On Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:32:23 +0800, "David Winter"
>With memory low, graphics cards seeming reasonable, etc - it's time to look
>at eliminating the instability in my Raptor Rig.
>
>At present, it is a:
>
>mobo: Slot 1 BX chipset AOpen AX6 BC pro
>CPU: PIII 450 clocked to 600,
>RAM: 256M SDRAM (128M King Max PC100, and 128M PC133A not sure of brand -
>could be Mitsubishi).
>RAID: Promise FT66
>RAID Drives: 4 x WD 20G @ 5400rpm ATA66
>IDE Drives: WD 20@5400 ATA66; WD 27@7200 ATA66; Quantum 4.3@5400 UDMA33
>DVD-ROM: Creative 4.8x
>AGP: Britek Viewtop Titan 4000 (4M S3 chipset)
>PCI VGA: Leadtek Winfast S680 (4M S3 chipset)
>Sound: Creative Vibra 128
>OS: Dual Win98/Win2K
>NIC: NE 2000 compatible.
>Main s/w: Raptor 1.12 and Raptor 2.01, Raptor Edit 2, Prem 5.1c, MSP6.0.0.2,
>Boris 3.54, Photoshop LE. All s/w is video edit related. Machine is
>dedicated to editing. Network uses Client for MS Networks over "Thin
>Etherenet" (coax).
>
>Notes: cannot operate dual monitor in Win2K.
>
>Areas of difficulty:
>
>1. Cannot get Win2K drivers for either S3 VGA card.
>2. I remain suspicious of the Promise equipment. I found their QA and
>technical competence short of first class.
>3. I'm weary of prolonged rendering times.
>4. Raptor has audio synch problems when capturing original Hi8 material from
>a TRV310E PAL Digital 8 - whether the Hi8 tape is played in the D8, or
>dubbed to the D8 from a Hi8 VCR. (I now have a TRV120E to test the
>pass-through digitisation.) The synch problems were there at 100FSB and
>133FSB.
>
>So, here's seeking your advice.
>
>If I keep to a dual monitor Raptor configuration ....
>
>- please suggest a cost-effective compatible combination of AGP and PCI
>cards which have dual monitor support under Win2k (or would a twin-head be
>more cost-effective, they weren't every time I've looked so far). Remember -
>the default VGA card must support Direct Draw Overlay.
>- do I stick with the 440BX Slot 1 mobo? If so, what CPU - native Slot 1 or
>use a Slotket for FC-PGA? I see PIII 800s looking reasonably priced, but do
>the 800@100s clock well at 133FSB (ie 1066).
>- if I ditch the BX mobo, what do you recommend for a mobo/CPU combo -
>modest PIII/Athlon budget range.
>
>Are there any specific BIOS and OS settings you can suggest for maximum
>performance and elimination of bottlenecks. When current projects are
>complete, I'm happy to wipe all drives. I have all s/w downloads and updates
>held on my office machine.
>
>If I ditch the Raptor, then from your experience, which of the economy "RT"
>cards actually works best with:
>
>a. Premiere Camera (angle, zoom), Crop, Colour Correction video filters, and
>audio filters like EQ, parametric and notch.
>b. Very long clips (>90 minutes)
>
>For anything you recommend, the VGA cards will necessarily be different from
>those for Raptor, so I'm looking for guidance. It's a little like, apart
>from what the websites say about compatibility (often out-of-date), in
>practice users have found that some items don't sit comfortably in a rig.
>It's that know-how I'm hoping to draw from.
>
>
>I know this is a long one, but I am looking for those who have travelled
>this path recently with good hands-on experience to guide me past something
>I haven't been able to isolate despite a lot of fiddling.
>
>Thanks folks
>
>David Winter
>Perth
>Western Australia
>
>cc - Raptor Forum, etc.
OK, here goes.......!;-)
We have had good luck with the following for
Mini-DV editing:
-- Win98, Win2K (prefer Win2K for best stability)
-- Intel CPUs: 300a Celeron OC'd at 450, 566
Celeron OC'd at 850, P-III 800 (100, fc) at 800
(any Intel CPU should be fine; best price/speed
is currently around 800MHz; increasing speed has
surprisingly little effect on render speed; dual
processors are not worthwhile with Premiere 5,
but may be useful with Premiere 6...).
-- Abit BH-6, Abit BX-6, Abit BX-133 RAID, Asus
P2B MBs (all use the Intel 440BX chipset, the
Abits are the most versatile...).
-- PC-100 and/or PC-133 RAM, 128, 256, or 384
megs (256 is about ideal for Premiere).
-- IBM UDMA 33 and 66 5400rpm drives, and Maxtor
UDMA 33 and 66 5400rpm drives, no RAID (nothing
wrong with UDMA 100, 7200rpm, or RAID, but we
just haven't found them necessary...).
-- ATI 8-meg AGP and PCI cards for dual monitors
(Matrox G-200 AGP and Diamond 32-meg PCI also
worked well together under Win2K, but we have had
problems with the Matrox G-400 in getting Raptor
overlay working in Win98 and in Win2K, though
once working in Win2K, it worked well - BUT,
there was the annoying characteristic of having
second-level menus opening across the split
between the two monitors [I do not recommend
the G-400 for dual-monitor use with the Raptor,
though it is on the Raptor approved list...]).
-- Mid and full-tower cases, 230, 250, 300 watt
power supplies, extra venting and fans provided
(even UDMA drives get warm, if there are enough
of them in a case...).
-- Sound Blaster AWE 64 sound cards (though
I still use my hard-to-install IRQ-hungry Turtle
Beach Tropez + for its good WAVtable sound set,
preferable to that of the AWE 64 Gold and others
I've heard, but the SB AWE 64 is easy to use
[needs an ISA-slot, though...]).
-- The usual CD-ROM, floppy, keyboard, 56-K modem,
2-button + scroll-wheel mouse (can use it as
jog-shuttle with Raptor and FireWire-connected camcorder/VCR).
-- 10/100 3-COM network card
-- UDMA PCI cards to run additional drives (5,
total).
-- Canopus Raptor, capturing through Raptor Video,
and playing back off the Premiere 5.1a timeline
(BTW, the latest drivers are not always the best;
we have found Raptor cards especially
"time-sensitive" for best drivers [though not as
sensitive as the DPS Spark...!;-]).
The above is not the only stable gear or
combinations around, but with Win2K there have
been only rare crashes, and with Win98 (if I
remember to save often in Premiere with Win 98),
the crashes are also very rare.
We use the same computer for all other purposes,
so there is a lot of other software on the computer
for Internet, web-design, photo-editing, MIDI
(with keyboard attached), etc. Attached also are
the Sony D->A/A->D converter box (for preview
overlay, TV-monitor out), receiver and good
speakers (for entertainment and good
audio-monitoring), digital tape deck, etc.
For you:
I suspect, as others pointed out, that the particular
CPU you are OC'ing may be a problem; a stable MB is
essential; sometimes mixing brands or speeds of RAM
can cause problems; some video cards are a PAIN!;
SB Live (what you have, different name?) I've heard
can cause problems with Raptor. Overall, the Raptor
is about as good as these Mini-DV cards get, for
simplicity of installation, image quality of codec,
speed of rendering, and stability of operation.
Clean up some other stuff, and crash-free editing
just may be yours! ;-)