Video capture is a massively resource intensive process. Your PC is writing a continuous stream of data from digital video tape to your hard drive. If your system isn’t prepared for this data dump, it starts dropping frames to keep up with the speed of incoming data. Dropped frames translate to sections of video with jumpy or choppy motion. Preventing dropped frames is one of the most important steps in video editing. Like most other creative projects, your final movie is only as good as the source material you start with and a jumpy source file is garbage. You stack the odds against smooth video capture with too many open applications, a fragmented hard drive and occasionally even the software you choose. Since video capture is done in real time, every hour of video captured is an hour of production time. You don’t want to recapture the video several times when dropped frames are easily prevented with preparation. Follow a few simple steps to prevent dropped frames during video capture before you start.