You might also have a peek at: http://www.pcavtech.com/ Although only 6 or 8 video cards are reviewed, he also provides reviews of sound cards, and other AV equipment. I can't discern any particular biases in the reviews, either

Frenchy

Base your graphics card decision based on graphics cards features, and use IEEE-1394 (Firewire) output for video (to a camcorder or media converter), it's the most streamlined way to do it.
///d@

Any recommendations on what "graphics card features" one should look for in the VV3 editing environment (with an occasional game or two, of course...)

Frenchy

Video editing has very modest display needs; nothing fancy is required. Get a card that has enough memory for 24 or 32 bit color at the resolution you want to use. 1600x1200x24 bit needs 8MB. A card that supports a higher refresh rate is of course preferable for any situation. Lots of people enjoy using dual monitors for video editing. While it is possible to put two video cards into most computers, it's simpler and more reliable to get a "dual head" card that runs both monitors.

For game playing? Hmmmmm. I'll let someone who plays video games tackle that one. The occasional round of minesweeper is heady enough for me, and even that takes too much time away from what i really enjoy doing on my computer ... programming and audio & video editing. :)

I could be wrong (and my wife tells me I frequently am) but my impression is that graphics cards must have some influence on NLE. Last year over at the Studio7 web board, people were comparing their rendering times for a downloadable test EDL, and I think the Pinnacle folks said their rendering engine was tuned to the Nvidia cards. Sure enough, those respondents with Nvidia cards had significantly faster renders.

Thanks for the reply, SonicDennis. I'm not sure what "streamlined" means as you use it. It will cost at least another $250 for a DV/AV converter, and I'll still have to unplug from the computer when I want to hook up the DV cam for capturing. The graphic card feature I'm most interested in is the ability to support a composite video and S video output to see preview from the VV timeline. I'm not a gamer. I'm tyring to avoid using the camcorder to DV/AV to cut down on the pluging and unpluging and to conserve the useful life of the camcorder.

Do you believe that the GeForce cards with TV out, for example, would either not show me a decent preview or not work at all in VV an external monitor device?

Thanks.

1) Vegas previews or renders are not going to get any faster by changing video display cards (unless there is some hideous bug in the driver that is slowing things down, uncommon).

2) You may be able to feed video out of your graphics card to a TV, but if you want wysiwyg previews, previewing video over 1394 is the ONLY way to go.

I like a dual-head card and two monitors for video editing. In my editing system is a Matrox Millenium G550 Dual. I was lucky enough recently to have a second 17" monitor given to me, so I am now taking full advantage of dual head.

The two-monitor editing setup is very convenient. Being able to drag the preview window to the second monitor and and then expand the track view so I can see more of the tracks is great. Being able to detach the various VV3 windows and put them where I need them gives me unlimited flexibility.

The Matrox G550 Dual is not a gamers card. Definately geared towards things like video editing. Great 2-D and overall excellent picture.

Just some info about the latest Matrox Parhelia card. Like I said, if you're gonna buy absolutely right now, no prob'... but if you can wait 'til ATI and NVidea unleash their new cards, maybe it's better to wait...

*********************************************************************************
* Update

We learn that Parhelia will just run at 200MHz for the bulk version with 250MHz memory, while retail version will run at 220MHz with 275MHz memory.

With these kinds of speeds, Nvidia and ATI are unlikely to feel threatened.

We expected at least 300MHz or maybe 275, in which case this card could give ATI and Nvidia a run for their money. But this gives us doubt about performance of these cards. We'll let you know once we've tested one or two..

*********************************************************************************


Found at: http://www.theinquirer.net/18060215.htm

Going back to the original question. I'm curious too.

Does SF have a list or at least a few examples of what it terms "Graphics Card which supports Video for Windows" for TV out would be? This would be an alternative to using 1394 firewire out to/through DA converter in Camcorder and then to TV.

I have the Matrox 550. It's DVDMAX feature, which is nice for use with some of the other NLE software packages like Premiere & Studio, because they use the Graphics overlay to generate the video preview. The Matrox picks this up, and makes it full screen on my Wega via an Svideo TV out.

However, since VV uses Primary rather than overlay, this feature won't work, and I have not figured out if it is even possible how to force VV to use Overlay rather than primary for the preview window.

Maybe there's some misunderstanding here (or maybe I'm misunderstanding)...

Connect DVcam to computer via IEEE1394 cable.

Connect DVcam to TV via camcorder a/v outputs.

Set DVcam to VCR mode.

Set VV to preview on external screen IEEE1394 (I forget what the dialog actually says)

Now you can see your previews on your TV in realtime via the camcorder (the camcorder effectively acts as the d/a converter). No unplugging necessary. Only additional wear-and-tear on the camcorder is that it is turned on, but unless you have a tape loaded I can't imagine there's any additional mechanical wear.

Mark

My personal experience/preferences echo Baylo, Pelvis and SonicDennis recommendations - the DV cam acting as a A/D pass through converter works great. Is there in fact any additional mechanical wear? I would think not (but like riredale, I've been told I'm wrong once or twice before...)

I asked earlier about video card recommends because I would like to upgrade to a dual-monitor display to expand the desktop. Will my P3-600 w/384MB RAM limit the usefulness of some of the more powerful dual-head cards i.e. low frame rates, jerky playback? Or what do I misunderstand...

Thanks

Frenchy

Hi Frenchy,

As always, mileage can vary, but here's my thoughts.

I have a PIII667 with 384Mb of RAM, so not terribly different from yours. I have a GeForce3 as my main video card (AGP) and it only supports one monitor. I, too, wanted a dual display as it makes life so much easier with Vegas, Cubase, and all the other things one does with a computer these days. Rather than replace the GeForce card with a dual-head card, I just bought a PCI GeForce2 card and stuck that in a spare slot.

Windows handles the management of this fairly well, though it is a good idea to download all the latest drivers. Sometimes Windows will default to the PCI card being the primary adapter (which means Windows will boot onto your secondary monitor and use that for certain things - primarily running games, Real Player, Windows Media Player when running at full screen). Sometimes this can be set in the BIOS, sometimes not. On my system with a VIA chipset and the two Leadtek Geforce cards I still have the AGP card as the primary adapter, so all is well since I wanted the more powerful GeForce3 to be the one running games. :-)

I would recommend doing some research on the compatibility between two cards. http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/ is a good place to start, and the microsoft website has some useful info.

By the way, I'm running a triple boot system with Win98 (first edition), WinME and Linux. I haven't fully configured Linux yet, but the only performance issue I had in Windows was a terribly slow frame rate playing games. This was easily fixed by downloading the latest drivers from NVidia. Everything sails along just fine now, and I couldn't contemplate going back to one monitor...

Hope that helps,

Mark