On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:25:34 +0000, DJR wrote:

> ... Studio DV allows you to fetch a whole DV tape onto disk in
>"preview quality" (i.e. very low) to edit. When you've finished editing
>it uses the time base to fetch the sections of the tape it needs to make
>the final cut, but this time in full quality. This means you can grab a
>low res copy of each tape - about 200 - 300 Mb - store it on CD and
>then edit again whenever you want without having to reimport the whole
>tape.
>
>It may be my imagination, but I thought the dropped frame counter goes
>up when the scene changes rapidly - e.g. from a moving car. I will try
>again and watch. I'll also import a tape in full DV quality to see if
>it drops any frames.
>
>Does anybody have any suggestions for what I might try to get rid of
>dropped frames?
>
>I'm waiting for the Studio 7 upgrade package - whether this will make
>any difference I have no idea.

I'm ***guessing***, but since Mini-DV is a fixed format
(different capture "quality levels" are not possible), the
program is probably compressing the DV info further to
make the "preview quality" video. Mini-DV is compressed
frame-by-frame, but the further compression applied by
your program may not be, so its data rate varies and you
may well see more dropped frames during periods of
greater motion. If so, anything that can speed up
processing would likely help, like a faster CPU...