What do I need? Please help...

davmat wrote on 11/15/2002, 8:18 AM

I want to purchase VF very soon, but want to make sure that I have all of the right equipment in place first. Any help is greatly appreciated! I've tried to figure this out for myself, but I am a technical novice and want to be certain before I start investing in more computer equipment. I've read through the system requirements and I know that I need to upgrade my hardware, or look to purchase a new system altogether. Any advice helps.

This is what I have currently: HP Pavilion, Pentium III w/ 450 MHz processor, 100 MB zip drive, 96 MB SDRAM, and 13.6 GB hard drive.

Thanks!!

Comments

hendo wrote on 11/15/2002, 9:56 AM

Hi
Taking the processor first, the P3 450MHz will suffice. I used to use a P2 400mhz with no problem.

The SDRAM is needing boosted to around 256 megs or more. I am assuming that you have one memory slot left, I would fill this with a stick of 256mb, which would give you a respectable 352mb, 256 mb should cost around 35 pounds.

The Hard drive is really to small, assuming you have say 10 gig free, and around 500 megs for the Windows swap file, that is only going to hold around 50 mins of footage. With that 50 mins you could have 30 mins raw footage and 20 mins completed footage. The hard drive would suffice for the moment if you keep your video projects small, but a seperate 40 gig hard drive or more is really what is needed. I too started with a 13 gig hard drive, since then I have bought a 40 gig which is nearly full, and I am in the process of buying another. You should be able to pick up a 40 gig hard drive for around 60 pounds.

If you have a digital camcorder, you will need an OHCI complient firewire card that fits into an empty slot in your motherboard. This is the interface that you hook up to the camcorder with a fire wire cable. The cable usually comes supplied with the card, these usually cost around 50 pounds. If you have an anolouge camcorder then you will need the proper card/cable for that.

Here is a link to a great article that explains everything more eloquently than I do.

http://www.computervideo.net/new.html

Hope this helps, if you have any other questions dont be afraid to ask, the people on this board are really great.

Andrew

davmat wrote on 11/16/2002, 9:31 AM

Thanks for the advice...very helpful! I currently have Windows 98 and will need to upgrade. Should I just upgrade to 98SE, or is it worthwhile to bypass SE to a more current version? Also, will be purchasing a DVD burner as well. HP sells one that can be purchased with a USB 2.0 and a firewire. Any thoughts on that?

Chienworks wrote on 11/16/2002, 9:55 AM

Overall, you'll probably be happier with an internal DVD writer than an external one, even if you have to ditch your current CD-ROM drive to do so. Most Pavilions have room for two though.

My other suggestion is to copy all your Zip disks over to CD-R as soon as you get your writer and then toss the Zip drive in the trash.

Roscoe wrote on 11/16/2002, 12:32 PM

Don't even consider upgrading to anything but Windows XP. XP is by far the most stable Windows ever made.

hendo wrote on 11/17/2002, 5:35 AM

Hi
I have not had any problems under win 98se, or windows 2000 profesional. If an upgrade to 98se is going to be a lot cheaper, I would go with that.

Andrew

Jimco wrote on 11/17/2002, 8:37 AM

You'll get much better performance and reliability by upgrading to Windows XP.

salad wrote on 11/17/2002, 8:41 AM

It's not THAT much cheaper.
You just have to "shop around".
I still see Win98SE being sold for about $80-90.

I got XP for about $80 from www.newegg.com. Just get the OEM version, which has very limited support options(phone calls to MS are not free), and no manual. The OEM is NOT an upgrade, and no previous version of Windows is required. This is also NOT the Academic upgrade. It'perfectly legit.

I purchased XP PRO for $85, but that was thru a "purchased" link from someone on Ebay...to a link to MS. $40 for the web link(my bid), and then about $40 + SH for XP PRO full version directly from Microsoft, which also included some cool Baseball collectibles. However, that was for a limited time(while supplies last)thing that MS was offering.........but ya never know. Just shop around!

Ditch 98, 98SE, & ME if you are into Multimedia! Enjoy the stability!
Don't forget.....never install OVER another OS. Start from scratch & consider going NTFS. I even had a dual boot(98se & XP)thing goin' on here for awhile, but I don't recommend this.
XP PRO, on the other hand, can be installed right over XP Home. A rare exception.

have fun!

Simmer wrote on 11/19/2002, 12:19 PM

That's interesting Chienworks :-)

With the exception of the JazII (which has contamination problems), I've had excellent success with the Zip for over 7 years (zip100 and zip250).

I've also had wonderful results from both the Iomega Peerless line and their new HDDs.
Specifically, both CD material and magnetic mediums have archival problems if not used properly. But if treated correctly, both can supply good results for removablity, portability and archivability.

Do you remember the problems you've had with your Zip (software, hardware, sysconfig, etc.)?

Thanks Chienworks.

-Mike

Chienworks wrote on 11/19/2002, 6:47 PM

Mike: the single most annoying problem we had with the Zip disks (100 & 250) is the excruciating slowness. If i was copying a set of files that included subdirectories, it could easily take several of hours to transfer 100MB. I could have copied that much information over to individual floppies faster than that. The other problem that was critical was that disks written in one drive often weren't readable in another drive. Since we originally bought the things to transfer data from one location to another, it was rather annoying that we had to ship the drive along with the disks instead of being able to use the local drive. What clinched it though was when one of our drives died and none of the others were able to read the backups that the dead drive had written. After that fiasco, we copied all our Zip disks that we could read to directories on our file server, reorganized them, burned to CDs, then had a party at the dumpster tossing everything Zip away. Hey, CD writers and blank CDs are a lot cheaper anyway!

Simmer wrote on 11/20/2002, 10:33 AM

Can't argue those points.

Those things would annoy me to no end also.
Its unfortunate that the zip died on you.
Do you remember what interface it was? Parallel port, USB, 1394, etc?
I've seen the old Parallel port drives die and have had an ATAPI once go out.

My USB ones, however, seem to be very good so far (cross my fingers).
One reason for slow writes on Zip though occurs when writing a 100 disk in a 250 drive (the drive has to take into account the larger track size on the 100 disk).

I agree. The cost disparity has been a concern for some time.

Thanks and see yu

-Mike