (not really an issue for USB or FireWire capture devices). Use the Device Manager to check for device conflicts. You will need to configure or disable conflicting ...