DV SmartPlay slow and stuttering

[jeffw]

I just installed Win98SE and MSP VE 6.0.0.2.
I have a Pyro and I think I've got all the latest drivers.

When I "export to MS DV record" from a rendered movie, it works great. When I preview without the camera connected it works great. But, if I try to preview with the camera connected (or "Print to Tape" from Timeline), then I get slow and stuttering preview. My hard disk tests fine with HDTach and WinBench. The disk is only using 2.5% of CPU (uses DMA) and reports about 10MBS across the entire surface (from 14 down to 10).

Any ideas about how I can print to tape without rendering to a file?

My project is DV with DV Audio. It's a short, cuts-only piece.

Oh yeah, do you think the msdv.sys in DX8 might help?

How can I get that file without installing DX8?

My versions are:
File Ver. Prod. Ver.
1394bus.sys 4.10.2222 4.10.2222
msdv.sys 4.10.2224 4.10.2222
ohci1394.sys 4.10.2222 4.10.2222

I'm using Microsoft's device control.
And, my camcorder is a Canon Optura Pi (NTSC).

Any help would be appreciated!

PS my video and sound cards are sharing an IRQ, but the sound card isn't used when previewing using the
camcorder, right?
PPS how can I move one of these devices to an unused IRQ?

Thanks.

jeffw

NOTE: I also posted this questions to WWUG's board for MSP.

[Sciascia]

I am no t a DV type, so I can't help you with that part, but the IRQ I amy be able to help with.

1. Right click on my computer, select properties. Open the device manager tab.

2. Find "sound cards and game controllers" and expand it. Look for the soundcards primary device. If it isn't under there, check under "multi-function adapters.

3. Open the resources tab and uncheck "use automatic settings". Scroll down the resource type and find IRQ. click on it and then click the "change setting" radio button. If it says you can't change it try changing the configuration drop down box and see if it changes the IRQ or will let you modify the resource.

4. If not, try the display adapter, same steps as above.

5. If still no go, find out in the documentation what IRQ's your devices prefer. Check for jumper settings also. Try shuffling some of your other devices resources around to free one up that your SC or display adapter prefer. If you are in the same situation as me, I have no IRQ's left, remove any unused COM ports, I have none in my setup and I use a PS/2 mouse since IRQ 12 is usually reserved for it.

Display adapters seem to prefer IRQ 10 or 11 and soundcards tend to want IRQ 5 or 3.

If still no success, boot into safe mode and remove any duplicate devices in device manager. Remove your soundcard. This will cause windows to re-assign IRQ for it when you reboot. You can do this with several devices at once and try to see if windows assigns the IRQ's correctly after booting.

If still unsuccessful, you can switch slots for your cards, or go into the BIOS and assign IRQs for specific slots (especially good if you have some legacy ISA cards). You can also try to change the order that the OS assigns IRQs in the BIOS. An option in the BIOS (I am not sure what it is called), but it goes from first to last or last to first.

If still unsuccessful, ask someone that knows what they are talking about (this is just tips from my limited experience)

[Anatoly Neverov]

Uleads made 2 patches which heal this bug in MSP 6, full version. I don't know if they made patches for VE. Try to search Ulead's site.

------------------
Anatoly Neverov
Minsk, Belarus

[wkulecz]

I can verify that the DVpatchII also applies to MSP6ve.

You don't mention your CPU, but Ulead says a PIII-450 is the minimum for DV timeline playback.

I have a PIII-500 and get good timeline playback thru the camcorder. My previews on the computer monitor aren't that great (barely usable actually) but its the output to the camcorder that matters to me.

I'm setting up an Athleon-700 and so far it seems to have much better computer monitor preview playback in my limited testing.

I'm running windows 2000 and use the firewire drivers that come on the OEM CD.

You did create a "custom" project template using NTSC (or PAL) DV field order A and set 32K or 48K DV audio instead of PCM didn't you?

Without this template you may end up having MSP attempt to render the audio on the fly to DV audio format which could account for the trouble on output thru camcorder and might explain why rendered files export correctly.

--wally

[jeffw]

Thanks for all the replies! Much appreciated.

I tried steps 1-4 of the IRQ stuff, but it won't let me change it for either device. I'll try the rest of the IRQ stuff later.

I'd already applied the DVPatchII (that's version 6.0.0.2. But, I neglected to create the custom template for DV audio. Why doesn't the patch do that for us? I tried switching to DV audio and it improved somewhat. That gave me hope. I think the problem might be that I was mixing source clips between frame based and field based (interlaced vs progscan).

I tried capturing some new source clips that I new were all progressive scan and tried printing to tape from the timeline again. This time it works great! I output about two minutes of project straight from the timeline with very good results!

Next question: How can you tell if an AVI file contains frame-based or field-based video? It doesn't seem to appear in the "properties". Is there any way other than
looking for jaggies during big movements?

Q2: shouldn't I be able to mix between field and frame based clips in a project? (It would just have to render the non-conforming clips during preview file creation, right?)

PS I have a Celeron 566 with 256MB and it previews in a window pretty well. Sometimes the framerate goes down a bit, but the sound is good. I can scrub the timeline pretty well, too. After I get things working well at 566MHz, I'm going to try to push the clock up to 707MHz. DMA on the hard drive may give me some trouble at that bus speed, though, so we'll have to see.

[wkulecz]

I don't know how to tell from the file if its frame or field based either. It'd sure be nice if there is a way.

I think you always have a 50-50 chance of a "glitch" on a switch from a frame to feild based clip or vice-versa because the "frames" can be order AB AB or BA BA if a AB frame joins an AB interlace there should be no glitch, but if a BA frame joins an AB interlace (or vice-versa) it has to glitch
on feild order based output because the interlace is wrong at the joint.

If you can record progressive frame based ouptut, that's what I'd try as project settings. But you might find it hard to get good VHS recording unless the DV to analog conversion in your camcorder does the frame to interlaced conversion correctly. One would hope that they do, but I've not had the chance to play with progressive scan camcorders.

Yeah I think it was really stupid of Ulead to not have the patch also create the needed templates.

--wally.

[jeffw]

I've got things working well now, so I tried pushing the clock back up from 66 to 83. DMA gave me much trouble and it wouldn't boot.

I got it to work by disabling UltraDma in the BIOS. I ran benchmarks and DMA is still working, just not UltraDMA33. My guess is that it's PIO Mode 5 which I believe is DMA at 16 Mhz. My CPU utilization is only 2%!
My transfer speed is down from about 10.5 MB/S to 9.5 MB/S, but that should be plenty fast for DV work.

I output a six-minute project directly from the timeline with no trouble at all!

jeffw