I am using a Sony DCR TRV350 digital camcorder trying to capture video through my i.link/firewire, however I am dropping frames. My computer is a P4 1.8ghz with 512MB Ram, should I be getting dropped frames? Is it simply a problem in which I just need a more new high performance PC, or is there something wrong that should be resolved? I swear ive heard of people with lower specs who can capture their video perfectly. Its very frusterating to spend big bucks on a digital camcorder and not be able to digital edit to the full extent, i really need this problem resolved and Sony Technical support is a #@$#@$in joke. Worst service ever, i know more than those dooshbags.

In theory, no you shouldn't. What's the specs of your harddrive?

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DMA might be your problem. IF it isn't activated for your hard drive you really want to activate it.

Tell me what OS you have (which Windows version) and I'll point you to a link to check if it's activated.

Regards,

Fruey

Im using Windows XP with Service Pack 1. I dont know what the specs are on my Hard drive, how do I find out??? Also i bought a 200 gig Ultra ATA/133 hard drive but I have not installed it yet because I want to exclude this dropping frames problem I am having before i install it. Did i pick a good hard drive?

Here's a link for checking if you have DMA enabled and if not, how to enable it...

http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/howto-05.html

Ultra ATA 133 is great, should give you good performance. However, make sure that your motherboard supports it, and that the settings are correct for getting the most out of the drive (Auto detect usually does the trick).

How do i know if my motherboard supports this HD? i didn't think about that when i bought it. How do i even find out what the name of my motherboard is?

Ok i checked to see if DMA mode was set, and it seems to be already configured for DMA in my primrary and secondary IDEs. It says in Transfer mode DMA If Available. Notice that "if Available", how do i find out of it is for sure? Also there is another thing on that URL below on how to set the computer for UDMA66, do i need to do this as well??? Reply back, if everything is already set right, what do you suggest now to fix this dropping frame problem??

UDMA 66 is something that preceded Ultra ATA133 I think, although the two standards may be separate. All motherboards are compatible with latest drives to some extent, but basically the bigger the age gap between your motherboard and hard drive, the less chance there is you're getting the best possible speeds out of your hard drive.

If you already have DMA enabled, my next question is how the drives are set up (you can see the link to work out which channel has which devices on it) so we can tell whether the drive you are capturing to is a primary or secondary on the channel it is on.

Also, have you plenty of disk space and have you defragmented the drive?

Have you checked for viruses and spywares and stuff? Do you have Norton AntiVirus running with that live scan thing (can't remember what it's called)? Are there any other background processes eating up resources?

Free online anti virus:
http://housecall.antivirus.com

Free anti spyware:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

One user in another thread somewhere made a very good suggestion : to have a separate OS install for all video stuff. He kept two partitions - one for games, the kids and so on, and another 'clean install' which he only booted into for video work. That's probably a good plan with the nature of Windows stability being hopeless these days. Friends of mine are always calling me about their machines that just don't work as fast as they used to, if they work at all.

Hope this helps,

Alright, im veiwing my Device Manager by Connection so i can see whether the hard drive is a primary or 2nd, but im not sure what im looking at. Theres a ton of different items on here, im guessing im looking for the C:\ hard drive, how do i find that? They dont really put it in simple english the names of these devices when veiwed by connection. Im currently on a 40 gig hard drive and i got about 14 gigs left in it, so ive used up most of it but not all of it. I used up the storage rather fast so I have not had a chance to defrag it. I will do that tonight when I go to bed and will post again on here when that is done.

Also if it helps, if i go into setup on startup, it says my Hard Drive is Primary Device 0, so i assume that means its not a slave drive??