I am in the market for a non liner editing card. could anyone advise me which one to go for.
I now use mini DV almost exclusively and have a Sony DCR-TRV900 but also have large number of old Hi8 tapes.
The canopus cards look good but which one should I go for??? Is the Rex worth the extra money?
Some correspondents advocate the Raptor with a sony DV walkman - how does that idea work?
Should I be looking at any other makes?
I use the DVRaptor with my DV-in widgeted D8 510E, it works fine, the only thing that does not work is the syncro record in Raptor Video, but that's easily overcome by manually recording on the D8 camera (through the controls in Raptor Video).
Only drawback is that you cannot capture from Analogue, so all I do is connect an Analogue machine to the 510E inputs, the 510E to the Raptor via firewire and capture manually.
My only advise is to make sure your camera is enabled for DV-in, if this has been done by a widget, the raptor may not recodnise that it has DV-In, but it still works fine.
There is a programme to check if your system is ok, download it from the canaposcorp.com site.
Considering the extra dosh required, and after using the raptor for a while, if I had to buy another card, it would be the raptor, not the rex.
You won't need the Sony walkman if you've got the TRV900, as it'll do everything the walkman can (converting analoge inputs to DV), including filming things!
Between the Rex and Raptor, get the Raptor (I have just ordered one from Siren after three or so months fretting about it). Together with the TRV900, you'll have a fantastic combination, ready to takeover the world! Muhahah! (ahem, sorry).
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Chris Thomas.
chris@computer-manuals.co.uk
I have the Raptor in conjunction with the Sony TRV900E. No problems. Great Combination. Recommended.
Alan
Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!
Joy #1: My Raptor has just been delivered to me at work! Together with several cables that I don't remember being mentioned anywhere in any literature at all. A nice surprise!
Joy #2: The ASP upload component I've been working on is finished! (obviously unrelated to this BB, but I don't care, I'm having a good day, and I fell like telling everyone)
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Chris Thomas.
chris@computer-manuals.co.uk
Drag! Drag! Drag!
I've spent the last five hours trying to get the Raptor working with my system!
I started by pulling out the network and modem cards, rebooting, then shutting down and plugging in the Raptor (expecting to plug them back in, and let Windows98 shuffle their IRQs automatically). All went well.
First problem: Overlay doesn't work; it outputs to a TV monitor perfectly (via loopback to my TRV900), but not to the computer screen. Reading the manual suggested lowering my screen res and colour depth. This had the effect of allowing the overlay to work ONLY WHILE I DRAG THE WINDOW ABOUT. It seems like the RaptorVideo software won't update the video window unless it's told to by Windows.
I've just been to the Canopus website, to double check that my graphics card is compatible, and it should be (it a Creative Riva TNT, Nvidia chipset). Even dropping the screen res to 800x600 and 256 colours has no extra effect.
Second problem: My network card won't work in either of my two free PCI slots. It's taken me a hour to get the damn modem to work (mostly due to dodgy tcp/ip settings, and left over network drivers)!
Why didn't I just try plugging it in while the system was stable? Oh for a time machine...
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Chris Thomas.
chris@computer-manuals.co.uk
Have STB TNT card with Nvidia reference drivers
Ran Raptest for overlay at 1024x768 32 bit and it ran okay (try this and see what happens) the suck it and see approach to diagnostics!)
jdonker:
(ex-vat prices...)
I decided between the REX and raptor beacuse it's £1100+ less and with the money you've saved you can buy a sony DV walkman (£715+), which you may also want to own with a rex anyhow!
Although, the rex is an excellent card which allows analog in/out to. If money is no object it would be the card to buy!
Chris: you're not the only person having trouble. I just spent 2 days getting all my equipment to work.... reformating the disk, playing with PCI/ISA cards, drivers, directX.... what fun... NOT!
At least I now know my Asus TNT2 Ultra is overlay compatable at 1024x768. Although, it would be nice to go even higher I get the feeling a small TV would be the better option...But my TV is RF only!!!
Try re-installing the raptor driver AND application (which also contains an important driver)... If that doesn't work try to find the latest DirectX drivers from your video card.
Good luck...
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Regards,
Jez (London, England)
Ok. After much heartache...
Spent another three hours Friday night swearing at my computer. I pulled out everything except my soundcard, uninstalled all the software and drivers I could find, and proceeded to reinstall everything, one by one; network card, then modem, then Raptor.
Ping! It worked. Everything assigned with nonconflicting IRQs. Hooray!
Next problem:
I couldn't capture footage to the second of my Maxtor 10Gb drives. Just to make the point, these drives are IDENTICAL!
I did originally use Raptest.exe to check that the drives were capapble of DV throuput before I went ahead with buying a DV Raptor, and they both passed with flying colours (10-11Mb/s read and write). I couldn't figure out why only one of them now refused to work.
Much frustration, more swearing, and several threats that I'd reprogram it with an axe later, I discovered that swapping my second hard disk from the Secondary IDE controller, to the Primary controller, fixed the problem.
What on earth would cause the Secondary IDE controller to not work correctly? I have double checked all the settings I could find, but nothing jumped out as being incorrect.
Last problem:
Overlay still doesn't work. The manual suggests changing screen res and colour depth, but I can't get the screen overlay to work at all. I can get footage perfectly on a TV screen attached to the Raptor's S-VHS out, but nothing on the computer monitor unless I wiggle the RaptorVideo window. I've got a Creative Graphics Blaster Riva TNT with Nvidia chipset. HELP!
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Chris Thomas.
chris@computer-manuals.co.uk