Hi Jill,
Recommend you prepare a place for your clips, projects, productions, and pictures to live on a separate hard drive (if you have one) or at least in a separate directory. When you install VF, immediately change the defaults to those files for capture, etc. Also, before you do this, defrag the drives. Hope you are as happy as I was at the quality of digital products. I never looked back.
Happy editing!
Randy
P.S. Posted the full version of the big wave video on our home page. The DV quality is absolutely awesome! VHS version came out much better than I expected. Yea VF!

Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a wiseguy, and I couldn't think of anything in particular that you needed to do before it arrived, but Randy's suggestions are good. When it does arrive, read the manual and try VF's handy built-in tutorials. As Randy says, you might want to look into getting a second, good-sized hard drive if you don't have one, because you'll be capturing in DV-AVI, which can really add up if you're doing a lot. And if you're running 2000 or XP, check that your file system is NTFS, which overcomes the 4GB file size limit in FAT32 (about 18½ mins. of DV-AVI). If you don't have 2000 or XP, don't worry, though, since VF automatically breaks up captured clips into contiguous 4GB files. Oh and maybe get some sleep in now, because the sleep you'll be losing will be from having fun making videos, rather than from trying to get faulty stuff to work. :)

ok.now you really lost me. 8=O

How do I check my file system? I do have xp and it's a headache to find anything in it.

Remember I told you that I removed the dazzle drivers? Well, they're baaacccckk. I thought I did away with them by using the right click/uninstall option in the device manager..this am when I logged back on Windows told me I had new hardware, sure enough, it is the dazlle stuff. Now I cannot find my Add/Remove Hardware icon. I can find the ADD New Hardware Wizard..but not the Add/REMOVE wizard.
ewwwwwww. I'll keep fidling around with it 'til I find it.

I will look into the second HD if needed, ...right now the one I have is 111 GB's, and I have around 90 GB's of free space.


-J

To check the file system for your hard drive in XP, go to Start/My Computer, then right-click on your hard drive and select Properties.

ok.. did that, and yes, it is NTFS. Learn something new every day. ;-) Hopefully, I'll get the other thing cleared up and figure out how to get rid of the dazzle drivers for good.

thanks again.
J
ps: and your comment about shoveling the walk for the delivery guy?? Not far off the mark at all, we are supposed to get another foot of snow today. ;-)

hi.
i learned the hard way about dazzle mohave and vw4. it captured ok, but the out of sync audio and no way to fix it made me change. folks on the mgi forums turned me on to vf2. i love it. just got my canopus advc-100, and i love it. i also changed from ME to XP, and like it too. now my dell 8100 is setup for video and digital photography the way i like it.

you mentioned dazzle drivers.. i of course have my dazzle dissconnected, but the board that it plugs into with all the pins is still in the computer. i also removed the drivers, and later found that windows reported "found new hardware", the dazzle. did you also remove that board inside your computer? not the firewire board..the other one? i disabled the dazzle device in hardware manager, now the dazzle does'nt show in any applications. i was finding that vf2 was showing the dazzle (although i had removed it) and showing the canopus too. once i disabled the dazzle, vf2 forgot about it!!

good luck,
Joe s

no I didn't remove anything inside of the computer (as of yet anyway)

By board, do you mean the firwire card or the thing with the pins that the dazzle device plugged into? I wasn't sure if I would be able to use the current firewire card with the canopus so I haven't removed it yet. But, from what I am beginning to understand, that card may also need to be removed and replaced with a new card. If I need a new card, do you guys have a recommendation? The Canopus requires a firewire card, right? I do not have a digital camera so would not be using the firewire card for that.

At this point, I don't know if I should just wait until the Canopus arrives and see if it works with the present firwire card.

I'm pretty confused about how everything works together..the capture device, firewire card, etc. So , I'm just winging it.

But it's good to know you found a way to work around the dazzle garbage. I am going to try to just *disable* it in the device manager and see if that works.

thanks again,
Jill

hi again.
yes, the thing with the many pins that the dazzle device plugs into. thats the board that i did not remove. i've never had my dell open yet, so until i need to, that board will just stay in there.

my dell supplied firewire card is a texas instrument. and it works just fine with my advc-100. yours should too.

i have dell 8100, 256ram, 1.7processor, 60gig drive. i started with movie studio package, dazzle mohave and vw4. i was able to capture ok. as i mentioned, out of sync video problem in vw4 was ludicrous. so i went to vf2. i also got tired of the 4 gig limit with ME, and this was quite a limitation when making dvd's, so i upgraded to XP.

so far so good with the canopus. all i read is great reviews. i did'nt realize the device was so small. but big things come in small packages.
i've already captured, and edited my thanksgiving footage. very happy with results.

good luck,
joe s