Thanks. I used to do a lot of travelling, but not right now. Perhaps in a year or 2. Personally, I don't like laptops, and I don't like "brand computers." I've had enough of these. I'd rather research, and pick the parts myself. I'm just going to put together a bare bones editing machine.

Last question: XP or WIN 2000?

Frank...

I've got a TYAN system that can dual boot W2k or Win XP. Rendering benchmarks on both OS's come out identical in render time. I will say, however, that Win XP seems a lot more refined than w2k, unfortunately, one has to deal with M$'s Machiavellian registration scheme. In practice, either system works equally well with VV3.

As far as stable chipsets and motherboards are concerned, these are recommended if you are building for editing. BTW, these are not my recommendations, they were given by someone who knows much more than me.

Recommended for AMD: AMD 760 chipset.

Recommended for Intel: Intel 845 or 850 chipsets.

Supermicro, Tyan , Gigabyte, and ASUS motehrboards are also recommended.

XP or win2k ?

i have BOTH ( 2 computers) ...

if i had to choose between them i'd would take XP -no if's, and's or butt's !!!!!!!!!!!!
the activation is nothing ... i've have pull out HD's , firewire drives, USB devices, i pull out CD-RW 3-4 times a week, update software ..and it has never asked to be activated again.

Josh,

The 3D-LE tool will work just fine without setting RAM Preview to zero. However, if you turn on the crosshair, it will not update on the screen correctly without RAM Preview set to zero. I feel this is a VERY MINOR problem.

Now, if you are using the newest version of the WinMorph tool, WinMorph cannot get all of the frames necessary if RAM Preview is not set to zero.

Thank you. Also, that pivot function doesn't work the way I thought it did. Isn't that just like adjusting the rotation center? Why doesn't it work.

Josh,

Yes, that is basically what it does, move the pivot point in the x, y, and z directions. However, it may not effect it exactly the way you think. Sometimes it may be simpler to add multiple 3D-LE controls - one to angle this direction, one to rotate that direction, one to move it this direction...

Yeah, what's up with that jazz? Why doesn't it work uniformly all the time? That's the main reason I downloaded the plugin-- to rotate along the z axis. Granted, it makes moving and sizing clips much easier (for me) than using the pan/crop function, but still.