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Are you using XP with Ppro2? or CS3 with Vista or another combination?

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There are controllers like you mention, J L Cooper makes them,
Behringer, etc. The problem is patching the generic software for use, Its nicer to have things preprogramed.
https://www.jlcooper.com/pages/es8100.html

I have EdiusPro v4.5 which has the capability of using this controller, https://www.behringer.com/BCF2000/index.cfm?lang=eng
When Ihave some spare time(hysterical laughter) I was going to try setting it up with Ppro

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There is a third option if you BlackMagic Design codecs and that is Intensity Pro which will give HDMI and Analog I/O with realtime preview on your ext video monitor

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You have to get rid of unused tracks to get more space, and/or resize the timeline window so you have room to expand the track you want, see help->index->tracks->expanding and collapsing, best way to get extra space is use two monitors for editing.

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[Scott Jensen] “Extra cost of $30 for a cable.”

You can find 4 to 4 cables on the net for under $4, it helps to have a couple around

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According to the other post you just made you have a onboard fire port, why don’t you get the proper firewire cable, if going to a camcorder get a 4pin to 4pin, or a six pin to 4 pin adapter.
With the VIA adapter did you install from a disk or let xp load its own drivers?

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[Scott Jensen] “3. Is it possible to load an “off the shelf” store bought copy of Windows XP on a Dell computer instead of using the OS and driver discs that come from Dell?”
Yes, Just goto dell and download the proper drivers for the system, a clean install is the best way to go, media center unless a clean load can be a pita, plus if you try to get rid of some add-on functions they sometimes repair themselves, people who load entertainment laptops assume the buyers aren’t too bright

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Projects usually aren’t backward compatible

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What I’m saying that Premiere 6.5 will probably handle QT ver6 or maybe 6.5, which would give you a better chance of handling more files, or use Edius with the Storm card, When my last Storm system went belly up I decided to try just Edius/Storm rather than try to load the older drivers along with burying the hand of a hanged man at a crossroads that faced the cardinal points on the night of the new moon at midnight to make sure they loaded right, the storm/edius machine is chugging along fine with QT 6.5, didn’t load 7.x yet as when it first came out it was buggy, when the second version came out it was supposed to be more stable, but the next version cured that.

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There are still some Storm users out there that use old Premiere, if he can find a copy he should upgrade to Premiere 6.5 and try a copy of QT6 or look for a copy of Edius 3.x and up on ebay