From: Paul Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Video problem with recording using RPG2+
Dan,
The RealProducer is designed to always maintain encoding of a live audio
stream during live encoding. When a machine is under heavy CPU duress
during a live encoding session, the Producer may reduce video framerate or
even temporarily stop encoding video in order to free up enough resources
to encode the audio stream.
However, the machine you describe sounds pretty powerful. If there's no
other processes running, I don't see how the machine would come under a
drastic change in CPU duress in the middle of encoding.
I don't have any direct experience with the card you're using so there may
be a problem there. It would be instructive to try another card and see if
you get the same results. I do, however, have hard evidence that Windows NT
does a better job of thread switching than Windows 95/98. When using the
Producer for live encoding, a separate thread is used for the video and
audio encoding. You may get better behavior on WinNT.
The following comments don't relate directly to the video capture problem
but should help you in general. I recommend you upgrade to RealProducer
Plus 6.1. Among other improvements, there was a fix to rmbatch.exe in that
release that addresses a problem in live archives for long encodes.
In addition, I recommend you use the RealProducer ActiveX Control in you
custom encoding application instead of spawning rmbatch.exe. Since you're
using VB, this will be very simple and you can have much greater control
during the encoding process. Using the Producer ActiveX Control you can get
and set encoding properties, start/stop live broadcasting and capture
errors and statistics all programmatically. The RealProducer ActiveX
Control is a free download that works with the RealProducer & RealProducer
Plus 6.1.
Hope this helps.
-Paul
At 04:00 PM 1/6/00 -0800, you wrote:
>From: "Sobczak, Dan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Video problem with recording using RPG2+
>
>I've encountered a recording problem with RealProducerG2 Plus that I hope
>someone can help me with.
>
>I am calling RPG2+'s rmbatch.exe from within my VisualBasic6 application to
>record 30 minutes of audio/video (a normal TV newscast) four times a day.
>
>When I play back the resulting .rm video file, on some recordings, the video
>part of the recording will freeze, as if RP just stopped recording the
>video; however, the audio continues on as normal. This occurs on local
>playback
>as well as streaming from the server and in several versions of RealPlayer
>including
>RealPlayer 7.
>
>In essence, RealProd records the entire 30 minutes I've told it to, but for
>some reason, sometimes it stops recording video while continuing to record
>audio.
>
>You can see exactly what I'm talking about here at this link:
>
>http://www.phoenix360.com/news/12p_bad2.ram
>
>and at the 14:30 mark, the video freezes, while audio continues for the rest
>of the newscast. (Note: Ignore the "snow" you see when the video freezes -
>it just happens to be part of that commercial, which has streamed fine in
>the past. My broadcast feed did *not* get interrupted, as it would appear.)
>
>I have updated the Matrox video card drivers with the most recent versions
>(about a month ago) and still have this problem on occasion. I've
>double-checked all my RF and RCA (A / V) cord connections to make sure they
>are nice and snug.
>
>I'm using RealProducerG2 Plus (version 6.03.326) on a Pentium 3/550Mhz,
>Win98, 256MBs RAM, 20GB hard drive (17GB free), Matrox G200-TV video capture
>card (AGP). No other applications are running on this PC; only my VB6 app
>and rmbatch are running while recording.
>
>Has anyone else experienced this problem? Any thoughts are greatly
>appreciated!
>
>- Dan Sobczak, New Media Content Manager
>- ABC 15, KNXV-TV Phoenix
>- http://www.phoenix360.com
>- http://www.sonorangrill.com
>- (602)683-5962
>
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