On 29 Sep 1998 01:10:19 GMT, "Brain Fart" wrote:

>Whatever you do, I STRONGLY suggest you avoid DPS Spark at all costs (unless
>you enjoy not getting answers and a lot of finger pointing at "the other
>manufacturers".)
>
>I've had playback problems from day 1 and DPS has done nothing but point
>their finger; first at Microsoft, then at Adaptec. Too bad, too, because
>the featureset of Spark is pretty cool. I'm currently trying to find
>another card to replace this piece of crap.

Gee, I really like "this piece of crap", the DPS Spark...
If you wanna sell yours cheap, let me know, and I'll build
another computer around it! It has been most reliable and stable
in a K6-233 system with Premiere 4.2, and I have been able to
edit several videos with it, including long ones (1-2 hours). The current
software is well debugged at this point, and easy to use for
capture from, and playback to (including seamless assembly
of multiple AVI files), the DV camcorder... For the original poster:
the PC-Spark combination is a good one for NCTS mini-DV, and is
compatible with several EIDE drives (IBM Deskstar 8, 14, 16,
among others), saving money - though you need to check whether or
not your European camcorder has FireWire input enabled, and if the
data transfer rate for PAL is enough higher to require fast SCSI
drives for the computer...