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| Unofficial VirtualDub Support Forums > Capture > Inserted Frames (blackmagic) |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 10 2009, 12:58 PM |
| Please help if you can. I have read a fair bit on here but I'm not getting anywhere with my capturing. I have tried everything I have read and more. There must be some performance glitch somewhere but I really cannot work it out. My system is: * Intel Core i7 * Gigabit EX58-Extreme Motherboard * Very recent NVidia based graphics card (with HDMI, DV and other outputs) * Blackmagic Intensity Pro * Windows XP SP3 * VirtualDub 1.9.4 I hope this is a serious enough machine for video capture. I also have a Winfast 1000s TV card installed. The Blackmagic is connected using component video and RCA audio and receives a PAL signal. The Blackmagic disk test suggests 157 fps for PAL capture. The problem is this. The capture starts of beautifully, 25.000 fps, disk drive flickering with video compression but certainly not hammering. The CPU can get to about 30% (for just one of the CPUs) depending on the codec used, often lower. However, when about 3,000 frames have been captured, the inserted frames start slowly and rise rapidly. The fps drops and starts to grind down, usually gets to about 22fps when I stop it, not sure how low it would go. It is always at around 3,000 frames, which suggests that some buffer is filling up, but I just can't work it out. I have tried: * turning off virus checker and a few services that might impact, such as RichVideo.exe * turned off indexing on the hard disk drive * tried a range of compression codecs: MJPEG, MPEG2, MPEG4 etc. * turned off audio * no video compression at all, just the YUV feed * changing priority of VirtualDub.exe to 'Realtime' * ensuring I have the latest Blackmagic drivers (3.2) * praying to a range of deities All to no avail, I change things, start capturing, wait for the 3,000 frames to be reached and then watch the inserted frames fly. Thanks in advance for your assistance. I'm really going insane with this! Cheers |
| Posted by: Tacoma Aug 10 2009, 06:53 PM |
| I'm not sure if it will help, but you can look at this thread for some tips I received when trying to capture a high-data rate stream using the Blackmagic Intensity. http://forums.virtualdub.org/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=16116 |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 10 2009, 09:56 PM |
| Thanks for your reply Tacoma. I have downloaded the codec and will try it hopefully tonight. I tried a test this morning by upping the Disk I/O settings significantly. Again no joy, you can set your watch to it, 3,000 frames, 2 minutes and, hey presto, inserted frames. I have three codec options under Video>Compression being Blackmagic uncompressed, Blackmagic mjpeg and ffdshow. The Blackmagic software includes an 'express' reader which also produces the same outcome. Finger hence points to some form of hardware or OS issue, possibly related to the hard disk or maybe driver. I can sit there and just watch the preview screen for ages with seamless delivery of PAL or 720p images. It is only when the capture starts that the problem emerges. I am using a single 1TB 7,500rpm SATA drive. Would a SCSI card with a 15,000rpm drive be better. However, with compression, the drive doesn't seem taxed at all. |
| Posted by: Tacoma Aug 10 2009, 10:37 PM |
| SATA should be fine, but I know Blackmagic recommends RAID configurations for faster write. I have 3 750 GB SATA drives (7500 rpm), using RAID-5 (software, Windows XP Pro - not hardware RAID). |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 11 2009, 12:24 PM |
| I'm afraid that the Huff codec mentioned above also does suffers the same issue - 3,000 frames and it all falls apart. Guessing that the issue is hardware/driver related. Further reading indicates that some people have problems using the Blackmagic Directshow drivers but have more success with software that directly accesses the card. As mentioned above, I have a cheap Winfast 1000 S TV card with S-Video in. I reconnected that last night and it seemed to work flawlessly with Virtualdub using the same codecs with same bitrates etc. I don't know enough about the differences between component and s-video in terms of capture. I probably can't justify buying a raid configuration, I'm more than happy to use compression; does this alleviate the need for raid drives? Also I am not convinced that a raid configuration would actually overcome this particular problem if it is Directshow related. Please, I need your expert comment on whether I have the right card for my purposes. Is the Blackmagic Intensity Pro and its drivers just a heap of junk? or just too high end for a home PC? If so, could I have your thoughts on a more stable video capture card. I use it to capture sports games so don't need brilliant quality, just the best I can squeeze into h264 files at 2,000bps. Many thanks in advance. |
| Posted by: phaeron Aug 12 2009, 03:23 AM |
| Enable the timing log and post an example log with a >3000 frame capture. The capture log file shows the timings for all frames actually delivered to the application by the capture driver, so I can get an idea of what's going on. |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 12 2009, 05:47 AM |
| Thanks phaeron, I appreciate the time you (and Tacoma) are taking in giving me a hand here. OK I'll look into that at home, I did turn on the diagnostics but just watched the on screen ones (the yellow sync error line took a 45 degree turn downwards at 3000 frames). I didn't appreciate that there was a log file produced from the diagnostics, but will post some details once to hand. {Whilst testing last night, I had internet explorer open reading this and other forums, and it ran into memory problems despite Task Manager revealing 2GB free space. Note sure if this is leakage.} Many thanks |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 12 2009, 12:56 PM | ||||||
Interesting, the timing log file using Blackmagic Intensity Pro, Decklink Directshow (UYVY) is as follows:
And so on beautifully for nearly 3,000 frames. All 40ms apart. Then it starts to happen, in this case, frame 2,970:
Note the 80ms skip, hence the inserted frame. Next frames with 80ms are 2,999; 3,028; 3,057 {All gaps of 29 frames}; then 3,071 {14}; 3,085 {14}; 3,099 {14}; 3,113 {14} and so on. It does become a bit more spasmodic, 120ms gaps start to appear and every second frame is non 40ms. Conversely, I tried the SVideo capture in my Winfast 1000 S (YUY2) card and got the following.
A bit of volatility, but the range is 28 to 41 over 9,000 frames. No drops, no inserts, just some resampling. I'm guessing this indicates something not so good about the feed from the Blackmagic?? |
| Posted by: phaeron Aug 13 2009, 03:35 AM |
| The VCapTime column indicates the timestamp reported by the capture driver; VGlobalTime indicates the timestamp recorded by VirtualDub when it received the frame. There doesn't seem to be anything overly wrong here, except that for some reason you are losing frames at an increasing rate over time. If you aren't limited by disk I/O or by CPU, I'm not sure what could cause this... and if you were using the test capture mode, that definitely would rule out disk I/O. Can you capture at a smaller frame size and see if that changes anything? |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 13 2009, 10:36 PM |
| Thanks phaeron. I have tried a combination of 'Test' and 'Real' capture, along with compression and no compression and the result in every case is the same. I think disk I/O is ruled out as a cause. I have also tested further my Winfast SVideo input with Line In sound and all works well. This also uses DirectShow using a WinFast.dll driver. (Having said that, some codecs in ffdshow produce some pretty 'rough' files in that the timing in them is dreadful once encoded with MediaCoder and can crash Handbrake. I play all my files on my PS3 and it is pretty fussy about file structure, containers and video/audio streams). I also just left VirtualDub open while previewing the video feed (that is, with no capture) from the Blackmagic and eventually it did start to slow down and went as low as 5fps. Hence it happens outside of capture, but it is kind of funny that capturing triggers and almost perfect 3,000 frames until problems start. Maybe something is triggered or reset when caturing starts? It just all feels as though there is an issue with leakage, buffering etc. with the DeckLink.dll DirectShow driver. I am definitely using the latest version of this library dated 24 July 2009 and even tried some old ones for good measure. Potentially CPU grunt is at fault, but you'd think the same problem might emerge with the Winfast. Are there any other comments that might be useful before I ring Blackmagic and explore some options further with them? Is their driver the likely culprit? |
| Posted by: Tacoma Aug 14 2009, 02:37 AM | ||
Do you get the same results using Blackmagic's capture software (Media Express?)? |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 14 2009, 07:20 AM |
| Yes Tacoma, Media Express stutters after a couple of minutes; you can't see as much detail as to what is going on compared to using VirtualDub. I haven't checked fully, but I assume Media Express also uses DeckLink.dll in obtaining the feed. Tis a puzzlement. Could you and others with an Intensity card let me know details of your system, CPU, Ram etc. I might then try the card on another machine with those sorts of specs and see if it does the same thing. I could have a dud card, so this check might help me sort that out. |
| Posted by: Tacoma Aug 15 2009, 01:54 AM | ||
Blackmagic Intensity (HDMI only, not the Pro version) Intensity Windows 2.1 drivers Windows XP Pro SP3 3 GB RAM Intel Core 2 Quad CPU 2.66GHz (1) 200 GB drive with the OS installation, not used as capture drive (3) 750GB SATA II 7200 RPM drives configured as RAID-5 (software/Windows) ---------- *Results from Blackmagic Disk Speed Test Disk Read Speed Results = 235.9 Disk write Speed Results = 148.1 8 Bit YUV 4:2:2 Frame Rates (Disk Read/Disk Write) HDTV 1080 fps (59/37) HDTV 720 fps (134/84) NTSC fps (353/221) PAL fps (298/187) ---------- Using VirtualDub 1.8.8 (some of these values may be the default but I don't recall - if I don't list it below, it is the default value) -- Main menu -- * Options / Performance AVI Output buffering = 2MB Wave input buffering = 64KB Stream data pipelining = 32 buffers * Options / Preferences / Disk I/O Asynchronous unbuffered Threading = 1 -- Capture mode menu (File / Capture AVI...) -- * Video / Capture filter This displays the Blackmagic Video Format dialog box Video Format = HD720 59.94p 8-bit 4:2:2 Timecode Format = Timecode, Read from VITC (SMPTE 12M) * Video / Compression Huffyuv v2.1.1 - CCESP Patch v0.2.5 * Capture / Timing These are the only values checked/selected Drop frames when captured frames are too close together Insert null frames when captured frames are too far apart Null frame burst limit = 10 Sync audio to video by resampling the audio to a faster or slower rate Correct video timing for fewer frame drops/inserts Automatically disable resync when integrated audio/video capture is detected Audio latency determination: Automatic, Number of audio blocks = 30 Force audio clock when audio playback is enabled * Capture / Disk I/O Chunk size = 2MB Chunks in buffer = 64 Disable Windows write buffering is checked * Capture / Capture drives One spill drive is setup with default (50/1900) settings, this is the RAID volume * Under Capture menu option, these values are checked: Hide display on capture Show information panel Show status bar Enable multisegment capture Autoincrement filename after capture -- During a capture session... CPU usage = 40% - 50% Video Average rate = 59.94000 fps Video Data rate = 29707 KB/s Video Compression ratio = 3.6:1 Video Avg frame size = 507467 |
| Posted by: bhwsyd Aug 21 2009, 02:21 AM |
| Many thanks for that Tacoma, I've been playing further over the last few days - again with no success. Blackmagic technical support has come back to me and confirmed that there is actually an issue with the Core i7 architecture and some Blackmagic cards including the Intensity. The X58 chipset seemed to the at fault party and have suggested trying an alternative system. Not sure how related it is Blackmagic are working with the chipset suppliers on a fix but no estimated time at this stage. Many thanks for the VirtualDub community providing some assistance in this regard. I am happily recording away using S-Video on my Winfast card in VirtualDub, terrific program. Hopefully I'll be using it soon with the Blackmagic on another system. Will report back on this. |
| Posted by: Esor Nov 19 2009, 09:34 PM |
| Bhwsyd, Regarding my latest posts concerning loosing frames over time, I have found your info about the Core I7 and the X58 chipset, which is exactly what I am using. Have you heard any news from BlackMagic? Did you change to another system, and did that fix your problem? I am curious to hear your experiences. Regards, Per |
| Posted by: kaczor Jun 13 2012, 01:31 PM |
| Hi, maybe I will refresh this topic. unfortunately I have the same problem with my Pinnacle Moviebox and i7... everything is great, but suddenly a lot of inserted frames appears and the number increases rapidly - only option is just to stop capture :\ Have you resolved this issue? Do you maybe remember what is the solution? |
| Posted by: Abrazo Jun 16 2012, 06:36 PM |
| Try once by 'un'checking everything in the Capture > Timing... dialogbox (in VirtualDub > Capture AVI...). |
| Posted by: kaczor Jun 25 2012, 01:50 PM |
| Hi, my problem is solved. I've read somewhere it can be caused by Disk I/O settings and a "preview" option, so I've modified the Disk I/O for the LOWEST possible (1x64k), but it was not enaugh. Then I've disabled preview at all (not only "Hide previed during capture"), but in Video menu checked "No display". Now the problem dissapeared. I've dumped four 240min VHS tapes without any problem described above. Maybe it would help someone. Cheers! PS. I bet preview as the first problem, so maybe you can start with that. |