Windows Vista Settings

[John Lorince]

Greetings All,

I had to reinstall my vista 64 bit the other day, mostly out of pure maintence of having a clean OS. But I remembered I had to change some settings in Vista to make it play nice with video editing. Does turning off some indexing or AUC or some settings to make editing smoother. Right now, my drive or drives is showing them dreadful dots in the preview area like it cannot process the footage from its location. I changed the location once already, but though I would ask about any other settings that could be causing this.

Just to be clear, in the preview window, where you can see the frames playing back...it shows dots like this........like it is searching or trying to keep up with the footage or vice versa.

Thank You All for Your Input on this Matter......

- John Lorince

Capture Motion - Creating Compelling Digital Content Since 1999

[Leslie Wand]

have to ask why you reinstalled vista!?

you'd be much better off with win7/64bit.....

[Jeff Harper]

I imagine he reinstalled Vista because it's working fine for him, Leslie. I've been running Windows 7 since a year before it was released, but all in all Vista worked fine for me. Windows 7 is merely an improved Vista. If you configure it properly it runs great.

the single best most important setting, I beleive is to change the Power saving features.. You need to customize a power plan and be sure to not allow hard drives to go to sleep. that is the biggie.

I disable all other power saving features the same way.

You might also run a basic, no frills theme.

I also turn off the update feature (after allowing the initial updates). It is recommended to turn off screen savers also, though I run a blank one anyway.

Yes I turn off indexing, but it is no huge deal, I don't think, but I could be wrong, cause I have never run with it enabled.

Oh yes, I turn off the auto-defrag thingy, or reset it to be a time when I'm not using the computer. theres more to change, but I'm about to fall asleep and can't think clearly anymore.

[Leslie Wand]

You need to customize a power plan and be sure to not allow hard drives to go to sleep. that is the biggie.

got caught by that ;-) nice feature though if you don't need constantly active drives

You might also run a basic, no frills theme.

really depends on your systems over-all grunt. on my i7/920 / 6gb i can't see any difference even when rendering if i have themed or basic. ymmv.

I also turn off the update feature (after allowing the initial updates). It is recommended to turn off screen savers also, though I run a blank one anyway.

not too worried about updates since my edit pc isn't connected permanently to the net. (however it is networked, and online every month for 'updates', etc.,)

Yes I turn off indexing, but it is no huge deal, I don't think, but I could be wrong, cause I have never run with it enabled.

with a fast processor i never saw the need for indexing either.....

Oh yes, I turn off the auto-defrag thingy, or reset it to be a time when I'm not using the computer. theres more to change, but I'm about to fall asleep and can't think clearly anymore.

with modern hd's i don't really see the need for defragging in the first place - after a project i usually simply back-up the files onto an ex hd and re-format the internal 'working' hd.drive

btw. i can't really speak from personal experience about vista, though i did have to sort out a variety of problems for various friends and clients running it. however, i knew no-one running a 'pro' nle under it - xp pro seemed to have worked pretty well (well, for other than the mac users ;-)) till win 7 came along.

i don't need to feel sleepy in order to not think clearly ;-)

sleep well.....

OMG - should i worry about my post's number!?

[John Lorince]

Thanks Leslie and Jeff for your input. Yeah I have been running vista ultimate 64 bit since it came out with really no problems, but I have always kept an ear to this forum and other places to get a feel on how I should be setup. Jeff do you remember where the indexing setting is?

But yeah I always turn off the screen savers and any power saving mechanisms for render safe success. I figure if we just turn off our screens manually when we are not around, then we are still not being power hogs.

Thanks Again

[Victor Wilcox]

It all sounds good, but don't skip defragging. I alway use manual control. It shouldn't be much issue creating a DVD or BR, but has a big impact on video playback from the timeline.

[John Lorince]

Yeah , I have the scan and defrag on Sunday Nights at 2:00 am I believe. But this is a just formatted hard drive, and I do the defrags on a schedule, so not sure why I am getting the lag on playback from the timeline. I really need to find an answer to this, for I have some tutorials coming up.

[Leslie Wand]

sorry to ask the obvious - you are using separate hd's?

ie. sys hd and another for video?

[Victor Wilcox]

Saddly yes. I'm using an i7 Sony VIAO laptop with a single drive.

[Leslie Wand]

ah!!!!!

try working with an external hd - for hdv i've found usb2 quite adequate.