Recording video to hard disk through Ultra66

3 replies [Last post]
Tim Johnson
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Joined: Nov 29 1999

Hi,

When I record video (say a TV programme or Camcorder footage) to the hard disks attached to my Promise Ultra66 the audio track is appalling - it pops and crackles, and quite masks the original audio but the video is good with no dropped frames. I've checked the audio settings - TV quality, and the input level is not clipping. Moreover, if I record the same video to drives attached to the motherboard's on-board IDE ports the audio track sounds fine but I lose frames of video (hence the reason for the Ultra66).

For information my system consists of a Chaintech 5AGM2 motherboard with VIA chipset, AMD K6-2 350 CPU, 128MB RAM, Western Digital 13.2Gig UDMA66 hard disk, Maxtor 36Gig UDMA66 hard disk, Creative 36x CD-ROM, Matrox G400 Marvel-TV (PCI), 8-bit SCSI card (no IRQ required) for scanner (ISA), Motorola VoiceSurfr modem (ISA), Promise Ultra66 UDMA66 hard disk controller (PCI), Pinnacle StudioDV digital video interface (PCI), SBLive sound (PCI).

I have updated all drivers and application software to the latest versions (including the Ultra66 BIOS).

I use Windows 98 SE and all items of hardware are reported to be working ok and, indeed, testing of all my PCs components has revealed no other fault than the poor audio when recording video through the Ultra66.

Your help in sorting this out would be appreciated.

Regards,
Tim

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

My first reaction is a loud sigh - seeing that you have so many bits and pieces which, potentially, may not work well together.

The Marvel, for instance, might be having a tiff with the StudioDV, and the SB Live might be arguing in with any of them (and, is, I think you'll find will only record at 16-bit/48MHz), which means it is having to convert almost everything it handles.

However, what I would say is that you've failed to tell us one critical thing. Is the sound you are talking about coming in via the soundcard and Marvel or in the DV stream being brought in by StudioDV?

Oh, and did you spot the readme file that's been installed on your hard disk by StudioDV (it may be accessible on the install CD, too). This tells you how to install the product if you are running Win98 SE - and themethod different to that spelt out in the manual for standard Win98!!!!!!!!

Bob C

Tim Johnson
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Joined: Nov 29 1999

I did some experimenting last night. I took out all the superfluous hardware (modem, scsi, Studio DV) and attached two UDMA66 drives (WD and Maxtor) and two DMA mode 4 drives (Seagate) to the Ultra66. There is a 2Gig DMA mode 4 on the on-board primary IDE to boot-up from. Using the VCR-Remote program for the Marvel I recorded some TV (Star Trek DS9 on Sky1 as it happens!) on each of the five drives. (BTW the sound is >monitored< through the SBLive but not recorded from it). On playback, the audio was perfect from the three DMA mode 4 drives, but posessed all the symptoms previously described, i.e. popping and cracking, from the two UDMA66 drives.

There are a couple of things I know I need to try: 1) Copying the recorded files to other drives to see whether the problem is on record or playback. 2) Use the Maxtor utility to (a) disable UDMA66 and see if it makes a difference when connected to the Ultra66 or on-board IDE, and (b) change the UDMA mode to UDMA33 and compare with (a).

I haven't even started with the Studio DV!

Comments most welcome.
Cheers!

Tim

troutmask
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Joined: Nov 14 1999

You've got a lot of things going on in the system that can cause potential conflicts, enen though device manager says everything's OK. My stepdad, who was a technical director for abc net news for years went the same route -- promise udma66 etc.--. Finally, he gave up and (on my advice) went scsi-lvd. He of course keeps the system stripped down now and uses it for digital editing only. When you set up a dedicated system, it's a good idea to use usb speakers and eliminate the soundcard altogether...
also, use as many usb periferals (keyboard, mouse etc as possible) Keep your system resources as free as possible.
Good Luck!!

[This message has been edited by troutmask (edited 30 November 1999).]