To any CF users out there, hanging back from updating to Win 7 x64. This is definitely a big plug.

I've used (and suffered with) every operating system Microsoft has had from DOS 2 onward. This year makes 25 years of staring at computer screens for me, with close to 20 of them doing video on PCs (lot of suffering there, believe me!).

In all my years of computing, I have never seen a better PC-based OS than Windows 7 x64. Bar none. It is the most stable, most capable OS I have ever seen, period. I never cease to be amazed at it's capability to load and run even old legacy software, and better than it was ever run previously, yet run the latest and greatest like a Ferrari.

Our Gigabit network of 3 editing (mix of CS3/4) workstations with Prospect HD 4-soon-to-be-NEO 4K, and assorted other systems, can now smoothly play full HD across the network without a burp, and transfer HUGE files at very close to the full speed of our Gb connection, with no problems. That's 934 Mbps sustained over a regular ole TCP-IP connection with not a glitch to this date.

So just a word of wisdom: Don't screw around! Get Win 7 x64 for your PC-based editing if your hardware supports it.

You'll thank yourself if you do.


PS. If CS5 comes even fairly close to matching Win7 x64 in overall performance, stability and usability, we will be entering into a golden age for editors/content creators!

I totally agree with Stephen.
I did a clean install of Win7 64 on my Vista 64/i7/CS4 machine and it has been the best move ever.
Win 7 64 is very fast, stable, and seems to be loaded with features that catch & resolve software glitches as they arise, instead of rolling over and playing dead like Vista.
My Vista 64 system actually worked pretty well, but there were many, many nusiance issues. Even simple stuff like booting the computer- it was turn it on- then go make coffee, get the coffee, make a phone call or two, then back to the workstation and maybe it's ready to roll.
It's all gone in Win7.
If CS5 and Neo 5 really deliver on the promises, it's going to be a new world of video production :-)
Fingers crossed!!

Stephen and Robert,

believe it or not, my Vista32 w/ CS3 works pretty well, now :-)
but unfortunately your reviews of Win7 64 make me salivate.
Hence a question for you:
do you think 4GB of RAM would be enough for
a Win7 64 & CS3 combination to work?
(I'm currently pretty short on $$$ and cannot upgrade the RAM;
the machine is OK, runs on a Xeon quad core E5430;
I suspect the bottleneck might be the RAM...)

Thanks in advance for your answers
All the best

vasco

Hi, what do you think about this configuration of computer I ‘am about to buy in order to edit with my pmw-350 xdcam ex and nano flash:
Vista Business 64bit
NVIDIA QUADRO FX3800 1GB DDR3
Motherboard ASUS P6T DELUXE
INTEL CORE I7 960 PROCCESSORE 3,2 GHZ
12 GIGA RAM
WD SATA2 500GB 7200 RPM HARD DISK System
2 X WD SATA2 1000GB 7200RPM RAID
MASTERIZZATORE BLU RAY LG
MATERIZZATORE DVD/CD SEMPRE LG
Blackmagic Design - Intensity Pro

I will be using:
Avid Media Composer v4.0.5
Adobe Premiere CS4
I will be editing with SD and Hd.
P.S :does media composer v4.0.5 supports windows 7 just like cs4
Thanks
S

Hi, what do you think about this configuration of computer I ‘am about to buy in order to edit with my pmw-350 xdcam ex and nano flash:
Vista Business 64bit
NVIDIA QUADRO FX3800 1GB DDR3
Motherboard ASUS P6T DELUXE
INTEL CORE I7 960 PROCCESSORE 3,2 GHZ
12 GIGA RAM
WD SATA2 500GB 7200 RPM HARD DISK System
2 X WD SATA2 1000GB 7200RPM RAID
MASTERIZZATORE BLU RAY LG
MATERIZZATORE DVD/CD SEMPRE LG
Blackmagic Design - Intensity Pro

I will be using:
Avid Media Composer v4.0.5
Adobe Premiere CS4
I will be editing with SD and Hd.
P.S :does media composer v4.0.5 supports windows 7 just like cs4
Thanks
S

Sounds like a better system for CS5! That upgrade should really fly with your configuration!

Only 2 things I'd do different. One is your boot drive. Forget the slower 500 GB and go for the bigger and faster TB drive. Price is not much more and they really are faster.

Also, if you don't have a good backup system, consider adding another 2 TB drive to mirror your RAID 0. You'll thank yourself if you do. We mirror both our boot drive and data drives onto separate drives. If it crashes, you've saved yourself some bitter tears and many hours of work. We still use MirrorFolder on our systems to do this, and it's working quite nicely with Win7 x64.

I'm sure some of the other guys here probably have suggestions too.

system triple posted...Hey Chris, you've got some probs here I think!

...system double posted

Stephen and Robert,

believe it or not, my Vista32 w/ CS3 works pretty well, now :-)
but unfortunately your reviews of Win7 64 make me salivate.
Hence a question for you:
do you think 4GB of RAM would be enough for
a Win7 64 & CS3 combination to work?
(I'm currently pretty short on $$$ and cannot upgrade the RAM;
the machine is OK, runs on a Xeon quad core E5430;
I suspect the bottleneck might be the RAM...)

Thanks in advance for your answers
All the best

vasco

Vasco, one of the workstations we updated is a legacy Intel board (D975XBX2) with a Q6600 and only 4 GB RAM. It is also running CS3, and though Intel officially doesn't support that board under Win 7x64 (or any Win 7...), after a bit of tweaking it's been running things great! That's one of the reasons I'm so impressed. I'm a hands on person, so I'm usually messing with something to make things run faster, but seriously, this is a winner of an OS.

I plugged in an old USB webcam the other day that I had been unable anymore to get to run under ANY OS (no drivers anywhere) before I threw it away. Lo and behold, after a while grinding around and looking, Win7 found drivers for it and it's working perfectly! I had to pick my jaw up off the ground on that one!

Since we usually build our own systems, I sometimes push things pretty hard in testing, and though I've
blue-screened Win7 x64 about three times on our systems, it's always been running questionable legacy hardware or tweaking beyond the limits. To Win7 x64's credit, it's always started back up without a whimper.

I am not a MS fan, as I've suffered too much with their OS's in the past, but this time I have to say, they finally did it right. If they don't screw it up with some stupid Service Pack (like the one they're working on...), we'll have a few years of relative peace in our constant PC turmoil.

As to updating your Vista, I hate to say for you to mess with a good working system, but the way Win 7 x64 handles memory is certainly more efficient. If you try it out, do a clean install on a separate partition or disk (yeah, you can use the Win 7 upgrade version disk and "upgrade it" legally, no matter what some say. I've done it repeatedly by phone). That way you have a clean slate and can load only what you need. Biggest hassle is reloading everything, but believe me, it was worth to us and no one will even look back or boot the old 32bit session now! The pluses outweigh the negatives of all the diddling around to get things back up and going.

Plus, if we want to try to fly CS5 on that old legacy system, it's a no-brainer. And, if we plug in a big-gun Quadro board with it, it'll still run circles around anything we have now...and we can still upgrade it to 8 MB RAM!

Cineform ties it all together no matter how you do it. It's a win-win situation.

Stephen,

thank you so much for your time and expertise!
I'm tempted, really tempted.
Yesss, I think I'll give it a try in a not too distant future...

BTW, Stephen, on a different note:
thank you also for reminding Cineform (in one of your previous posts)
about the existence of rather "conservative and cash-strapped" people
not particularly eager to switch to CS5 (I also avoided CS4 completely),
who would therefore very much appreciate clear information
regarding the backwards compatibility (or whatever it's called: sorry for my English)
of the new Neo line of products...
(I love my Prospect HD, I learned how to peacefully coexist with CS3 & Vista32,
and the last thing I need now is a major you-know-what...)
Well..., but we're all having fun, after all, aren't we?

Thanks again, Stephen
All the best

Vasco

Vasco, here's a thought-
If you are happy and have no problems with Vista 32/CS3/PHD4, how could it get better than that??
To me, it sounds like a winner to just keep doing what you are doing for a while and save the $$$$.
We all tend to get caught up in the technology, sometimes just for the technology's sake- but at the end of the day, the whole NLE- software, hardware, the works- is just a tool to do a job... like a screwdriver.
If what you have is doing a good job, why mess with it?? :)

Well, decided to give Windows 7 64 bit a try... installed OEM Ultimate on a new 600GB drive yesterday.

Upon its first boot everything sorta seemed ok... got on the internet.. and all seemed well, then I noticed
I didn't have any sound from the sound blaster and the bluray drive was thrashing itself away....

looked for solutions on getting the sound blaster working... nothing worked so far...

downloaded a bluray player to get it going... nothing.... the drawer was even having a hard time opening
and closing.. its a Pioneer Bluray...

I had to get some work done so I pulled the drive out and put in the old one... I''ll work on it later :-(

I guess if I would have pulled the bluray drive and the soundblaster card out, it most likely would have worked.. ????

has anyone gone the upgrade route... where you have Vista and used the upgrade Win7 ??? is that
easier or are you now chasing issues that it caused with your hardware/software???

...I guess if I would have pulled the bluray drive and the soundblaster card out, it most likely would have worked.. ????

has anyone gone the upgrade route... where you have Vista and used the upgrade Win7 ??? is that
easier or are you now chasing issues that it caused with your hardware/software???

Sorry to hear of your probs, Ray. It's the pits to not have things up and running first off, but keep trying when you get a chance.

On our older Intel board, I had to diddle around too, and ended up using a new graphics card. Sound was a prob on several systems, but when I finally got rid of all the drivers for the offending hardware and booted several times, letting Win 7 find the "right" drivers, everything finally sorted itself out. I did boot them several times without audio, then went back and let Win 7 "find" it's own solutions.

Sound Blaster seems to have caused quite a bit of trouble for MS with this new OS version, but I wouldn't think your Pioneer BR drive would. You might try yanking both the drive and sound board first, then if it boots normally, put the drive back in and boot. If it's normal, the sound board might be screwing up the BR drive under Win7's automatic IRQ selection. I dimly remember reading something about that somewhere...

It's not always the best way to resolve probs (and certainly not the way I usually do it) but it seemed to work for us this time. Computers are stupid and after 25 yrs of suffering with them, it's very hard for me to trust some programmer to do it right and chose what it really needs. But, at least with our Intel and Gigabyte boards we've had Win 7 get things right.

We "upgraded", but not from Vista (XP x64). What MS doesn't tell people, is that they can "upgrade" to Win 7 x64 (with the upgrade disk) from XP and it seems they can from just about any Windows version. I guess they want to charge you for the full version, even if you are doing a "same system clean install" upgrade, so they just keep it kind of quiet? I read that online and tried it and it's true. It saved us hundreds of dollars in the end.

Hope you get that new Win7-64 going without too much more hassle. If you can get things sorted out, you'll probably never look back at Vista again.

Vasco, here's a thought-
If you are happy and have no problems with Vista 32/CS3/PHD4, how could it get better than that??
To me, it sounds like a winner to just keep doing what you are doing for a while and save the $$$$.
We all tend to get caught up in the technology, sometimes just for the technology's sake- but at the end of the day, the whole NLE- software, hardware, the works- is just a tool to do a job... like a screwdriver.
If what you have is doing a good job, why mess with it?? :)

I'm with you Robert...partially. I say the same thing for the first part: Vasco, don't screw up your system if it's working fine, it's just not worth it. But..if you've got a free partition or drive, you can borrow a Win7 disk from someone (or download it?) just to try it out for the 30 day period and see if it's worth the upgrade price to you.

Cost and risk right now? Just some of your time, with the possibility you'll find it's well worth the hassle and cost. Risk? Pretty much zero...if you use a separate drive or partition. I agree on the conservative-cost effective part.

I got my old Soundblaster Live running on Win 7 using Kx Project drivers: Official kX Project Site -- News (http://kxproject.com/)

Wow, how cool is that, Graham!

I may dig out an old Audigy 2 card I still might have in the junk boxes, just to see it work again! I loved that card! We pumped an awesome "God voice" we created through it, to blast down 13 stories real late on dark nights to scare a few hapless victims on the street! We turned off all the lights in the office we were renting, and stuck some big speakers out the windows and aimed them below. It was awesome!

That's what bored editors did in those days when we worked too late at night and were getting sleepy.

Stephen... you're starting to scare me. I don't know if DVinfo has a "vintage" forum, but you would make a helluva moderator.

Continuing with your theme... I was able to install an unsupported TASCAM US-122 audio interface to my Win7 system. I let the OS solve the issues, and after a few tries, viola'... the unit works perfectly. The only drawback is a failure of the system to shut down while the TASCAM is connected.

So is your strategy to creep up on CS5 and get the upgrade, then measure your performance with existing hardware?

If only Win7 could be jammed into a Commodore 64, we could have the most economical CS5 platform ever!!

Okay..... Stephen..... Stephen, I'm kidding... just kidding............ don't log onto eBay Stephen!

Must be all those old, rotting, northwestern woodchips still stuck in my brain Marty! Either that, or the long "Noah" beard and itty bittie ponytail I've been trying to grow out for a old buzzard part in our next production!

BTW, I tried to find that Audigy 2 board...but had thrown it away.. sigh. Now I'll never really know... (I dIdn't have the time to screw around with it anyway...just wanted to thumb my nose at the bleeding edgers. I was one for too many years. Probably really still am one at heart, but my resources just don't keep pace anymore, nor does my need for stable, functioning workstations for our team.

I'd be a lousy moderator for a legacy forum anyhow. Too much "outside the box" in me! Although...come to think of it, maybe we've still got that old Pinnacle DV1000 board around here somewhere...maybe we could....


("So is your strategy to creep up on CS5 and get the upgrade, then measure your performance with existing hardware?" Exactly. Don't jump unless the water's fine and you KNOW there's no rocks or alligators...I've been in the jungle too long for that. As to the C-64 idea, my brother would love you for that! His only home computer for years was one, yet he used big iron at work everyday worth millions of dollars. A true geek.)

Thank you very much for your time Stephen Armour. I’m still wondering if you agree with those who says that Avid Media Composer 4 works just fine also with windows 7 x64bit, even if Avid don’t recognize that fact, I’ve looked at it at Avid’s site and it Windows 7 is not officially supported by Avid.
Do you recommend windows 7 64 bit with MC4 anyway.
Thank you

Sorry Samer, I didn't comment as we don't use it. Best way to find out is to load it on a trial version (separate drive or partition) and try it. Then you won't need second opinions, but can give it to the rest of us firsthand.

Robert & Stephen,

thank you!
I'm on the "conservative/safe" side of the divide as well,
so I think I'll do as Stephen suggested.
The possibility of ending up with a really quick and rock-solid CS3/PHD4/Win7
combination is soooo tempting, I'll have to give it a shot...

All the best

Vasco

Here are my comments on Win 7 64 bit. I have converted three computers from XP 32 bit, including my editing system, and the experience has been outstanding. I'm in the camp of recommending Win 7 64 bit to everyone currently running XP or Vista. My editing system is a Q6600 with 8GB, Win 7 64 bit, CS4 and Prospect HD. I've run this several weeks now with Win 7 and it has been very stable, a real pleasure.

Win 7 is great, it finds updates and drivers for essentially everything all by itself and the installations go very quickly. Buy contrast I also did an XP installation recently and it took many hours to get it all going.

Win 7 isn't perfect and I had a problem on one system. I had been having some problems with an on board eSATA controller even with XP; Win 7 found the new and correct driver but it turned out that driver wasn't 100% compatible with the BIOS so the eSATA didn't work properly, and it took quite a bit of time to sort that out. But that is the only glitch I've had with three installations.

Charles... ditto on the eSATA issue. Rather than fight it, I picked up a controller card and sidestepped the problem.

Charles... ditto on the eSATA issue. Rather than fight it, I picked up a controller card and sidestepped the problem.
That's what I ended up doing but I wasn't smart enough to do it right away. I got the LaCie eSATA PCI Express Card which is 3Gbits/sec instead of the 1.5Gbits/sec off the motherboard, so I ended up ahead.