To Vista or not to Vista!

Harm Millaard · June 8th, 2007, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

I'm not being paid a commission by Microsoft. I'm stating a personal observation. It works for me. If it didn't, I'd say so.

People posing questions want to hear from the users. I think it would be very important to hear from someone directly who can't get Magic Bullet to work. Then we can work constructively to try and solve the issue, perhaps opening a sticky for known Vista compatibility problems.

I have Vista installed on one system and XP on all others. Vista was an experiment and as such it was successful. It demonstrated quite nicely why at this moment in time you should not install it. Severe problems with the server, logging in to the domain, connecting to Exchange Server, unstable drivers, all kinds of network problems and the like, that even highly professional network specialists have difficulty in solving.

Rob Lohman · June 9th, 2007, 04:29 AM

Okay, please get back ON TOPIC people! Dylan's question was about Vista and if it would be a good choice to use.

Please use FACTS when talking about Vista's performance. It's okay to describe user experience but don't make it into a platform or personal war. If you want to talk about how you wait to make sure everything is stable, that's cool too.

What is not cool here on DV Info is personal attacks, flame and platform wars. No need to attack someone for their opinion.

We will lock / edit the thread (I just did) if needed.

Mike Dulay · June 9th, 2007, 02:49 PM

I'd say, if you have a spare license you can downgrade to XP SR2 until software catches up to Vista if you intend to use only one machine. I use two computers, one Vista Home Premium the spare one is an XP SR2. It depends on the mix of software you intend to use.

Windows Movie Maker can edit HD and works like a champ. Comes with Vista. I am trying out Vegas, it works except for the Media Manager which relies on an old version of MS SQL Personal. That piece is for the Media Manager which I don't care for anyway. All the free software tools like HDVSplit, MPEG Stream Clip, various codecs, DGIndex, Virtualdub, Virtualdubmod, Avisynth, and Audacity work.

You will tend to get the horrid "COM Surrogate" error when viewing thumbnails of M2T and DivX files. You can turn off thumbnails or do some registry fixes to ignore those. When installing codecs I learned to be cautious by using the 'System Restore' option in case something 'odd' happens because I didn't install with 'Run as administrator'. For the software above, it only happened for some weird codec packages which I've since not used.

There are a few things that still don't work with Vista. Cineform's trial software is still not 100% compatible. It can be installed and will encode but you can't seem to uninstall it properly. DivX 6 codec works for decoding. For encoding it's not all there. Version 6.6 seems to work better than 6.6.1 for some odd reason (not all profiles would be available, errors calling encoder ). Dr.Divx and DivX converter won't work at all. Not good if you're a Stage6 user.

Oh, Aero is pretty but sometimes gets turned off by incompatible software ... like DGIndex, VLC Player and DivX.

Tom Roper · June 9th, 2007, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Dulay

I'd say, if you have a spare license you can downgrade to XP SR2 until software catches up to Vista if you intend to use only one machine. I use two computers, one Vista Home Premium the spare one is an XP SR2. It depends on the mix of software you intend to use.

Windows Movie Maker can edit HD and works like a champ. Comes with Vista. I am trying out Vegas, it works except for the Media Manager which relies on an old version of MS SQL Personal. That piece is for the Media Manager which I don't care for anyway. All the free software tools like HDVSplit, MPEG Stream Clip, various codecs, DGIndex, Virtualdub, Virtualdubmod, Avisynth, and Audacity work.

You will tend to get the horrid "COM Surrogate" error when viewing thumbnails of M2T and DivX files. You can turn off thumbnails or do some registry fixes to ignore those. When installing codecs I learned to be cautious by using the 'System Restore' option in case something 'odd' happens because I didn't install with 'Run as administrator'. For the software above, it only happened for some weird codec packages which I've since not used.

There are a few things that still don't work with Vista. Cineform's trial software is still not 100% compatible. It can be installed and will encode but you can't seem to uninstall it properly. DivX 6 codec works for decoding. For encoding it's not all there. Version 6.6 seems to work better than 6.6.1 for some odd reason (not all profiles would be available, errors calling encoder ). Dr.Divx and DivX converter won't work at all. Not good if you're a Stage6 user.

Oh, Aero is pretty but sometimes gets turned off by incompatible software ... like DGIndex, VLC Player and DivX.

Great information. Another option is to install both operating systems, and choose one at boot time.

I've never seen the com surrogate error viewing m2t thumbnails. They've been working work fine.

James Harring · June 16th, 2007, 07:30 AM

I would suggest AT THIS TIME, stick with Windows XP, unless you know for sure all your legacy stuff will work. Even WinXp64 may be a chancy proposal, again, is everything compatible, are there drivers for peripherals available, etc?

For example, I have a printer and a label maker that they are trying to orphan (and of course, make me replace) -- no drivers available in Vista per manufacturer decree. I managed to hack them into working, but would not recommend this. The time and effort would be better spent editing, IMO.
I also had to do a $50 upgrade Nero to v7, my viruscanner needed upgrading and I elected to splurge $40 on a Aero capable video card to discover the "experience" I had apparently been missing for all my life.

I am still at 1Gig, but this is not my NLE machine, but the one I do general business on. My Sony Vegas NLE (WinXP32) can easily gobble up 2gig ram rendring, so I would suggest 4gig is minimum for a Vista NLE rig, as even Dell recommend 2gig ram for general business use. Whew...

At this time, the corporate I.T. consensus is you won't see much uptake until a major service pack comes out. I have yet to hear a really good business case presented to go to Vista from Microsoft at this time. They have some tools coming down the road that will likely cause us to upgrade eventually, but presently, it's not ready for primetime IMO. Not all the pieces are there. In fact many corporations skip every other upgrade, both on MS-Office and the OS. I suggest we consumers might wish to do likewise, unless ,as WinXP immediatly proved to be, a huge improvement vs cost is found.

From a personal perspective, I am running a dual boot XP32 & Vista, trying to learn the new OS. My impression is more CPU, more RAM, more HDD space consumed to pretty much do the same thing I could do in WinXP32 with Google Desktop search. Widgets are nice, but again available as a bolt on in XP. Presently I am just not seeing the payoff, though the balance will change down the road as it tends to do.

I am trying to run it "stock" not changing the defaults to see what it's like. It's generally more clicks and less easy to get around in when leveraging my deep XP knowledge. Simple example. In the START,RUN, in XP, just type "h:" to go to H:, in Vista it launched the first app that starts with "H." "H:\" wil launch H: Sure I will adjust, but mildly annoying.

As for general use, I am underwhelmed, even after upgrading my video card to Aero capable card.

Eventually this equation will change and some of the advantages of Vista will start being reflected in software, but right now, I would recommend the gl slow approach, and ensure all your HW/SW is compatible.

June 9th, 2007, 04:29 AM	#17
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Okay, please get back ON TOPIC people! Dylan's question was about Vista and if it would be a good choice to use. Please use FACTS when talking about Vista's performance. It's okay to describe user experience but don't make it into a platform or personal war. If you want to talk about how you wait to make sure everything is stable, that's cool too. What is not cool here on DV Info is personal attacks, flame and platform wars. No need to attack someone for their opinion. We will lock / edit the thread (I just did) if needed. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

June 9th, 2007, 02:49 PM	#18
Mike Dulay Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Somerville, NJ Posts: 304	I'd say, if you have a spare license you can downgrade to XP SR2 until software catches up to Vista if you intend to use only one machine. I use two computers, one Vista Home Premium the spare one is an XP SR2. It depends on the mix of software you intend to use. Windows Movie Maker can edit HD and works like a champ. Comes with Vista. I am trying out Vegas, it works except for the Media Manager which relies on an old version of MS SQL Personal. That piece is for the Media Manager which I don't care for anyway. All the free software tools like HDVSplit, MPEG Stream Clip, various codecs, DGIndex, Virtualdub, Virtualdubmod, Avisynth, and Audacity work. You will tend to get the horrid "COM Surrogate" error when viewing thumbnails of M2T and DivX files. You can turn off thumbnails or do some registry fixes to ignore those. When installing codecs I learned to be cautious by using the 'System Restore' option in case something 'odd' happens because I didn't install with 'Run as administrator'. For the software above, it only happened for some weird codec packages which I've since not used. There are a few things that still don't work with Vista. Cineform's trial software is still not 100% compatible. It can be installed and will encode but you can't seem to uninstall it properly. DivX 6 codec works for decoding. For encoding it's not all there. Version 6.6 seems to work better than 6.6.1 for some odd reason (not all profiles would be available, errors calling encoder ). Dr.Divx and DivX converter won't work at all. Not good if you're a Stage6 user. Oh, Aero is pretty but sometimes gets turned off by incompatible software ... like DGIndex, VLC Player and DivX. __________________ DIY, 35mm, HV20: http://www.primitivebuteffective.net

June 16th, 2007, 07:30 AM	#20
James Harring Major Player Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 210	To Vista or not to Vista I would suggest AT THIS TIME, stick with Windows XP, unless you know for sure all your legacy stuff will work. Even WinXp64 may be a chancy proposal, again, is everything compatible, are there drivers for peripherals available, etc? For example, I have a printer and a label maker that they are trying to orphan (and of course, make me replace) -- no drivers available in Vista per manufacturer decree. I managed to hack them into working, but would not recommend this. The time and effort would be better spent editing, IMO. I also had to do a $50 upgrade Nero to v7, my viruscanner needed upgrading and I elected to splurge $40 on a Aero capable video card to discover the "experience" I had apparently been missing for all my life. I am still at 1Gig, but this is not my NLE machine, but the one I do general business on. My Sony Vegas NLE (WinXP32) can easily gobble up 2gig ram rendring, so I would suggest 4gig is minimum for a Vista NLE rig, as even Dell recommend 2gig ram for general business use. Whew... At this time, the corporate I.T. consensus is you won't see much uptake until a major service pack comes out. I have yet to hear a really good business case presented to go to Vista from Microsoft at this time. They have some tools coming down the road that will likely cause us to upgrade eventually, but presently, it's not ready for primetime IMO. Not all the pieces are there. In fact many corporations skip every other upgrade, both on MS-Office and the OS. I suggest we consumers might wish to do likewise, unless ,as WinXP immediatly proved to be, a huge improvement vs cost is found. From a personal perspective, I am running a dual boot XP32 & Vista, trying to learn the new OS. My impression is more CPU, more RAM, more HDD space consumed to pretty much do the same thing I could do in WinXP32 with Google Desktop search. Widgets are nice, but again available as a bolt on in XP. Presently I am just not seeing the payoff, though the balance will change down the road as it tends to do. I am trying to run it "stock" not changing the defaults to see what it's like. It's generally more clicks and less easy to get around in when leveraging my deep XP knowledge. Simple example. In the START,RUN, in XP, just type "h:" to go to H:, in Vista it launched the first app that starts with "H." "H:\" wil launch H: Sure I will adjust, but mildly annoying. As for general use, I am underwhelmed, even after upgrading my video card to Aero capable card. Eventually this equation will change and some of the advantages of Vista will start being reflected in software, but right now, I would recommend the gl slow approach, and ensure all your HW/SW is compatible.