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**Brian Ellis** · 20 January 2003, 04:42

Nothing wrong there. Dropped frames from DV are most likely to be a hard drive issue.

Modern systems have transcended the IRQ 0-15 barrier.

BTW, there are easier ways of seeing the IRQ situation. Try Sndra, for example. I don't know about XP (I'm not brave enough to try it

), but you can also list them through your System in Control Panel in reactionary versions of Windows.

VJ · 20 January 2003, 06:12

Ok, thanks (he is located quite far, so having him save the msinfo32-output was the easiest to do; I am quite sure he has no other diagnostic tools).

We have tested the system with the Canopus EZDVtest utility. The harddisk is shows:
Read: 10 MB/sec
Write: 14 MB/sec
(which, according to the program are very suitable for DV capture)
There is only one harddisk, so that might be a cause...

The PCI-latency of the system is 248.

So considering all these specs, the system would appear to me to be able to perform DV capture... or am I missing something ?

Jörg

**Brian Ellis** · 20 January 2003, 06:55

My first guess is the single hard disk. The problem is that if the capture proggy cannot be held in memory, there may be swap file usage. If this is on the same disk as you are writing to, you will be in Marianas-Trench-DEEP trouble, because one disk cannot hope to read/write around one part and then write to another part at the same time. An ad hoc high performance disk, reserved uniquely for video work, is a sine qua non of reliable video work. How much RAM is there? For that matter, what are the specs of the computer?

VJ · 20 January 2003, 07:06

It is a PIV (x86 Family 15 Model 1 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~1594 Mhz), with 512 MB (not sure about DDR) and an SBLive. Other hardware (100 Mbit nic, 56K modem) is also present, but the computer is not on a network.

Virusscanner is disabled during capture, Adobe Premiere is one of the programs used.

Jörg

**Brian Ellis** · 20 January 2003, 08:35

I use an SB Live! without problems, but others have reported difficulties. I believe this is related largely to the mother board, which sound board works best. Certainly, you have a greater risk of problems with those with VIA chipsets than some other makes, but this does not mean that other chipsets will work for sure, depending on the m/b. If the problem continues, I suggest you may try any other make of s/b, just to see whether it is Live!-related. Your other specs look OK, as far as can be judged.

It is important to find out the chipset maker.

VJ · 20 January 2003, 09:04

I'm quite sure the mainboard has an Intel chipset, as the computer is a Dell. In the msinfo32 output, I can find this information:
BIOS version/date: Intel Corp. A03, 08/01/2002

And these devices:
Intel(r) 82801BA/BAM USB universele host-controller - 2444
Intel(R) 82845 Processor naar AGP-controller "naar" is Dutch for "to"
Intel(r) 82801BA Bus Master IDE-controller
...

Just curious: does one need the SBLive when capturing through firewire ? (does the DV-signal also contain the audio ?)

Jörg

**Brian Ellis** · 20 January 2003, 09:44

OK, the 845 is the important one, the "Northbridge" chip. This is the same as mine, so I can say that there is no basic incompatibility with SB Live! However, I have heard that some Dell m/bs do have problems with PCI Bus mastering, but I cannot be specific as I have no personal experience.

I'd still pursue the second disk as the first thing to tackle. Put it on the Secondary Master IDE position, if necessary making the CD-device Primary Slave.

Whether you need a sound card or not, it is there and interrogates the PCI bus and therefore uses up bandwidth, no matter what the make. It just seems that under some, unspecified, conditions, some seem to go mad and hog more bandwidth than they ought - and this applies to many makes, not just SB. The Live! and Audigy are, by far, the most popular cards for gamesters and they seek every ounce of performance possible out of their machines. If they did this "hogging" systematically for them, then they would not be so popular, so I suspect that the problem occurs only under some circumstances. Don't ask me what or why. :-(

VJ · 20 January 2003, 12:38

Originally posted by Brian Ellis
I'd still pursue the second disk as the first thing to tackle. Put it on the Secondary Master IDE position, if necessary making the CD-device Primary Slave.

Ok. (I believe now both his DVD-drive and CDRW are on the second channel). I take it the ideal combination would be disk1+DVD on channel 1, and disk2+CDRW on channel 2 ?

Whether you need a sound card or not, it is there and interrogates the PCI bus and therefore uses up bandwidth, no matter what the make.

I tend to keep forgetting this...

I just thought of something: I don't know what compression he is using when capturing (if any); perhaps that also might be of importance...?

So, guess I'll be advising him to buy a second harddisk (perhaps I can try with one of mine - if the Dell will take it; due to some hardware-changes (we all know those

), I'll need to purchase an additional harddisk so I might as will put it in his computer for test-purposes)

Jörg

**Brian Ellis** · 21 January 2003, 00:18

Yup, make sure that the two HD drives are the masters and the DVD/CD are the slaves.

Of course, compression is important. I was assuming he was capturing DV but if he has analogue signals, then the codec is important. 14 Mb/s, even on a dedicated HDD, may be insufficient for some settings and will be largely inadequate for zero compression.

VJ · 21 January 2003, 01:12

Thanks!
(he's only capturing DV though)

I'll let him know the findings, and we'll test with my new harddrive prior to having him buy something.

Jörg

**Technoid** · 21 January 2003, 01:50

VJ, do you have a nvidia vidcard?

In that case geting hold of powerstrip and dropping the latencies of the card down to something sensible like 64 or 32 might do the trick

Nvidia cards use that stupid trick to "block" the bus for themself

VJ · 21 January 2003, 01:54

The videocard is a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400...
So that will be the very first attempt...

(overall PCI latency is set to 248)

Jörg

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Are these IRQs ok ?

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