I was wondering how the people at this bboard have their boxes set up. I currently have a PIII 500/12GB HD (probably 5200rpm)/256 RAM/ ATI TV WONDER. I'm thinking about getting the ATI AIW 128 but since I'm having problems capturing 680x480 on what I have now it would seem like I'd have the same with the ATI 128 capturing at 720x480. Is this true?

Learning more and more about video I've come to understand that I should probably run a SCSI HD 10,000rpm in my box to fix the dropped frame problem I'm complaining about. I'm a perfectionist. I like clear and smooth video. So is everybody running hi-end systems out there?

-- may (mlea@uswest.net), February 25, 2000

Answers

Well, mine isn't all that high-end either.

PIII-450, 192MB, 20GB and 15GB UDMA66 HDD's (5200RPM), Mistyque/RainBow Runner combo (given to me), SB AWE 64.

I'm still learning, so until I get into this full time, I'll stick with what I have. Next year I go big. As I learn more from this forum, I get a good idea on what I'll build and buy for full video editing. Hopefully I won't do what I did last weekend... format my backup drive (the 20GB that was half full of video work I did). They say the lumps from banging my head against the brick wall should go away in another couple of days. After 15 years of working on computers, it had to happen sometime. :(

-- Bryan Bennett (bbennett@acer.com), February 25, 2000.

May, What you have is enough to do the job. I would think about getting more hard disk space and may be checking into the speed of it. Speed of the hard disk is very important in capture without problem with frame drop. Full resolution is not this board native encoding power. 640x480 is relatively free depends on what you're working with AVI or Mpeg. It does its thing best at 1/2 resolution 352x240 or 352x288. My system setup is K7-600MHz/256Mb/2x20Gigs(7200rpm)/ATI AIW 32Mb 2xAGP. If you want full resolution don't look at ATI for this feature. lnguyen

-- (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), February 25, 2000.

Whatever, in any desktop video capture situations, ALWAYS have a separate hard drive solely for the captured files AVI or MPEG or whatnot. This drive should NOT contain any system files or temporary directories; ONLY the captured files. You get a fast Ultra33 EIDE or fastSCSI drive, 7200rpm or better, >20Gb. You will sometimes be tempted to put other files, temporary or otherwise, in this drive; resist that if you can. In my experience, all other things being equal, the presence or absence of a dedicated drive solely for capture spelt the difference between drop-free and GPFs.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@yahoo.com), February 26, 2000.

May,

My sincere appology for my previous posting about the ATI AIW card. It does captured at full resolution NTSC D1 720x480 in mpeg1 or mpeg2 without any problem. It was my settings that create the frame drop.

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), February 28, 2000.