windows freezing up

[flier6]

Snapstream has been working great for me except that every time i try to do anything else while snapstream is capturing video, my system goes to a black screen and even ctrl-alt-del won't enable it to recover. Only a cold re-boot will fix it.

I'm running it on an Athlon 1000 mhz with 384 mb of ram 40 G of available space and an ATI TV Wonder card.

I can surf the web for a while but after I've viewed maybe 10 or 15 pages it locks up. By the way, after it's locked up, I can still hear the audio I just can't see anything on the screen. Trying to print a web page had the same effect.

I'm using Windows Media Encoder 7.0 to capture at VHS quality (30min = 300 MB).

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks,

Rick

[shipslog]

Hello Rick,
One item comes to mine when I hear lockups with Video Capture... Do you have Via chips? If so go to their web site and get the 4 and 1 drivers for it... http://www.viatech.com/

[rakeshagrawal]

what operating system are you running on your machine? Win98SE? ME? 2000?

[flier6]

Shipslog and Rakesh,

Thanks for the replies and happy holidays. I'm running Windows ME. Also, I downloaded the 4 for 1 drivers but can't figure out how to install them. I do have many VIA drivers so I guess that means I have VIA chipsets right?

I have the following:

VIA bus master PCI - IDE controller
VIA tech CPU to AGP controller
VIA standard CPU to PCI bridge
VIA VT82C686 PCI to ISA bridge
VIA vt82c686 power mgmt controller
VIA tech 3038 PCI to USB universal host controller

Rick

[shipslog]

Hello Rick,
The install should be simple. Find the downloaded file and double click on it... If the executable does not work then you may have a bad download and should try again... The best way to get the Driver you need may be to get it from the Motherboard Manufacture. They will no doubt send you to Via but they will have a link directly to the correct Driver based on you chip architecture.
When I have trouble with any capability I narrow the field a bit... Tuner, CPU, Motherboard... Look to those support sites and of course this one to find if there is a issues about what is happening to you. You have brand new Technology and there are unexpected non-compatibilities bound to happen but in the www world those compatibility issues get fixes fast... Next try to see if there is a Issue due to the CPU... Athlon had some problems (K7) with the GForce that was found and eliminated by a simple download. In the mean time I will keep trying to check ATI... If all this turns out to be a wild goose chase then at least you know that you have solid foundation to troubleshoot further... The Snap Stream is really worth the effort and if you are like me it become a Mission to discover the problem... Cheers...

[flier6]

Shipslog,

You nailed it!! The new VIA drivers fixed the problem completely. I've been recording all morning while surfing like a maniac and not a single freeze-up.

You're absolutely right about SnapStream. It's really a great program. I have a video transmitter hooked up to the extra set of outs on my DirecTV receiver and I send this signal to the line-in of my TV wonder card. I record the shows directly to a Buslink USB hard drive that I plan to take with me when I'm traveling so I can watch the shows on my laptop. Kind of a portable Tivo.

Thanks again for the help.

Rick

[flier6]

Well, looks like I spoke too soon. I'm able to do other things while Snapstream is recording (and I wasn't able to do that before I installed the new VIA drivers), but I'm still getting the freeze-ups.

Right after a scheduled recording has been over for a few minutes, I'll open windows explorer and browse over to the directory where my snapstream recordings are. Sometimes, I'll see the file with the correct name, size and ending time. Other times, there will be a size with the appropriate time (clock time) and size but it will be named either PVS something or index. When I click on the file, sure enough, it's the thing I just recorded. I know it takes the software a little time after a recording to sort things out but I've noticed this as much as 20 or 30 minutes after an hour-long recording. Is this normal?

The biggest problem though, is I'm still getting blue-screens. I've gotten 2 error messages in case this helps:
Error: 06 : 015F : 00005BD7
Error: 0E : 0028 : C0030AEC

I scheduled 3 recordings for last night. When I woke up, not one of them got recorded and all I had was a blue screen.

Thanks,

Rick

[Sparhawk]

You're quite right about the delay in tagging the file being longer than it should be -- it should start a few minutes after the recording ends and shouldn't take all that long, especially on a machine that fast.

Have you tried changing the capture interface or the quality level to see if that makes any difference? I've found that WME7 can be rather troublesome in its own right.

Frank Garcia

SnapStream Media Technical Support
email: techsupport@snapstream.com
website: http://www.snapstream.com/support

[flier6]

Hi Frank,

I'm starting to think that the problem has to do with the fact that the tagging is going on while another scheduled recording is beginning and it's more than the computer can handle.

I've tried different quality levels but have always used encoder 7.0. What other capture interface could I change it to?

One other thing, I'm capturing the files to an external USB hard drive. Is there any way that could be contributing to the trouble? When I just do a manual recording for an hour or so, it works fine, plays back fine, etc. It's only when I leave the computer with several scheduled recordings that I have a problem.

Thanks,

Rick