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Hello--
The question is rather long, I hope some have the patience to go through it, and can offer some insight and suggestions into the problem. I am a newbie to digital video and video capture, although I'm fairly computer literate.
My computer is a Fujitsu laptop, Lifebook C series Model 2210, Pentium 4-M 2gHz CPU, memory expanded to 768 MB, 30 GB HD, running Windows XP Home, updated via Windows Update with all the newest patches. Video memory changed from 32 to 64.
Just recently I purchased a simple external USB analog video capture device, a Dazzle DVC 80. I have tried recording movies from VHS tape through this device to the computer, with which I can later perhaps record them to CD (the computer's DVD/CDRW drive can only playback DVDs, only burns CDs), or compress them to Pocket PC format to watch on my PDA. I have tried this with different software, some that came with the device and other hardware I have, and others I downloaded.
The capture seems to start OK, but then quickly runs out of space. It seems like most capture software captures first uncompressed, before encoding and compressing, and uncompressed video takes an incredible amount of space. So, even with about 8 or 9 GB left on my 30 GB hard drive, I quickly run out of space, and can't record very much, nothing close to a full movie.
So, I decided to purchase a large external hard drive. I purchased an 180 GB Firewire HD over the Internet. My laptop has both Firewire and USB 2.0, and USB 2.0 is supposed to be a little faster than Firewire, and devices with USB 2.0 cost a little less than Firewire devices. However, I have read that there are still many problems with USB 2.0 devices, it being such a new technology, so I figured the Firewire would work more reliably.
The drive should be a good one--Hitachi Deskstar (i think these were formerly labeled IBM) 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache. However, the external case is generic, no brand name at all, no company name or contact info, etc.
I formatted it NTFS, all one large partition. I ran Scandisk and Chkdsk on it, including the sector checking, and everything showed up OK.
However----when I try the video capture again, with the external drive set to for the video capture files, temp files, etc., it runs into a problem. It starts OK, but after a certain time the capturing stops, I see that the external drive doesn't exist any more in "My Computer", and some kind of error message from Windows saying that it can't write to the drive.
I tried capturing with various software, and the same problem occurred with each. I turned off write caching for the drive, and the problem still occurs.
To get the drive to be recognized again, I have to unplug it, turn it off, wait a little, turn it back on again, and then plug it in to the Firewire slot again. Sometimes i have had to re-boot to get it recognized. When I run error-checking on it again, still no problems.
So, what I'd like to know is--what's causing the problem? Is this external firewire hard drive defective? (If so, I'd suspect more likely the housing and interface is defective, rather than the drive itself.) Should I call the company I purchased it from, and demand that they exchange it for another one?)
Or, are there changes in Windows XP configuration, or in the configuration of the video capture software, that would make it work correctly?
I would appreciate any feedback and suggestions. Thank you.
The question is rather long, I hope some have the patience to go through it, and can offer some insight and suggestions into the problem. I am a newbie to digital video and video capture, although I'm fairly computer literate.
My computer is a Fujitsu laptop, Lifebook C series Model 2210, Pentium 4-M 2gHz CPU, memory expanded to 768 MB, 30 GB HD, running Windows XP Home, updated via Windows Update with all the newest patches. Video memory changed from 32 to 64.
Just recently I purchased a simple external USB analog video capture device, a Dazzle DVC 80. I have tried recording movies from VHS tape through this device to the computer, with which I can later perhaps record them to CD (the computer's DVD/CDRW drive can only playback DVDs, only burns CDs), or compress them to Pocket PC format to watch on my PDA. I have tried this with different software, some that came with the device and other hardware I have, and others I downloaded.
The capture seems to start OK, but then quickly runs out of space. It seems like most capture software captures first uncompressed, before encoding and compressing, and uncompressed video takes an incredible amount of space. So, even with about 8 or 9 GB left on my 30 GB hard drive, I quickly run out of space, and can't record very much, nothing close to a full movie.
So, I decided to purchase a large external hard drive. I purchased an 180 GB Firewire HD over the Internet. My laptop has both Firewire and USB 2.0, and USB 2.0 is supposed to be a little faster than Firewire, and devices with USB 2.0 cost a little less than Firewire devices. However, I have read that there are still many problems with USB 2.0 devices, it being such a new technology, so I figured the Firewire would work more reliably.
The drive should be a good one--Hitachi Deskstar (i think these were formerly labeled IBM) 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache. However, the external case is generic, no brand name at all, no company name or contact info, etc.
I formatted it NTFS, all one large partition. I ran Scandisk and Chkdsk on it, including the sector checking, and everything showed up OK.
However----when I try the video capture again, with the external drive set to for the video capture files, temp files, etc., it runs into a problem. It starts OK, but after a certain time the capturing stops, I see that the external drive doesn't exist any more in "My Computer", and some kind of error message from Windows saying that it can't write to the drive.
I tried capturing with various software, and the same problem occurred with each. I turned off write caching for the drive, and the problem still occurs.
To get the drive to be recognized again, I have to unplug it, turn it off, wait a little, turn it back on again, and then plug it in to the Firewire slot again. Sometimes i have had to re-boot to get it recognized. When I run error-checking on it again, still no problems.
So, what I'd like to know is--what's causing the problem? Is this external firewire hard drive defective? (If so, I'd suspect more likely the housing and interface is defective, rather than the drive itself.) Should I call the company I purchased it from, and demand that they exchange it for another one?)
Or, are there changes in Windows XP configuration, or in the configuration of the video capture software, that would make it work correctly?
I would appreciate any feedback and suggestions. Thank you.
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