Dazzle Issues-Computer Speed?

[bthom867]

I have a Dazzle SD video recording device, and anytime I try to use the highest quality settings, my computer drops frames like crazy. I have a dedicated hard drive for the recording, and according to Dazzle's website my computer meets the requirements.

HP Pavilion Laptop
Windows Vista Home Premium
AMD Turion x2 Dual Core 2.0Ghz
4 gig's of ram
ATI Radeon 3200 Graphics

I'm not sure what other things are relevant. I've been thinking about buying a better desktop for a while, but the money's not quite there. I didn't know if there was something I could do to make my current computer capture correctly, or if I have to have a better computer period. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[JoshWS]

You have the minimum requirements, you can not run the HQ recording known as AVCHD which requires an Intel Core i7 and more than likely a good dedicated video card.

 

[anwaypasible]

josh might have nailed it for you already.
but lets have a look at some things you could use to answer the question yourself.

first of all, is your CPU utilization at or near 100% ?
this would be a problem.. and for standard definition, i find it ridiculous that you need an i7 processor.

also, does the graphics card actually do anything at all?
you could use the gpu-z program to look at resource usage.

by not using the CPU or the graphics card, that would imply the video recorder has its own processor, and maybe the processor isnt fast enough
OR
maybe the chipset on the motherboard isnt fast enough.

things that can slow it down:
lack of CPU power
lack of processing power on the video capture card
lack of graphics card help
lack of chipset processing power
lack of hard drive controller processing power

maybe the capture card is fine, but the software used isnt making the best use of the processors on the motherboard.
graphics card 'acceleration' is becoming a seriously often used form of help.
i dont know if virtual dub uses the graphics processor at all.
but maybe it is worth a try to see if there are any improvements.

i dont think your computer should be dropping frames at all.. if the frame cant get to the hard drive fast enough.. you need to store those frames in a buffer until the frame can get to its destination.
once the buffer fills up, you will start to drop frames again.

but since it is standard definition, the concept shouldnt be all too difficult when compared to computers capturing high definition video.

what else are you doing while capturing video?
i know it is hard on my computer to capture high definition video and play a video game at the same time.
but a video game is quite a lot of extra resources used.
even then, i can still play the game at acceptable frames per second above 30 while recording.
i have a core2duo at 3.24ghz

take the video game away and drop 1.24ghz from the processing speed.
then i still have a 1440mhz front side bus.
and then i also have three hard drives in a raid configuration.

i do my video recording without a capture card, and if i had one.. i would expect my frames per second in the video game to go up.

i would say a single hard drive isnt enough for video capture recording.
but, if the rest of your computer isnt up to speed.. getting more hard drives for a raid array might prove to be a waste of time.
and that might be precisely what josh was saying.

 

[Guest]

Hey guys, i too have a problem with the dazzle.. but mine is even at the lowest recording definition.. AUTOMATIC. ^.^ i also have a AMD Turion x2 64bit processor for my HP 6735s, with 4GB of RAM. Please reply soon as if there isnt a solution, i will have to try and send it back, thanks in advance!