I give up… heading to Mac

[Rob Franks]

John, in looking at your specs, about the only thing that sticks out to me as a major difference is your power supply.”

Are you kidding me??
Come on… no offense but you started this whole thing stating that you know and understand computers pretty well. If your power supply can not deliver the proper voltage then you will get BSOD’s just about all the time. It’s pretty important to have the right supply. You bought a smaller video card (which uses less power) and as you state… it works. Your power supply is a large part of your problems.
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“I don’t understand what you mean by saying it doesn’t use my video card, it’s driving video output in a variety of formats that are clearly labeled just underneath the window.”

What John means is that Vegas operates almost purely on CPU and memory and uses the video card as a product of output only. Therefore you need nothing special in terms of video cards. A simple on-board video card (the video output section built into your motherboard) will work just fine

[Rob Franks]

“Sony, give us the reference platform, tell us which cards work and which don’t. You can clearly state that for SV stuff, you can get by with a simple machine, but that if you want something that works, buy one of these cards, a machine with a power supply at least 600 Watts, and if you use Windows 7, this much RAM, etc. You’ll sell more software. “

SWony has already given you what you’re asking for… from the Sony Website:

System Requirements

* Microsoft® Windows® XP 32-bit SP2 (SP3 recommended), Windows Vista™ 32-bit or 64-bit (SP1 recommended), or Windows 7
* 1 GHz processor (multicore or multiprocessor CPU recommended for HD)
* 200 MB hard-disk space for program installation
* 1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
* OHCI-compatible i.LINK® connector*/IEEE-1394DV card (for DV and HDV capture and print-to-tape)
* USB 2.0 connection (for importing from AVCHD, XDCAM EX, or DVD camcorders)
* Windows-compatible sound card
* DVD-ROM drive (for installation from a DVD only)
* Supported CD-recordable drive (for CD burning only)
* Supported DVD-recordable drive (for DVD burning only)
* Supported Blu-ray recordable drive (for Blu-ray Disc burning only)
* Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0
* QuickTime® 7.1.6 or later

As for the rest, Sony Assumes you have a stable machine with a proper power supply. It seems to me that you’ve been tinkering around under the hood without quite knowing what you’re doing. I don’t see how Sony… or “PC” can be held responsible for that.

By the way… i would not be using an external drive either, particularly not usb ones…. that just adds to the complication. If you absolutely must use an external drive then it should be firewire and not usb. Firewire has pretty much straight through-put whereas the data for usb has to be processed first.

[Al Bergstein]

Well the lack of a video card standard seems to be lacking, which is what I was pointing out. It seems that the nature of this threaded discussion has flattened out some of my points, being that my power supply works just fine thanks, and can drive my 1GB RAM based extra video card, but that the video card brought different problems while curing others (like the BSOD).

So you guys are saying that if I have a VGA monitor I’ll be able to drive HDMI 1080p just fine with my ancient VGA display adapter? Come on, something’s missing in the translation.

Hey I think we’ve beaten this horse dead.There’s a bunch of assumptions being made about what I said, and perhaps that’s my fault. Bottom line, I’m not the only one making this ‘mistake’ about consumer vs. workstation situations, and the supposed build lists I see here aren’t that radically different from mine that I would have assumed that mine wouldn’t work.

Anyway, best of luck to you all. No hard feelings. If Apple sucks that bad, I’ll just sell the Mac I end up getting and come back again…

No hard feelings! It’s just software! It’s the movie that counts!

Alf
Panasonic HMC-150 & Vegas Video 9.0c on Win7/64bit

[Rob Franks]

Well the lack of a video card standard seems to be lacking, which is what I was pointing out. It seems that the nature of this threaded discussion has flattened out some of my points, being that my power supply works just fine thanks,

You just don’t seem to be getting this!?! There is no video card spec in Vegas BECAUSE IT’S NOT IMPORTANT TO RUNNING VEGAS. No matter what video card you use, it won’t make a difference to how Vegas runs.
And your power supply:
This is from your video card’s troubleshooting site:

• 300 WATT minimum recommended for most ATX form factor systems.
• On high end systems with fast video card, fast CPU, RAID HD array may require a larger power supply such as a 350 watt

In other words, with that card you should be using an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM of 350watts

So you guys are saying that if I have a VGA monitor I’ll be able to drive HDMI 1080p just fine with my ancient VGA display adapter? Come on, something’s missing in the translation.

NO, NO, and NO!
If you wish to drive a hdmi 1080p monitor then you will need the proper card for it…. but this has NOTHING to do with Vegas! Vegas doesn’t care what card… or monitor you use. It’s completely irrelevant to the inner operations of Vegas.

I’m very sorry that there seems to be some sort of communication problem here, but I assure you that the comm problem is at your end and I just don’t know how to make it any clearer for you. I suggest maybe you pick up some books on the subject and do some reading.

[Mike Owens]

[John Rofrano]: “If I had to build a new computer today, I would probably follow the Videoguys’ DIY7.7: Intel Core i7 8-core specs.”

Just to weigh in…this is exactly what I did: used the videoguys specs but had the machine built for me by AVA direct based on CNET reviews. Great service, and exactly what I wanted. Now, I HAVE had a few BSOD’s and I am crossing my fingers but:
1. machine built with vista with win 7 upgrade. BSOD 2x before upgrade and 2x since
2. machine is slightly overclocked by AVA direct from the factory
3. I’m running a lot of drivers that are not MS certified for VSTi’s, Korg Legacy collection synths, MIDI controllers and an M-Audio Delta PCI card that were added by me…2 of the BSOD’s were stated to have been from the these drivers…