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G400-TV "loses track" of capture after random(?) length of time
Howdy; thought I'd see if anyone else was having this problem while I try to see what's going on. I just got a Marvel G400-TV, set it up without much of a problem (under NT4), and tried capturing with both the "PC-VCR" program supplied with the video tools and drivers (downloaded yesterday from matrox.com) and with VirtualDub.
Prior to installing the G400-TV, I had been using a WinTV to do video capture, and I could capture long videos with a frame dropped every now and then to keep audio sync (long meaning 3-4 hours at a time, the maximum for the 130 GB stripe set with YUV9).
With the expectation of being able to record 12-20 hours at a time using the new G400-TV, I set up VirtualDub as I always have (although I had to reduce the number of video buffers) and told it to capture for an indefinite period of time. Half an hour later, I noticed that VirtualDub was no longer updating the "number of frames captured" as it usually does, so I stopped the capture and examined the resulting file.
At the time at which VirtualDub had stopped reporting captured frames, there was no longer any frame data in the file (although the file was the appropriate size for the length of time I let it "capture" past that). I don't believe the file offset was anything "suspicious" (1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, or something like that) at the time of the mysterious disappearance, and in multiple repeats of the above procedure it stopped capturing at various other times. One stopped in as little as 3 minutes, and one lasted for 42 minutes before failing.
Suspecting VirtualDub, I turned to the Matrox "PV-VCR" and let it record indefinitely at the same quality setting (by the way, is there any way to tell that program to record "for the next 90 minutes" ? The sleep timer doesn't turn the program off if you are recording, and the "timer" function won't begin recording immediately). The PC-VCR produced about 9 AVI files just under 2 GB, as it should, but the last one was only 384 MB, and was an invalid AVI file to boot. The PC-VCR window no longer said it was capturing anything, but normally when I terminate a capture, the last AVI file is a valid file.
I did check my IRQ loadout, and noticed that the fasttrack containing the drives for the stripe set to which I was capturing was on the same IRQ as the G400-TV, so I tried capturing to a different drive (one on another fasttrak, one on a drive on the main motherboard chain). The same thing happened with those drives as well.
I went to the trouble to move the cards around such that both fasttraks, the G400-TV, and the sound card all had their own interrupts (sound is sharing with network, and one of the fasttraks is sharing with a seldom-used SCSI card), but the same thing still happens.
Also, at any quality setting above "Medium," I notice noise "squares" at the top of the video. I suspect this is unrelated, as the random-stoppage happens no matter what quality setting I use, but who knows.
If I find out anything further, I'll let you all know. Thanks for taking the time to read my gripes,
Eric
Prior to installing the G400-TV, I had been using a WinTV to do video capture, and I could capture long videos with a frame dropped every now and then to keep audio sync (long meaning 3-4 hours at a time, the maximum for the 130 GB stripe set with YUV9).
With the expectation of being able to record 12-20 hours at a time using the new G400-TV, I set up VirtualDub as I always have (although I had to reduce the number of video buffers) and told it to capture for an indefinite period of time. Half an hour later, I noticed that VirtualDub was no longer updating the "number of frames captured" as it usually does, so I stopped the capture and examined the resulting file.
At the time at which VirtualDub had stopped reporting captured frames, there was no longer any frame data in the file (although the file was the appropriate size for the length of time I let it "capture" past that). I don't believe the file offset was anything "suspicious" (1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, or something like that) at the time of the mysterious disappearance, and in multiple repeats of the above procedure it stopped capturing at various other times. One stopped in as little as 3 minutes, and one lasted for 42 minutes before failing.
Suspecting VirtualDub, I turned to the Matrox "PV-VCR" and let it record indefinitely at the same quality setting (by the way, is there any way to tell that program to record "for the next 90 minutes" ? The sleep timer doesn't turn the program off if you are recording, and the "timer" function won't begin recording immediately). The PC-VCR produced about 9 AVI files just under 2 GB, as it should, but the last one was only 384 MB, and was an invalid AVI file to boot. The PC-VCR window no longer said it was capturing anything, but normally when I terminate a capture, the last AVI file is a valid file.
I did check my IRQ loadout, and noticed that the fasttrack containing the drives for the stripe set to which I was capturing was on the same IRQ as the G400-TV, so I tried capturing to a different drive (one on another fasttrak, one on a drive on the main motherboard chain). The same thing happened with those drives as well.
I went to the trouble to move the cards around such that both fasttraks, the G400-TV, and the sound card all had their own interrupts (sound is sharing with network, and one of the fasttraks is sharing with a seldom-used SCSI card), but the same thing still happens.
Also, at any quality setting above "Medium," I notice noise "squares" at the top of the video. I suspect this is unrelated, as the random-stoppage happens no matter what quality setting I use, but who knows.
If I find out anything further, I'll let you all know. Thanks for taking the time to read my gripes,
Eric
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