Intensity Pro 720p analog capture problem

[Kristian Lam]

Hi JimE,

SATA drives may be fast enough but they do slow down as they are filled up. What kind of results are you getting with our disk speed test application?

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design

[Jim Ernsberger]

Hi Kristian. Thanks for the response.

I ran the disk speed test on all three drives I mentioned. The results were: (in MB/s)

SATA secondary drive: read 69.5 / write 63.3
external USB: read 29.7 / write 24.4
“C” system drive: read 65.2 / write 65.2

Thanks,
JimE

[Jim Ernsberger]

Okay, Some further experimentation:
If I disconnect the component cables (no video input) I can capture black video (with a red line across it) with no problem. If I connect an SD composite signal from a camera and set Intensity to upconvert it to 1080i I can capture that with no problem.

When I connect a component signal and try to capture in it’s native HD format, either 720p or 1080i, it always freezes after 1-10 seconds.

This makes me think that the Intensity card is having a problem processing the HD input. Why might that be?

JimE

[Jim Ernsberger]

More experimenting:

Since it will capture with the component cables disconnected I tried capturing with the camera pointed into a black space. It worked fine. So I monitored CPU usage while capturing. When focused on black it runs 58-60%. As I move the camera into lighter areas the CPU starts climbing until it reaches ~82-85% then capture freezes.

It would appear that 3.2Ghz dual-core isn’t fast enough.

[Andrew Tunnell]

Jim,

Any progress on this problem? The same thing is happening to me. I’m trying the capture format: HD720 – Motion JPEG – 59.94fps. When capturing SD format, it records just fine, but when capturing HD it runs for 10-60sec then freezes. Like you said, the CPU usage jumps to the 80’s just before. My system is slower than yours, Pentium E2140 Dual Core Processor, 1.6GHz and 2G of RAM. Do you think more RAM could do the trick, or do I need a whole new CPU?

Andrew Tunnell

[Jim Ernsberger]

Hi Andrew.
I have made some progress. I’ve switched to a Core2 Quad processor which now never gets above ~60% and usually is less than ~15-20%.

But it still stops capturing, although now it typically goes anywhere from 10-40 minutes. I’m using it to record church services live so I need 70-90 minutes.

Next I’m going to try differnet drive options, possibly even a raid, although that shouldn’t be needed.

Good luck. If you figure anything let me know.

JimE

[Andrew Tunnell]

Hi Jim,

Have you tried using any other software? The capture software that came with the card doesn’t freeze on me, but the video does lag behind the audio. Maybe with your system that wouldn’t happen. I just don’t know if the problem is Adobe Premiere or just the speed requirements to capture and encode.

Andrew

[Jim Ernsberger]

Hi Andrew
I did try the Media Express program, but had the same issue you describe. After 10 minutes of capture there’s about 30-60 seconds of lag in the video. Not useable. I think it’s having the same problem with dropped frames, but just keeps recording which puts the audio and video out of sync.

I ran the Disk Speed Test on my hard drives and found the following write speeds:
External USB drive- 28.3 MB/S (WD MyBook)
eSATA drive-59.0 MB/S (Seagate)
System Drive (C:)- 107.9 MB/S (Western Digital Raptor- very fast)

When testing capture on the first 2 it would fail eventually, but the system drive seemed to work fine. So Sunday I tried recording to the “C:” drive and was able to go ~90 minutes without failure. So it appears that the disk speed is the issue. My next step is to try a RAID.

Oddly, while it was capturing, I noticed that the capture duration shown in Premiere was showing exactly half of the time it should have been. But the captured file was the correct length, with no sync issues. I don’t know what that’s about.

So I’m making progress. I’d recommend trying faster drives.

JimE