System Specs/Known Issues
 

Well, I get my first digital camcorder in about 2 days. I'm pretty excited. I've been doing a lot of preparation and research. I built my PC a couple of months ago and have been upgrading it every so often. I wanted to send you guys out my specs on my system setup and find out if any of you guys know of any known issues/problems/incompatibilities/etc...

HARDWARE->
AMD Athlon 1.2ghz
512MB RAM
Two IBM 7200RPM 60GB Hard Drives
GeForce3 Video Card
3 Firewire Ports
4 USB Ports
Canon GL-1

SOFTWARE->
WindowsXP Professional running NTFS on Hard Drives
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 with latest update
Adobe Premiere 6.0 with latest update
Adobe After Effects Pro Bundle v5.5
Ulead Media Studio Pro 6.5

Hi,

Sometimes Windows XP Professional can be a bit of a problem
regarding compatibility. This is because it is so brand new. I
don't know how well the applications behave on this platform.
Windows 2000 Professional works well with these.

Your hardware should be OK!

Good luck!

Yea, guess that's my biggest worry right now. I've never had a problem with WindowsXP at all since I got it so that's a definite plus.

The Canon GL-1 is supposed to be WindowsXP certified. I have all the software installed already and they all run. But of course I haven't been able to test any of the programs out because my camcorder doesn't arrive until 2 more days. So I haven't even been able to test my firewire ports which I just installed couple of days ago.

But I've installed all updates and patches for software and drivers so hopefully everything will go smoothly.

XP Pro will be fine, but as Rob said there are still 'bugs' in the programme.

Mind you it loads up much faster, and runs the programs faster. It also automatically detects when you have a camera connected to Fire wire, or when you have a device switched on plugged into USB.

This can get a little annoying, but can be useful as it asks you what program you would like to use with the camera (and can be switched off).

Hope this helps,

Ed Smith

I glanced through some threads off here and dv.com

I noticed some people are having problems with dropped frames. I'm hoping this does not happen to me. I mean, it seems like I have the necessary and adequate equipment. More then enough by the look of things. I'll deal if it happens to be just the programs having known bugs that will be fixed in the near future.

anyway, guess i'll just have to find out.

Kinda off the subject but still important. The biggest thing people overlook when building a PC based NLE is the motherboard. Everyone knows about RAM, Processors, HDD etc and they spend lots of time and effort making sure they get the correct gear. Then they go and just throw in whatever mother board.

A lot of the Firewire Cards, both generic and DV specific can have some serious compatability problems with the motherboard. I had this problem with the DV500. I couldn't figure out why I had such an unstable system. I changed from Win98 to Win2000 and it got better. Win98/ME isn't really good for the demands of DV. I still couldn't rely on it to be stable though, sometime it would work beautifully other times it was as though the DV500 wasn't even installed. After lots of searching and reading message boards, I discoverd that my motherboard wasn't compatable with the DV500. I changed motherboards to one that was and presto, reliable capture card.

I'm not saying this is better than that or that the DV500 is not a good card, I'm just letting people know that you must makesure everything is compatible before building your own system. If you don't plan to build your own, make sure you buy one from someone who specialises in building NLE systems, not just Joe Blow gamer.

Thanks for the tip. I've got a generic Firewire card, motherboard is the ASUS A7M266 i believe. I get my camcorder tomorrow so I'll be able to test everything soon.

I think I can still return the firewire card just in case. You guys will know if I have problems cause I'll be back in here.

Only if you have problems? :) Try to help out other people
when you have acquired knowledge about there questions,
issues or problems!

Good luck!

doh! Of course...I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. Just meant that I would definitely be following up on this thread soon if things don't work out.

But I'm here on a regular basis to learn and help others as well. Although mostly learn as I'm on the bottom of the learning curve still.

I was just teasing... it is okay!....