[Bob Kiger]

Sorry to hear about your quad core tower having problems. Which processor do you have and how long have you had the tower. Lemons, it appears, come in desktop PCs as well as notebooks.

Small update on my ASUS G71gX lemon. I finally found a tech support live person in Fremont, California. I explained that my machine was purchased from their Tech Direct dealer in Chino on eBay and that I had been jerked around for months and now the hard drive sound like a washing machine. He listened to the machine over the cellphone and said “Oh yes. Sounds like hard drive. I send you RNA. What is model#. Back up your HD before shipping”.

Than I told him how Tech Direct had done a deal for me to swap out the 2-320GB HDs that came with the notebook, and installed 2-500GB as part of the original sale. He said that according to their policy the machine was therefore “not covered by warranty.” He suggested that I find Tech Direct and hold them accountable. Good luck. They haven’t answered the phone in weeks. I will hope that they are still in business and will take them to small claims court to get them to honor the warranty because they never said that their upgrade [as part of the original purchase] would null the warranty.

So that’s how it stands for my ASUS laptop Quad Core at this moment.
I think this thread is a bit old but does record the folly of myself and the shenanigans of the Chinese/Taiwanese importers of computers that advertise “deals” that seem to good to be true. My next move will be expressed in a new thread that is more contemporary. Quad Core Laptops and CS5″. I will reference this older thread for b.g. Thanks to all.

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

OK Tara–

Strongly recommend getting complete CS5 discs and not an upgrade, especially a download, when it comes to migrating from 32-64 bit. Go back to school for one credit and buy the upgrade with a student discount if necessary. You don’t want to have an upgrade install in the new 64-bit environment. Far better that every major suite including OS be original boxed version.

I spent a lot of time talking with an Adobe friend, from Premiere Pro CS2 beta, at NAB. He spent a solid hour helping me understand their system pretty well. CS5 really handles multi-core well but to optimize you need one of the Nvidia video CUDA cards that and has been optimized by Adobe for the Mercury engine that powers CS5.

See: <https://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe_PremiereproCS5.html>
Only certain of the CUDA cards have been optimized and they are listed on this page.

[Note to Adobe. It would be nice if you enabled the GeForce260 because you’d pick up my notebook, which is one of the few notebooks that has full 1920×1400 screen resolution and an ExpressCard slot.]

So Tara, if your running a tower you should invest in one of those enabled graphic cards for optimum performance. As to memory, with notebooks or towers, the quad cores work best with multiples of 8GB of RAM. [8-16-32-64]. Using the enabled memory card with CS5 balances beautifully the load of the RAM per CPU and things purr along. Even half a dozen color corrected scenes side by side on the timeline will play without rendering in real time.

As to the Windows OS, you really must be sure to get an original Windows 7 Pro disc. It’s cheap insurance in case of a crash downstream. I also recommend Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit. I love it’s functionality and it complements the CS5 64-bit even better than I dreamed when I started this thread.

On the right laptop a long held dream of a “videography workstation” is at hand. My existing ASUS Quad core is maxed out at 6GB and unless Adobe adapts the Nvidia GeForce260 CUDA card. I will never get this machine to optimal with CS5. I will still go ahead with the purchase discs and install of Win7Pro disc, Adobe CS5 Master Collection and Microsoft Office 2010 on my existing machine. Why?!

Because of the aforementioned screen resolution and the ExpressCard. I emphasize the ExpressCard because a dear friend, the president of Addonics, says “Since your system has an eSATA port, you can connect an external storage system with a 4 drives RAID5 using our 4-port HPM. With this set up, we have achieved over 200MB/sec sustain data transfer with 4 standard SATA II hard drives. If you need faster than 200 MB, you can strip two sets of RAID 5. This could get you close to 300MB/sec with 10 SATA II hard drives. Your system will need to have 2 eSATA ports with RAID capability. Or if your system has PCI-Express 2.0 slot, you can add one of our 6 Gbps eSATA PCI-e controllers.”

Ironically the ExpressCards will be going away soon because of USB 3.0 coming fast into notebooks. But as of this writing date I don’t see one that has the screen, the RAM, the optimized Nvidia card and USB 3.0 . . . so I will plug along for a while and learn on my existing machine.

BTW: Watch out for “early deals” from Chinese/Taiwanese notebook companies. They put out Press Releases like the one I suckered for when I started this thread last summer. They get the orders piled up before they start delivering. It can take months. ASUS never delivered the $100 rebate that I sent a ream of paperwork and clipped original skews to receive. They don’t seem to be following any known “standards and practices” of commerce that I grew up with in the USA.

An example of this is shown on the back inside cover of the B&H Photo catalog passed out at the NAB show and in the mail. It has an ASUS advertisement for “N” Series notebooks featuring USB 3.0.

A close look at the specs of the “N” series shows that none of them have full 1080p screen resolution. None of them have ExpressCard and they only have one USB 3.0 slot. None of them have Intel i7 processors. So I consider this ad another sucker ad, placed strategically where aspiring video editors might see it. By the time they order ASUS will already be introducing notebooks that are really set up for CS5. By that time a lot of other, perhaps more reputable companies, will introduce their “super Quad core laptops”.

Let me complete my ASUS discussion by saying that one of the two 500GB 7200rpm drives in my machine sound like it’s going to die. Like an old washing machine. I have been writing everybody from the US Seller/Distributor to their Taiwanese “customer support” and for weeks have gotten no feedback or RMA.

Buyers beware!
It’s cut throat out there.

Hope this helps.
Bob

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

OK Tara–

I spent a lot of time talking with an Adobe friend, from Premiere Pro CS2 beta, at NAB. He spent a solid hour helping me understand their system pretty well. CS5 really handles multi-core well but to optimize you need one of the Nvidia video CUDA cards that has been optimized by Adobe for the Mercury engine that powers CS5.

See: <https://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe_PremiereproCS5.html>
Only certain of the CUDA cards have been optimized and they are listed on this page.

[Note to Adobe. It would be nice if you enabled the GeForce260 because you’d pick up my notebook, which is one of the few notebooks that has full 1920×1400 screen resolution and an ExpressCard slot.]

So Tara, if your running a tower you should invest in one of those enabled graphic cards for optimum performance. As to memory, with notebooks or towers, the quad cores work best with multiples of 8GB of RAM. [8-16-32-64]. Using the enabled memory card with CS5 balances beautifully the load of the RAM per CPU and things purr along. Even half a dozen color corrected scenes side by side on the timeline will play without rendering in real time.

As to the Windows OS, you really must be sure to get an original Windows 7 Pro disc. It’s cheap insurance in case of a crash downstream. I also recommend Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit. I love it’s functionality and it complements the CS5 64-bit even better than I dreamed when I started this thread.

On the right laptop a long held dream of a “videography workstation” is at hand. My existing ASUS Quad core is maxed out at 6GB and unless Adobe adapts the Nvidia GeForce260 CUDA card. I will never get this machine to optimal with CS5. I will still go ahead with the purchase discs and install of Win7Pro disc, Adobe CS5 Master Collection and Microsoft Office 2010 on my existing machine. Why?!

Because of the aforementioned screen resolution and the ExpressCard. I emphasize the ExpressCard because a dear friend, the president of Addonics, says “Since your system has an eSATA port, you can connect an external storage system with a 4 drives RAID5 using our 4-port HPM. With this set up, we have achieved over 200MB/sec sustain data transfer with 4 standard SATA II hard drives. If you need faster than 200 MB, you can strip two sets of RAID 5. This could get you close to 300MB/sec with 10 SATA II hard drives. Your system will need to have 2 eSATA ports with RAID capability. Or if your system has PCI-Express 2.0 slot, you can add one of our 6 Gbps eSATA PCI-e controllers.”

Ironically the ExpressCards will be going away soon because of USB 3.0 coming fast into notebooks. But as of this writing date I don’t see a notebook that has the screen resolution, the i7 processor, the RAM, the optimized Nvidia card and USB 3.0 . . . so I will plug along for a while and learn on my existing machine.

BTW: Watch out for “early deals” from Chinese/Taiwanese notebook companies. They put out “Press Releases” like the one I suckered for when I started this thread last summer. They get the orders piled up before they start delivering. It can take months. ASUS never delivered the $100 rebate after I sent a ream of paperwork and clipped original skews to receive. They don’t seem to be following any known “standards and practices” of commerce that I grew up with in the USA.

An example of this is shown on the back inside cover of the B&H Photo/Video catalog passed out at the NAB show and in the mail. It has an ASUS advertisement for “N” Series notebooks featuring USB 3.0.

A close look at the specs of the “N” series shows that none of them have full 1080p screen resolution. None of them have ExpressCard and they only have one USB 3.0 slot. None of them have Intel i7 processors. So I consider this ad another sucker ad, placed strategically where aspiring video editors might see it. By the time they order ASUS will already be introducing notebooks that are really set up for CS5. By that time a lot of other, perhaps more reputable companies, will introduce their “super Quad core laptops”.

Let me complete my ASUS discussion by saying that one of the two 500GB 7200rpm drives in my machine sounds like it’s going to die. Like an old washing machine. I have been writing everybody from the US Seller/Distributor to their Taiwanese “customer support” and for weeks have gotten no feedback or RMA.

Buyers beware!
It’s cut throat out there.

Hope this helps.
Bob

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

Time has certainly marched on and as of this date 4/12/2010 I believe that my goals have been achieved. I am now running Windows 7 Pro with Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit beta suite, and as of today I have seen and had a chance to test Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 in 64-bit. It is blazing fast and has some wonderful features.

My favorite is a playback mode that samples 1080p original footage, which is what has been loaded into the project, but it plays back at various selected definitions for speed of editing. You can choose from a variety of presets.

I am going to invest in The Master Collection CS5 which the folks at the Adobe booth, here at NAB, have assured me is all 64 bit programming. I still have to buy a Window 7 Pro disc so I can restore in the event of a crash. It would be a big drag to have to load Vista Home > Windows 7 Home upgrade > Windows 7 Pro upgrade.

It’s been worth the wait!

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

Hi to All–

I’m back in Oceanside, CA after wintering in the Philippines and Maui followed by the CES show. I had hoped to see some 64 bit editing programs there, but could not find.

Here’s what I have done since last posting. I got the ASUS free upgrade from Vista Home Edition to Windows 7 Home Edition. Than I wanted to use the XP mode, but that only installs with Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate. So I paid for a download upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate.

Installed my CS2 Premium in the XP Mode of Windows 7 but it took help from Adobe tech support because I had an upgrade disc without the pre-requisite Photoshop CS installed on the new computer.

Got through OK and all programs worked fine. Than tried to install a Plustek negative scanner that used to work fine with Photoshop CS2 on my old XP Pro laptop, but [even with updated drivers for Windows 7] the install went badly. Crashed the computer.

Got it back together with Microsoft Tech support who walked me through Vista/Win7Home/Win7Pro and than it dawned on me. I wanted ONE disc to install my Windows 7 Professional and eventually I want ONE disc to install my Adobe Master Collection. That is why I am willing to wait for CS5.

When we test all kinds of different hardware and routines on the new 64 bit machines, there are bound to be crashes. And the restoring should ideally be EZ one step.

So I’m recommending that Adobe set a date after which anybody who purchases CS4 will get a full CS5 collection by returning their CS4 disc. That way customers like me will have assurance that they won’t have a 2 step install as they would now with CS4/CS5 upgrade. I believe that would encourage sale of CS4 today.

I have been very cautious in picking programs that are 64 bit for the new laptop. Today downloaded Microsoft Office 2010 beta. It is sweet and very fast by subjective comparison to Windows/Office XP on my older machines. Also installed Windows Live Movie Maker, and ran a test on 1080 30p footage shot in Quicktime MOV [34 seconds long and 170MB] shot with Canon SX1 IS to SDHC card. The Save Movie command rendered this movie to WMV in 60 seconds and the file size was 32.3 MB ???

It looks great. Not sure if Windows Live Movie Maker is 64 bit but it does basic editing and outputs 1080 30p so I’m happy holding on for CS5 a bit longer.

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

An update on the situation. Today I received the ASUS Quad Core as ordered. It is sweet! So fast that I am even overcoming a long aversion for Vista…though I am hanging tough for Windows 7.

If anyone knows how I can get a clean Windows 7 permit without waiting until October 22, please let me know.

I am also hopeful that someone will open up an opportunity for me to beta test CS5 64 bit programs on this notebook. Please visit https://www.videographyblog.com and email me if you have an idea how this can happen! In the meantime I will give best efforts to proving the efficacy of PC/Adobe editing vs. MAC/FCP editing.

Mahaloha,

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

Thanks Dennis and all for the greatly expanding our knowledge of the many facets of converting to 64 bit computing as well as the state of play for CS4 today.

As I mentioned in my last post the [unnamed seller] had conceded a fair bit to honor our early purchase of the ASUS quad core notebook. They ate the CA Sales tax and shipping. They have committed to replacing 2 – 500 GB 7200rpm drives for the stock 360GB drives and they are sending an external drive case to facilitate data transfer.

In our last phone call they said they would send the email from ASUS. Here it is at https://videographyblog.com/ASUSemail.html
We haven’t seen such a heavily redacted email since the Pentagon papers were released 🙂 And it gives no firm date of delivery 🙁

This leads me to the guts of the matter. All the relevant technologies seem in flux right now:

1. Obviously the ASUS computer needs to arrive. Even if we got it tomorrow what OS would we load. We don’t like our experience with Vista and don’t want it on this computer. We don’t want to go way back to XP Pro. So we are in a wait and hold position for Windows 7 64 bit version. And the wait should not be long says ZDnet at https://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1195 which announces the date as today “Thursday, August 6, to be exact—when MSDN and Technet subscribers will finally get the chance to download the software legitimately and activate their copies with product keys.” The ZD review in general was pretty glowing so we will be glad to hop over Vista.

Now to the Creative Suite. As we previously mentioned we have CS2 Video Collection as a reward for past beta testing. [and CS4 Dreamweaver]. There seems no doubt that CS2 is going to run a lot faster on the ASUS quad core with 6GB memory than on our existing [beloved] Pentium M Gateway ROGs w/ 1GB of memory. A side note on why we love the old Gateways. It’s called Universal Drive Bay [UDB], which permits us to hot swap a hard drive right onto the laptop motherboard. We also have DVD burners and card readers and extra batteries that fit into the UDB. It keeps project management ultra simple because all the files for most projects fit on one drive. When we’re ready for another project we just slap in the appropriate drive for that project. Well that feature seems to have slipped into oblivion so we wanted a notebook that really covered the bases.

We have heard from several of you friends that 8GB is the ideal complement for CS4 and Windows Vista 64. Will that same 8GB be vital with Windows 7 64 bit? Since the ASUS can only accept 6GB how would that memory be allotted? [Using CS2 and “hypothetically” CS5 64bit]?

As of this moment we are still waiting and slacking the “unnamed seller”, who we believe is caught between a rock and a hard place [ASUS & US]. We don’t have any rush rush editing projects in HD. So our inclination is just to wait for CS5 thinking that by than we’ll have a pretty reasonable laptop editor. In the meantime we can shoot 1080p and catalog to our hearts content.

Why laptop editor? Because I/we travel in a small RV to archaeology sites around the SW and Mexico and laptop batteries are the best protection against power failure from the solar system on the vehicle.

Does anyone see a way to smooth out our plan? If so, kindly let us know.

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

Just got another phone call from the “unnamed” Seller. There are further delays from ASUS and he said he will be sending me their email regards the particulars. Something to do with the LCD on the unit.

He is polite guy and that has what has held me from going ballistic on the whole deal. They will, in effect, be paying me interest because they just agreed to install 2 500GB 7200rpm hard drives in place of the stock 320s. A walking Terrabyte.

My persistence in this “project” is also based on the timeline of events that will lead up to CS5 64 bit. I’d sure like to get into THAT beta group!

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

Thanks to all for cluing us in on CS4 and memory usage.

There does seem to be a fairly consistent pattern of opinion here:
Vista 64 bit is a memory hog. Photoshop is the only true 64 bit application in the CS4 suite and October 22 is the release date for Windows 7 [our “hypothetical” ASUS notebook comes with an automatic upgrade to Windows 7]

Adobe is beta testing CS5 right now, according to a heap of stories on https://cs5.org/ and the schedule seems poised to hype at the upcoming CEA and NAB shows for release Spring 2010.

Of course Apple will counter with their FCP 64 bit package.

Timed to appear with Windows 7 is a WAVE of quad core computers that are now entering the China pipeline. On May 22 Fry’s Electronics online advertised a “hypothetical” ASUS G71Gx-A1 for $1799.99. We tried to purchase on May 23 but they were out of stock. So were 9 of the 10 other “sellers” that suckered for an ASUS Press Release.

One vendor [yet unnamed] offered this product on eBay as “Buy It Now” which we did using PayPal credit card for $1999.99. Long story short…they could not deliver, citing “parts problems”. On 7/3/2009 they wrote me: “Hello Bob, The ETA on the new G71Gx-A1 is 7/13-7/14, and we will send out the same day that we receive. Also will notify you via phone with the discount + the gift. And if we send out between 7/13-7/14, you should have it in 2 business days.”

In the very same email they changed the model number to ASUS G71G-Q2 17″ 2.0GHz Quad Core/6GB/640GB/Blu-Ray. We’ve called and written and received promises galore but none of them were honorable. They continued to list it on eBay until July 19 and they’re a top rated Power Seller.

We’re still waiting, so if/when the item arrives, this entire thread may another one of those “teachable moments” that keep popping up. Clever way of whittling away at the China/US trade deficit 🙁

Given all the above factors should we demand refund or should we hold their feet to the fire?

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Bob Kiger]

Did a Bing search on Windows 7 64 vs. 32 bit and here’s what it said:

Pros and Cons of a 64 bit system:

* You can address much more than 4GB of memory, which is ideal for avid gamers, CAD, video editors and heavy multi-taskers. However, any 32 bit software you use will still be restricted to 4GB memory – you need a 64 bit CPU, OS and applications to take full advantage of the extra RAM.
* 16 bit applications will no longer run. Although this is unlikely to be a problem, if you use very old software (from the Windows 3.1 days!) then it will not work under a 64 bit OS.
* Existing 32 bit drivers no longer work.If you have older or poorly supported hardware you may find that it can no longer be used. Got a 7 year old scanner that just about works in Vista? You may not be able to get it working in 64 bit Windows 7.
* Unsigned kernel-mode drivers no longer work. Along with the issue above, the inability to run unsigned kernel mode drivers will cause problems for old hardware. (There is reportedly a way to bypass this check).
* Running some 32 bit applications on a 64 bit OS could actually be slower. The additional overheads in running 32 bit software in 64 bit mode could cause a slight degradation in performance. It will take some time for 64 bit software to become the norm.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Sooooo [we have a difference of opinion about CS4/64bit]. it seems important that those of us buying computers that can use more than 4GB of RAM know whether to go with 64 bit OS or hang back with 32 bit? Could we get more opinions on the Adobe CS4 suite . . . like from Adobe?

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com