IC Capture 2.1 AVI Capture problems

[Stefan Geissler]

In the last time we got error reports about AVI capture with IC Capture.AS 2.1. The problem was IC Capture.2.1 simply crashing. Today I did tests on my own with IC Capture.AS 2.1 in Windows XP SP3.

I used a DMK 31AF03 with 1/127 second exposure time at 30 fps. I captured up to 15 minutes and got an AVI file of 25898 frames, 18.9 GB size. This file was flawlessly readable by Windows Media Player. Thus, my earlier recommendations regarding AVI file sizes are wrong. I have to apologize.

I also checked what happens, if the hard disc runs out of space while AVI capture. In just one word short word: nothing. Windows gave a balloon tooltip, saying "Low disc space". The live video stream did not continue in IC Capture, no more frames were saved into the AVI file. After the AVI capture was stopped, the live video display continued. I checked the AVI file in Media Player and again, there was no problem. Thus, even if the hard disc is full, the AVI file stays readable.

However, there have been errors reported. If IC Capture crashes for some reason while AVI Capture, then the AVI file header will not be written and the AVI file is unusable. Worse: The Windows Explorer tries to open this file, when the directory content is listed and it crashes too. The damaged AVI file must be deleted from the command line (cmd) or using another tool like "SpeedCommander" or "Total Commander".

Since I have no clue, why IC Capture can crash while AVI capture, I need some more information, e.g. Windows version and service pack, driver versions, DirectX version, graphics board (I do not know, whether it is important) and at least, what was done exactly, so may be I get some steps to reproduce this. Also the exact IC Capture version is a valuable information. The latest version 2.1.103.536 can be downloaded for free from http://www.astronomycameras.com/en/p...e/iccaptureas/ . A license key is required for the setup.

Thank you in advance.

[Steve Hill]

Hi Stefan,

First thanks for sorting out my lost serial number!

I hope I can help with this problem. The problem I see is that occasionally (maybe once in 10 or so) recording sessions cause IC Capture to crash at the end of the recording i.e. after "stop" has been pressed. The AVI file is there, but unreadable as you report.

The size of the file does not seem to matter. I have had it happen for very short (a few seconds) sequences and long (a few minutes) sequences.

In some case IC Capture locks up completely and the PC has to be rebooted. I have observed this behaviour in 2.0.1.483 and 2.1.103.536.

I am running Windows XP with Service Pack 3.

Dell Inspiron 1.7GHz, 2GB RAM.

I have appended my DxDiag information in case this is useful to you.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with. I have a corrupted AVI, but it is 500Mbyte!

Steve.

[Mars4ever]

Hi all. I sometimes have the same problem too. Last summer the crashes were very frequent (also more than once per night!) and I had to brutally switch off the notebook, while now fortunately the bug is more rare and "only" the software crashes.
However, the Windows event viewer in control panel says that the errors have something to do with the file "qcap.dll", version 6.5.2600.5512, error adress 0x00022295.
Could this information be useful to you developer to fix the bug?
Thanks.

[Stefan Geissler]

Hello

Thank you for the hint. The qcap.dll is a Microsoft DirectShow DLL, used by all DirectShow programs. I forward this to my programmers. However, if we are not able to reproduce the problem, escpecially if it occurs not in our code, then it is hard to narrow it down.