Posted by StickThatInYourPipeAndSmokeIt on 12/07/07 02:47

On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 09:32:47 -0800 (PST), ritpg <ritpg@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Three years ago I bought a DAC-100 external video capture device to
>mate (firewire) with a then 3 year old Dell desktop running XP Pro
>for
>the purpose of digitizing old VHS tapes. I must say the DAC-100
>worked quite well (virtually no dropped frames) although the
>Cyberlink
>PowerDirector software was so painful to use I stopped before I could
>finish capturing and editing all the tapes. I recently purchased a
>Systemax Intel quad (Q6600) desktop running XP Pro and a copy of
>Adobe
>Premier Elements 3.0. I've been using this new system to capture
>video from my DV camcorder with pretty good success. When I decided
>to connect the DAC-100 to the new system to resume capturing the old
>VHS video, the results were extremely poor. The PC kept losing and
>regaining the DAC-100 and when it could maintain the connection the
>video capture was pathetic (more than half the frames were getting
>dropped). I expermented with the dip switches in the back of the DAC
>with no improvement and ended up restoring the original settings (for
>XP). I'm wondering if my new PC is too high powered for the DAC or
>is
>there a setting somewhere I need to fix. I see that the DAC-100 has
>been replaced by a DAC-200 whose improvments have nothing to do with
>new OSs or higher powered PCs so I'm not inclined to buy that newer
>model.
>If anyone has any ideas as to what could be causing my problem, I
>sure
>would appreciate hearing them. I hate to spend another $200 for a
>new
>video capture device when there's no way to know if will work any
>better with this new PC.
>Thanks.
>Terry


Perhaps the firewire driver for XP is the root evil here. The faster
machine should not be the cause of a bottleneck. XP is where they
decide, in their infinite wisdom, to remover the DOS VDM from the system,
and IIRC I/O drivers may have taken a hit when they went through
stripping things. Is your XP all loaded up with the patches, and service
packs, etc.?

The other thing would be the capture software, of course. You could
boot up knoppix and see if you can perform a better capture session from
within that.

DL and burn a knoppix 5.1.1 CD or DVD (the DVD is a better bet for vid
cap stuff being loaded) Boot the disc, and see what Linux had to offer
about a year ago. It likely has the best picks of whatever everyone used
back then.

If that works, I'd blame either the drivers in windows (blame windows)
or the software is having a problem with the stream compiled by the
device and the two are not compatible (unless it has settings). The is a
lot of windows based free cap software out there, but many are nagware or
crippleware. Anyway, there are a few ways to tell if it is the box, the
driver or the new software package.

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