VJ PC or MAC

[Linus]

Hi

Are you also thought about building a new computer for your Liveperformance by yourself?
(i mean now Mac and PC hardware with rackmount case)
what do you think are good komponents to built an up to date system that can run maybe any aktual vjsoft (i mean the speed of hd?s and cpu(?s))

Maybe a Motherboard with ATA-100 Raid onboard kontroller and dual-cpu in the 1,4 ghz range ?
How much Ram you would use?
(min. 512 MB DDR RAM ?)
Motherboard with frontside Bus clock over 333 Mhz ??
GFX Card and Firewire stuff or capture boards???
Case?

please post your favorites :)

regards

Linus

[Nema]

the currently best hardware-set i know has a name: "hippotizer". check out www.hippotizer.com! :-) but to get detailed info about the inside, i am afraid you will have to buy a whole system and to open the case yourself...

[krokodril]

Good idea to start talking about this, i mean the computer is now taking over.
anyone knows:
what would be the recommended graphic card now,
considering support by programs the geforce vs radeon thing.
how good are cards tv out really
what is now the best analogue capture solution
what do the matrox cards do to justify this enormous price
which old profi cards are now usealbe accesable (genlock, tbc, quadscreens,video wall

How much processor usage is there with the new untested (like xgrind), can whe use an xtra cpu
do we need 333 memory
how much good does raid striping do
which chipsets do allow the largest datastreams (do we need this)
etcetera......... maybe hardware should be extended with a special just digital section.... no probably not whatever

[Kriel]

I have to agree with NEMA. I've been using Macs for 3 years now, but I just got my Hippotizer delivered about 4 weeks ago, and it is the best total package I've seen. I've replaced my normal 3 Mac system with 1 Hippo. Apparently, though you'll have to check this, they also take care of servicing, which might include upgrades.

[VJTinny]

I must admit, da Hippotizer does sound like a dream. I'm running off two G4's at the min. But if I can cut them out or even cut it down to one, I'm laughing. :D

The upgrade and servicing offer sounds tremendous! Have you found any problems with it at all Kriel, or are you completely satisfied that the Hippotizer can cope with anything you throw at it?

I have (naturally) got to get curious about the specs... I need more info than the site has to offer unfortunately. I presume by the fact there's no price on the site that it's a pretty pricey bit of kit, but I'm certainly very interested dudes...very interested indeed.

I could well be speaking to my friendly bank manager very soon... :)

[BagheeraRC]

what kind of stuff are you guys doing that requires multiple G4s? I'm running off of a dual-800 old quicksilver, half-gig SDRAM, radeon 8500, dual-channel ultra-160 SCSI card w/ 2 10k rpm drives running in a RAID 1 array, and i've never had a speed problem. i hit 40-60 fps playback speeds w/multiple effects per layer & layer compositing on four movies @ the same time (component vid) on a regular basis...live vid in is a bit dodgy w/firewire 'cause i don't have a good digitizer yet, but i have an old XClaim VR pro that gives decent speeds.....

as for RAID....it's nice. somebody correct me if i'm wrong, but i think 320x240 30fps vid stream translates roughly to a 17.5 meg/sec data stream. default mac hardware is usually just one ATA drive (somewhere around 30 megs/sec)...a single ultra-160 scsi drive usually hits somewhere between 40-60 meg/sec sustained reads, and my RAID 1 (redundant- if a drive fails during a gig, there's still a backup) array hits 120 meg/sec sustained reads without a problem.

watch out for RAID 0 (striping). i was using it for a while, but someone tripped into my table during setup for a gig, and the array integrity went all sorts of bad disappointingly quickly. i don't know if this would be a problem with straight playback, but it's worth a word of warning....

peace
: : ray

[WordVirus23]

good god man! if you're using 320x240 clips, you do NOT need that much horsepower... but hey, if you're building a new system, by all means, make it as badass as you can financially afford to.
BUT. I don't have any problems running multiple clips w/ effects on my 1 Ghz compaq laptop w/ shitty 8 meg S3 video card. DEFINITELY get firewire, this is no longer an "option" firewire HD's kick ass, and are MUCH cheaper than scsi/raid. I'm really suprised that people are looking to build desktops to take out on the road, this is by nature, what laptops were designed for. and lappys are now nearly as powerful as desktops, and in my experience, about 100x more reliable.

Originally posted by Linus
Hi
Maybe a Motherboard with ATA-100 Raid onboard kontroller and dual-cpu in the 1,4 ghz range ?
How much Ram you would use?
(min. 512 MB DDR RAM ?)
Motherboard with frontside Bus clock over 333 Mhz ??
GFX Card and Firewire stuff or capture boards???
Case?

[Kriel]

Originally posted by VJTinny
Have you found any problems with it at all Kriel, or are you completely satisfied that the Hippotizer can cope with anything you throw at it?

So far, it has managed whatever I've thrown. That includes hi res 10 minute files for the show at Queen Elizabeth Show.

The only thing I've found that I need to do is to shut it down and start it up again after about eight hours in full screen -- understand, that means after throwing about 2,000 clips rapidly through the system, with loads of effects. This is a Windows memory management problem, I think.

Aside from that one thing, I'm pretty blissful about the Hippo.

kriel
x

[Amukidi]

I had a quick look at NE1's hippo in Bristol last week - basically, it seems to be a heavily customised P4 pc, but, of course, without either of our favourite OS packages!! There are organisations all over who can adapt your computer specifically to your requirements, I know somebody who has a P4 pc which has been set up to only run "Flash" - He makes HUGE presentations on it (65MB exe. files!) (which, apparently, Flash shouldn't be able to do). Apparently he just switches it on and Flash boots up. Never crashes and runs like shit through a goose. Unfortunately I missed NE1's set, but I liked the look of the thumbnails of his clips! Downside is, though, it costs an arm and a leg - I think he said his would be about ?4000 sterling - lotta wonga. It would be insane to spend that ammount unless it was going to earn it back! BIG difference between it and yer average lappy is that it is properly up-gradable, it should still be able to cut the mustard a couple of years hence. WordVirus has a point though - 320 x 240 clips really don't need it!

[Amukidi]

Must add that you'd better not tell club promoters/owners about these beasties - they might be tempted to go out and buy one, pre-programme a load of shows and cut out the middle-man (ie us!!!!)

[many2]

Originally posted by Kriel


The only thing I've found that I need to do is to shut it down and start it up again after about eight hours in full screen -- understand, that means after throwing about 2,000 clips rapidly through the system, with loads of effects. This is a Windows memory management problem, I think.

kriel
x

Kriel, just to let you know that this bug was indeed related to memory management and that it has been solved : now you can let the Hippotizer run for weeks without problems ! You should ask James or Sean about the next Hippotizer software update, it should be released soon.

Many-2