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Performance Improvements - Any Recommendations?

 
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BlueSeptember



Joined: 11 May 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Somewhere on Earth

PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2002 3:26 pm    Post subject: Performance Improvements - Any Recommendations? Reply with quote

just finished my first capturing via All-In-Wonder 8500DV. as I needed to make VCD, I captured it as MPG format.

while doing so, I was experimenting several modes to see how it worked. later, I figured that serious frame dropped occured.

first, my system configuration:

• Win2k Pro SP3 on P2@400 with 512MB ram
• IBM 60GB ATA133 HDD on Maxtor ATA100 controller (less than 5% fragmented.)

probably my system is just way too old, but I'll list the mode I tried.

• frame rate @ 6 mbps MPG -> 30% frame dropped
• frame rate @ 3 mbps MPG -> 25% frame dropped
• frame rate @ 2 mbps MPG -> 20% frame dropped
• frame rate @ 1.5mbps MPG -> 15% frame dropped

though MPG for VCD requires something like 1.15mbps, but I wanted to capture it as good as possible for the future usage. since the result was something like the above, I was forced to use frame rate @ 1.15mbps (with 7% frame dropped)

when I consider my HDD (ATA133), the performance should be higher than the result. and now I know why people go for the RAID solution. I'm thinking of software RAID0 (will move to hardware RAID0+1).

though my system is out-of-style, there must be something I can do about it (except "remove icons from the taskbar" and stuff). many thanx.
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2002 8:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What resolution are you capturing at?

You should capture to an uncompressed or lightly compressed file format first, then re-encode to your preferred format. You may be losing frames due to the CPU time spent encoding the data.

But I don't really know a whole lot about the differences between the different video formats, so I could be talking out my ass here. I do know that I can't record direct to any format with decent compression without losing frames.
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Orqyman



Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 98
Location: Dallas, TX

PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2002 10:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

unless you're capturing at some rediculous res. or frame rate, you really shouldn't be dropping any frames. Maybe 1 in ~5-10K or something large like that, but definitely less than 1%. Use an mjpeg codec or huffy to capture with near lossless quality, albeit heavy on HD usage. Recompress afterwards. This is just a general suggestion, as I haven't captured in a couple months. However, the suggestions do still apply. Virtualdub still cuts the mustard for captures, but I do believe there are better ones out there now. As always, Oblio is the king of captures, so you might want to check with him.
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BlueSeptember



Joined: 11 May 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Somewhere on Earth

PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2002 7:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was using 352x240 VCD format /w different video frame rate. probably my old system is a junk. Wink I was capturing on-air show last night (about Sep.11.2001) and still my HDD suffered from the overhead (capture size 352x240 MPG, 1.15mbps video transfer rate, CD quality sound, 17% frame dropped).

I checked the CPU load, and it reached at the max. yeah, 400 can now be found only in a museum or somewhere (well, as long as we'r talking about windowz. you know, I don't mean to trouble, so don't bother. *g*)

I'm not sure if any of you use AIW's Multimedia Center, but I was using it because I like the ability to watch TV and record when I want in a snap (with a remote). probably that was another cause I might have made.

anyway, I also wonder what system you guys are using to rip/encode. so I can compare them with mine, and possibly reflect to my future upgrade of my PC. many thanx. Wink


p.s) I've changed my icon. thought I should follow the big stream. sorry about my ignorant so far.
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Orqyman



Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 98
Location: Dallas, TX

PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2002 10:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My old machine which I used to do captures on was an AMD K7 650, 5400 40gig maxtor and 128 ram. Which just shows its more about the codec you're using to capture. I take it you're capturing straight to mpg, and without a true dedicated mpeg encoder card, you're probably going to drop frames still. Example being even a 2.8 P4 wouldn't be able to encode mpg1 in real time unless details were turned down. At the time I had the 650, I postulated that it would take a 2.0 ghz machine to capture divx in real time. I believe that's true more or less now, but the whole premise is still to capture something in a faster codec and recompress.
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LeonMcNichol



Joined: 12 Sep 2002
Posts: 38

PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2002 2:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've got a crappy WinTV GO. I originally purchased it when I had WinME on my computer. I used to encode with the software that they gave me. Using the divx of the time. (Of course, my capture card had a problem with my chipset at the time, so it would crash right away. It was very difficult to capture anything.) Now that I have WinXP, I had to get new drivers for it. They of course suck. They don't deinterlace right and the quality doesn't look all that great. But this is more of my fault. I got rid of system crashes for poor quality. Doesn't matter, I usually just do a DVD to other encodes. Which ends up with a much better quality.

Anyways, you were asking specs. I've got a 1.2ghz AMD Athalon Thunderbird, 40 GB HD, 512 MB of RAM (origianally 128 when I had ME).

I use VirtualDub to capture to avi with divx set to 1500-2000, then from avi to vcd if I want VCD. Hauppauge made a deal with this company for a capture straight to vcd or mpeg-1, but the quality is not good at all. I've never had any trouble with frames dropping, so you might want to do like said, capture to avi, then to mpeg-1/vcd with tmpgenc.
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2002 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a 666MHz Intel P3 with 384MB RAM and an ATI Rage 128 with TV in and out.

I've only just begun to experiment with capturing, but I was able to capture to several formats (not heavily compressed ones) at 320x240 without ever dropping a frame. I did try capturing to DivX and it sucked mud. I also accidentally did a short cap at 640x480 and it seemed to work OK.
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Musicman



Joined: 25 Feb 2002
Posts: 18
Location: Memphis,TN

PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2002 6:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a Pent IV 1.7 cpu 512MB memory using an old pci ATI AIW 16mb card capturing to a 80gig HD using Virtualdub/huffy. I have use AVI_IO but couldn't tell a difference in performance so I went with VD.

I do have frame drops but not enough to cause any problems. Using Windows 2000 OS.

I can capture in alot of different sizes... up to 720x576. What I would like to know is what process you use after the capture to avi. If you were to make a svcd from the avi source what VD filters do you use and get the best results with?
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BlueSeptember



Joined: 11 May 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Somewhere on Earth

PostPosted: Fri Sep 13, 2002 8:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

probably the problem is from the method I was trying : I didn't capture into AVI. I was capturing MPG directly as I was watching TV.

that's because I like to record as I watch - there are something that you may wanna capture as you watch TV, and it's damn difficult to launch an application and get ready to capture - by the time I'm ready, the scene is probably over already.
I should try capturing as AVI, and re-encode it. will try that next time.

thank you guys for sharing your experiences and knowledge. I still would like to know the specs of those who capture.

especially with RAID config, as I'll go for the software RAID provided by win2k and see if the performance suffers from the system overhead.

p.s) I've come across this product EPoX EP-DR02P3 UDMA 100 RAID Controller PCI Card. anyone has experiences with it?
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2002 2:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't captured any videos in the last year or so-- not since I upgraded my main machine to Win2000 (at the time, Win2000 drivers weren't available for my ATi PCI Wonder capture card). I upgraded to an AthlonXP 1600+ system at the same time as I upgraded to Win2K, so I've never actually capped anything on this system.

My old AMD K6-2-450 system was a different story-- I capped tons of videos with that machine. Directly capturing to VCD never worked for me there-- I'd get dropped frames, poor sharpness, desynced audio and video, or a combination of those problems, depending on the encoding software I was using. I usually captured video in two ways-- I either capped directly to RM (ah, the good ol' days of a couple years ago-- NEVER choose the "surestream" option in RealProducer! That's how a number of the *really* crappy RM caps came about!), or else I capped to uncompressed YUV9 and then recompressed later wtih VirtualDub. This gave the best quality.
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