Hi, you all! I just bought my first planetary camera ever, ZWO ASI462MC. I'm very happy with it, but not so happy with ASI Studio. I also use Sharpcap with camera for comparisons. I found that ASI Cap drop a lot of frames, at all resolutions. I checked in Sharpcap and it doesn't drop frames. Can you fix this in ASI Cap?

On the other hand, I also tried ASI live, but the result was something unintelligible, artifact squares or something like this. Please fix it too.

And don't forget: we need a manual for this ASI Studio, as soon as possible.

Hi ursamajor, Sorry for the problem.

for the problem of ASICap dropping frames, we're trying to optimize the code.

fro the problem of ASILive, can you send some images to us to test. The e-mail is: asistudio@zwoptical.com

And We will finish the manual as soon as possible.

Thank you for your feedback.

a month later

Any news about the problem of dropped frames? Can you fix this in the next update of ASI Studio?

We will fix this problem in the new version of ASIStudio, and it will be released in the near future.

2 months later

In the newest version (v 1.3.1) the issue is still there: it drops frames. Also the previous version 1.3.0. So, no progress in 2 versions. Maybe in v. 6.0.1...

    Hi Ursamajor,

    The software engineer is working hard to provide FREE software. No need to be angry or sarcastic. Sharpcap is good but you have to pay to get all the features. (and does not produce clean images like ASILive)

    Kind regards,

    Rob.

    Oops, defense lawyers appeared.
    Maybe software engineers should take a look at Sharpcap. The main features of recording videos are free in Sharpcap, but I would be happier if the manufacturer would offer a better software. In fact, they sell a product and they should assure also a good software to control it, isn't it?

    Whether you're wrong or right about this, is beside my point.

    And you know it.

    Kind regards,

    Rob

    ursamajor Hi Ursamajor!We're definitely committed to making ASIStudio better. Please forgive us for our negligence sometimes. The problem of dropping frames is inevitable because the hard disk's write speed is limited. We had tested the number of dropping frames and compared it to SharpCap in the same conditions, but no problem was found.
    If you do find the problem after a comparative test, you can provide us more information(platform information, camera model, test data, etc.)
    Thank you so much.

      @software@zwo#42207
      I'm sorry, I don't have HDDs on my laptop, I only have SSDs: one NVME (writting at least 1.6GB/s) and one SATA (at least 400 MB/s). The fact is that Sharpcap DOESN'T drop frames, but ASIcap drops a lot.
      I use Windows 10 on a Lenovo Ideapad3 ith Ryzen5 4500U + 16 GB RAM, 512 GB NVME SSD and ASI462MC.

      11 days later

      Version 1.3.2 released today: it's a tiny, tiny step forward. It doesn't drop frames at the beginning, but only until the buffer is full (whathever this buffer means, because is not settable), then it drops again a lot of frames. That means few seconds, so it's still not enough for decent captures. I used for testing the laptop described in the posting above, so no limitation from laptop, but again a defective software. As already I said, using the same laptop Sharpcap doesn't drop frames at all.

        Don't you believe me? Look the asked captures. As you can see, ASIcap starts dropping frames as soon as the buffer is full (about 27 s, only ~ 1700 frames out of 5000). That not happens on Sharpcap. Sharpcap doesn't drop any frame. I set both softwares to capture at full resolution, 5000 frames, same exposure time/gain (for max. fps). See for yourself.

          ursamajor Hi, we finally figured out what was going on. You had not checked the 'RAW Data' option in ASICap and choosed 'RAW8' in SharpCap, so it makes such a big difference. Because in this case, ASICap records RGB32 data with 3 channels but SharpCap records mono data. If you need record mono data, you can check the 'RAW Data' option in ASICap to keep up with SharpCap.If you need record RGB24 data, you can choose the 'RGB32' in SharpCap. In the actual test, ASICap did a better job than SharpCap under the same condition.
          SharpCap:

          ASICap:

          Larger file sizes mean more frames and fewer lost frames.
          The reason for your confusion is that 'RAW8' has a little difference from each other. We are going to
          explain more details in manual. Thank you so much.

            Yes, indeed, by checking RAW data box solved the dropping frames issue. You really MUST release that bloody manual! Make it quickly! For now it's like you released the carriage (software), but you forgot the horses (manual)... I also saw that there was a big difference between files sizes, but I attributed it to the differences between SER vs AVI containers and used codecs.
            As a suggestion, can you implement SER container also for RAW8? This is the most astronomical container ever, most compatible with astro editing softwares.

            I also thank YOU. 😃 It's nice to have an alternative to Sharpcap and I'm very happy that ASIcap really works even better. Now I'll test the ASIlive, because, as far as I remember, there was also problems at it, too...

            EDIT: I made some daylight tests using my little ED72 refractor, by targeting the AC of my neighbours 😃, about 50 meters away. The results are very good considering I didn't open the window. 😁 Now I wait for springtime to come, because here we always have clouds, in the winter...

              Testing different settings, I discovered another unpleasant possible issue: the debayering is... weird and Flip information seems to lack in RAW8 videos. Just look at the attached pics... I also used PIPP and noticed the same issues.


                ursamajor The issue of Flip is caused by a bug of AutoStakkert. Please used the latest version of AutoStakkert and v3.14 has no problem as far as I know. I just tested the debayering issue, but didn't find any problem with v3.0.14 and ASI 462MC. What's the camera you tested?

                  Can you test, please, these two files and see what I mean? Both of them are taken using ASIcap.
                  RAW8: https://mega.nz/file/0JlT2QoS#TX6Tf67ls_9Jsh00xgNu2KbQXKdLKLWXdHrSQVQRAAk
                  RAW16: https://mega.nz/file/tcknQCxY#gPPFHtOUwmC1wcgMiFmtPRyCnDFBXjYUVUZxBRRq-ug
                  I'm sorry, but not only Autostakkert can't debayer RGGB but GRBG. Also PIPP debayer with same GRBG instead of RGGB. See attachement. So, something's WRONG! Sharpcap files are debayered correctly.