Vegas keeps dropping frames

[Jonathan Pohl]

I have been successfully capturing footage off of my XL2 using vegas 6.0 for a couple of months now, but two days ago I started getting a lot of dropped frames. Normally I use TDK mini DV tapes, but the problem started after I tried capturing off of a Maxell recorded on someone else's camcorder. I tried everything I could think of and that was suggested by Canon's troubleshooting site. I defragged the hard drive, ran a cleaner tape through the cam corder, turned the preview off in vegas while capturing, etc. Right now I am running a system with 2 GHz of RAM, I am capturing to a 500 GB hardrive and that is the only thing I use this drive for. Sound/Video card etc shouldn't be an issue since I was successfully capturing video before and I haven't made any changes to my system. The tapes look fine when played back on a TV, it is only when I go to capture them that the issue arises.

I tried capturing the tape using another DV and experienced the same problems, I tried using an application other than Vegas and same story. When I open up the clips that did get captured in Vegas and go frame by frame, the footage is there, but there are streams where footage from a couple of minutes ago is injected in the middle of the current frames (It took me about an hour to manually remove this junk from just a 5 minute clip).

Any help would be greatly appreciated at this point!

[Don Bloom]

Try using a different capture device, IE, a deck or camera to capture the tape with. More often than not this is the problem.

Don B.

[Jarrod Whaley]

Have you recently installed any new software that might be running in the background and eating up your system resources? Try killing all non-essential processes via task manager.

[Petri Flander]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Pohl

I have been successfully capturing footage off of my XL2 using vegas 6.0 for a couple of months now, but two days ago I started getting a lot of dropped frames. Normally I use TDK mini DV tapes, but the problem started after I tried capturing off of a Maxell recorded on someone else's camcorder.

Jonathan,

TDK is not compatible with other tape brands. (sony/panasonic/jvc/fuji/maxell)

After all these years I think we should all agree to this.

If you truly need to capture "the other brand" tape on "TDK- infected" camera, (or the other way around) you should have two cleaning tapes. One from TDK and another from some of those other brands (they're compatible with each other).

- First run a cleaning tape from "the other brand" on abt. 6 sec. (put in and press play)
- Then capture that "alien tape"
- After this, put your regular brand's cleaning tape in and play 6 to 10 sec.

This fiddling ensures that you don't have incompatible tape lubricant left on video drum - neither on capture nor afterwards.

Personally, I use sony and panasonic tapes only. I have used this pre/post cleaning procedure on my DSR-11 on those times when somebody gave me a TDK, and so far so good. (Except that every cleaning run has grinded video head a little bit more...)

Don't rewind your cleaning tapes. Discard them when they're used.

BR
Petri

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Petri Flander

TDK is not compatible with other tape brands. (sony/panasonic/jvc/fuji/maxell)

I mix all kinds of brands all the time. TDK's included. I have no more trouble with them than I have with any other brand--which is to say that I have zero trouble. When I see a tape dropout, I clean the heads. I have had my Canon GL1 for over 5 years. I've only had one cleaning tape for it--I haven't finished using it yet. So that should give you an idea of how many dropouts I get.

Originally Posted by Petri Flander

Personally, I use sony and panasonic tapes only.

If there were some substance to all of this "use the same brand" hysteria (and my experience proves, to me at least, that there isn't), then telling someone to mix Sony and Panasonic tapes is about the worst advice you could give. Sony uses a wet lubricant, and Panasonic uses a dry one. The wet vs. dry issue is the reasoning behind the whole "don't use different brands" thing in the first place--the wet lubricant, when used on a head that has previously seen lots of dry (powdered) lubricant, allegedly turns the powder to a kind of mud.

I don't use Sony tapes very much at all, but I use almost everything else pretty much equally--it just depends on whatever brand is the cheapest at a given store at a given moment. Almost no tape dropouts. The "stick to one brand" thing is very much a myth that has been blown out of all proportion.

All of that said, I don't think tape dropouts are the cause of Jonathan's problems in the first place. Dropped frames during capture are likely the result of a computer issue, rather than a camera issue. Jonathan reports that the tapes play back on a TV without problems. Ergo, there's nothing wrong with his tapes or his cam head.

[Petri Flander]

Jarrod,

First i'd like to point out that sony and panasonic tapes have changed much from 1997 when they were the only brands available and head clog issue was severe. Sony changed their formula, and from that point onwards they were much more compatible.

Link: http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/head.txt

Also, you said that you mix tapes frequently. That is different situation compared to someone who has used only one brand (mechanism is pretty much saturated with that particular lubricant) and then puts some other tape in.

So, how to tell what tape is wet and what is dry now?

This is tough, since one has to rely on mostly outdated information on net - manufacturers don't say nothing about this. I looked tdk, fuji, maxell, panasonic and sony - not a word.

Couple of recent postings said that Sony (PR and EX) and Pana (PQ and FE/FJ) are both wet now, except Pana MQ series is dry.
(And older postings say that pana is dry and sony is wet...)

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/archive/i...hp/t-3928.html

One estimation was that panasonic manufactures 75% of MiniDV tapes, sony makes 20% and TDK 5%. So, if panasonic consumer tape is said to be wet, how come that fuji and maxell are stated as dry, even when those are supposed to be made by Panasonic?

Old table (2003): http://www.philpang.com/tips/minidv_lubricants.html

The only way to sort this out seems to be... to cut a piece of tape and having a look through a microscope.

Adam Wilt had this to say: (Mixing tape)
http://www.adamwilt.com/Tidbits.html

Originally Posted by Jarrod Whaley

Jonathan reports that the tapes play back on a TV without problems. Ergo, there's nothing wrong with his tapes or his cam head.

You're correct on this. I see that I skipped that part.