[R. Hewitt]

Almost certainly as both the firewire and USB ports will be on the same PCI bus. The problem results from two DV streams flowing through the same PCI bus, which requires CPU intervention to shift the data around. This can also happen with integrated firewire ports on motherboards and requires some research to get a board with dual PCI busses. Tomshardware is probably the best place to find this information.

The Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard provides an onboard firewire port that is independent from the primary PCI bus. This is the board I use and I can capture direct to an external drive without any problems – both firewire and USB2 (lacie).

[R. Hewitt]

Premiere wasn’t designed to natively edit MPEG material. However, through the use of a plug-ins or an external software convertor it can be achieved.

The follwing link will take you to the Xilisoft home page where a multi-format convertor is available. Fellow Cow’s here will be able to point to several others too.

[R. Hewitt]

Very true Tim.

To work correctly requires the firewire port (built-in to motherboard) to be on a separate PCI bridge to any add-in cards. This is the number one reason for problems related to Avid editing systems on non-qualified PC’s and laptops.

[R. Hewitt]

Glad you got it sussed Jana.

My understanding is that Quicktime 7 isn’t yet supported by Avid – certainly not on Avid NewsCutter.

Quicktime 7 on a Windows PC is like Malware in that you can’t install it without installing iTunes. Guess what? I’m sticking to QT 6!

[R. Hewitt]

It’s not the file sixe limit you need to change, it’s the compression factor.

There isn’t a 2GB limit on Quicktime as there is for OMF and AVI formats and so this error shouldn’t be occurring for a Quicktime export.

[R. Hewitt]

Sony, Sony and Sony. Slightly on the cool side but consistent and very sharp. Very reliable too. Many options from low res 9″ to Grade 1 20″ including battery/mains powered field monitors and LCD broadcast monitors. In addition, there are several phosphor options, P22 etc.

JVC monitors from experience are quite warm/green and use standard tubes compared to the Sony Trinitrons.

Prices vary according, obviously, on size and grade.

A good site for info is: Sony Biz.

[R. Hewitt]

I agree the tower version is far preferable for a true edit box and is far more expandable.

For those stuck with a laptop and who would like a multi-monitor display, Matrox may well have the ultimate solution, and indeed for those who’s system doesn’t have a multi-monitor capable graphics card. Matrox DualHead2Go.

[R. Hewitt]

I’m using a ATI Radeon 9600 with an Apple 23″ Cinema display. The only problem I encounter is the card doesn’t support DOS display resolutions and that would be the only reason I’d need to upgrade. A faster card in many cases means more noise.

The 9600 card is more than capable for Premier Pro (and After Effects) and if still available is very cheap.

Adobe’s website is the best place for recommended and supported cards but many here will be able to recommend too.

[R. Hewitt]

I would go for the Avid Unity or ISIS systems. They’re tried and tested and perform well. You get the Media Manager application too, which is a huge boon for managing your, er, media.

[R. Hewitt]

I would try reversing the field order in PPro prior to encoding. I’m away from my edit PC right now but I think the option is on the Clip menu?

You will need to select the clips one at a time and reverse the order. I tried selecting all clips but the option then gets greyed out.

I currently use an Apple 23″ LCD Cinema display and it always shows line tearing in moving objects when there isn’t really any in the source material. It’s a pain in the butt but I’m getting used to it.

You should be able to play your DVD’s with something like WinDVD on your PC.

Let us know if changing the field order resolves the problem.

Richard.