Check specs to build a new PC…

[John Rofrano]

The Boris Continuum Complete 7 does have a Multi Shadow plug-in but it does not do floor shadows. You would have to make them manually on a separate track. You can buy the BCC Chroma Keyer alone as a Continuum Unit. Many of the BCC effects are GPU accelerated so they perform really well during preview.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Danny Hays] “By the way, I thought your video tutorial on BCC Extruded Text in Sony Vegas Pro 10 was great. Do you use Camtasia?”

Sorry I forgot to answer this question in my last post. Yes, I use Camtasia 7 to capture my tutorials but I usually use Vegas Pro 10 for all of my editing because Camtasia Studio is still very primitive when it comes to audio editing and good audio makes the video.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Marlen Mathers]

All – thanks so much for all your help and advice on building out a new machi ne. I jumped in on the equipment list below and should have everything here for Christmas. (And yes – I will be putting it under the tree as a pre sent to myself). Basically I chose the Intel i7 950 with an Asus Motherboard, 12G of Ram, 3 1G WD Drives that I’ll stripe 2 drives in RAID 0 – the other will be the boot drive. I picked up an G Raid external to store/archive con tent. Hopefully that is the right set up. If not, I’m always appreciative of your thoughts.

I do have one question on Wi ndows 7. Back in earlier builds from Videoguys, there was a listing of OS tweaks for optimal running of Sony Vegas (and video production in general). Is there an existing resource to do the same for Windows 7? ie. “Swap file” size and location or non necessary processes at start up etc. Things that would help the system with editing/rendering efficiencies. I searched the web, but cam up with limited information specific to Windows 7 and Vegas 10 64 bit.

Thanks again to everybody…Happy Holidays.

Marlen

CASE NZXT| PHAN-001WT RT
INTEL CI7 950
MB ASUS P6X58D-E X58 R
MEM 2Gx6|CORSAIR HX3X12G1600C9 G
PSU CORSAIR|CMPSU-850HX 850W RT
(3) HD 1T|WD 7K 32M SATA2 WD1001FALS %
VGA ASUS|ENGTX470/2DI/1280MD5/V2 R
WIN PRO 7 64-BT ENG 1PK DSP OEI DVD
BD BURN PIONEER | BDR-206BKS %
G-TECH G-RAID 2TBeSATA Dual-Drive Storage System GR42000

[John Rofrano]

The only tweak that I made on Windows 7 was to create a fixed swap file and turn off restore points (because I perform a daily incremental backup with Acronis TrueImage). Other than that, it is a pretty efficient OS. Obviously turning off all the unnecessary apps that get installed is an ongoing task since every software vendor feels they need to check for update every day.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Danny Hays]

I am suprized you not using the USB 3 ports that come on that MB. If your capturing HDV, Balckmagic makes a nice capture device called the Shuttle. I have one as well as the premuim ver of your MB and it works great. Your MB has the X58 chipset and the high bandwidth USB 3 port needed to support the Shuttle. The Shuttle has all four video outputs playing your video at the same time. that’s HDMI, Component 1090 x 1080, S video and composite leaving my two computer monitors free for other things. It also has a hardware upconveter that upcomverts SD to HD while capturing that works pretty well I must say. It also has HDMI, component, s video and compsite inputs as well that’ll capture any analog video you may need to digitize. I can capture straight from the Sony HVR-A1 camera imager via component as MJPEG, 8 and 10 uncompressed and bypass the HDV compression and it was only $189.99. Sony Vegas sees the Shuttle as a secondary monitor. Also USB 3 drives are not much more than USB 2 but are much faster. Hope this helps, Danny Hays

[Marlen Mathers]

Thanks John – If I create the fixed swap file, do I do it on my boot drive? The only other options are on the RAID 0 (2 western digital drives), or my external G Raid connected via esata port?

[Marlen Mathers]

Danny – that’s interesting that you zero’d in on the USB 3. I’m not against using USB 3 – I just didn’t know what I needed it for at the present time. I was told that the best connection for an external drive was esata to my G Raid(for archiving and redundancy as I’m running RAID 0 for the other 2 drives. I’m not up converting or having issues with my dual monitor setup that I’m using – so unless there are other things that I am missing – I’m not sure I would need that now (although I could have used that a few months ago when I was digitizing 20 years of VHS Tapes!)

My main work right now consists of me offloading mts files from my Sony HDR-SR12 onto the computer. Then editing and either burning to DVD or posting to the web. Am I missing some other capabilities or functionality that would with the situation I described?

Marlen

[John Rofrano]

[Marlen Mathers] “If I create the fixed swap file, do I do it on my boot drive? The only other options are on the RAID 0 (2 western digital drives), or my external G Raid connected via esata port?”

I would place the swap on the boot drive. You don’t want it on the RAID because that’s where you will keep your video files and you don’t want contention between the swap file and your content (that’s the whole reason for having a separate video drive in the first place).

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Marlen Mathers]

Happy Holiday All –

Major problem with setting up my system and I realize this may not be the forum or thread to post this, but I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I started to put my system together and ran into a problem. I installed the PSU | Loaded the RAM | Put in the CPU with thermal Artic and installed the heatsink/fan | Made what I thought was the right connections of wires on the motherboard to the case | Installed the video card | and then (like an earlier build from DIY Videoguyss I hooked up a keyboard and mouse and turned on the power to see if it would begin to boot.

The good news was that when I turned it on all the fans began to spin including the one in the video card and on th CPU. The bad news was nothing else happened. I though I was going see something on the screen from the BIOS or something like that.

I re seated the RAM. Reset the CPU (although the locking mechanism for the CPU didn’t feel as smooth as it should be, but I know the chip was place and seated properly). I also had a little bit of an issues seating the video card. It seemed slightly off from stiiting properly and still get mounted to the case – which is weird becasue it’s an ASUS Motherboard and ASUS video card). In any event I do believe I am seated properly on the card now.

Can anyone let me know if there is anything I could be missing? I haven’t put in the optical or HDD’s yet, thinking I need to isolate this problem Is there a chance I have some incompatibilities with my hardware?

Again I know this may not be the right place to get these answers, but if anyone can point me in the right direction, I sure would appreciate it. Below is the equipment I am trying to instal…

Marry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All!

CASE NZXT| PHAN-001WT RT
CPUp|INTEL CI7 950
Motherboard | ASUS P6X58D-E X58 R
Memory | 2Gx6|CORSAIR HX3X12G1600C9 G
PSU | CORSAIR|CMPSU-850HX 850W RT
VIdeo Card | VGA ASUS|ENGTX470/2DI/1280MD5/V2 R

[Dave Haynie]

You can get a BIOS-level display with just DRAM, CPU, and Video Card installed.

Fans aren’t a huge indicator, other than you have some power present. While they can be controlled via the SMA bus (system management bus), they usually default to “on” for safety, particularly your CPU and GPU fans. They also may run from different power supplies than your CPU or GPU.

One common error for the inexperienced system integrator on modern boards… you probably need at least three power supply connections.
If you bought a new power supply, it’s almost certainly an ATX12V version 2.3 supply. This will have a main 24-pin power connector for the motherboard; that’s the main supply, but not the only one to get things going.

Then you need the special additional supply lead for the CPU itself. This is a 4-pin or 8-pin connector (sometimes dual 4-pin). The connector on your motherboard is at the top left, just behind some external connectors (ATX?). Yours has an 8-pin socket, with a knock-out blocking one 4-pin connector. Only one 4-pin power cable (+12Vdc x 2, GND x 2) is needed by the CPU; the 8-pin version is for dual processor motherboard, but if your PSU has a dual connector, it doesn’t hurt to use it (I connected both on my AMDx6 motherboard).

And finally, you need a 6-pin or 8-pin ePCI power cable run to your graphics board, in most cases. Leseee… lucky you… yours want TWO 6-pin ePCI power cables connected.

So that’s the most obvious stuff. Make sure you have your three DIMMs in the appropriate color-coordinated slots (all blue or all black), and obviously, seated well.

Another thing you can do .. hook up the case speaker, if you have one. Or go find one, and hook it up. If you’re booting at all (which you should, assuming the CPU isn’t rotated — nearly impossible — and it’s getting power along with the motherboard), you’ll get a code of beeps if the MB determines something’s wrong. This kicks in early in POST… it can even tell you if the memory’s bad. Can’t tell you necessarily what’s bad about it, but it can give you a thumbs down if something’s wrong (hopefully, the printed manual that ALWAYS comes with the motherboard will have an index of error codes).

Check this all out, write back, I’ll check again sometime soon (currently in the 11th hour of a 19 hour video render…).

-Dave