VASST team - what spec platforms do you use? at DVinfo.net

Sherif Choudhry · February 14th, 2008, 07:32 PM

Hi, just to say what a great forum this is - I feel like I've had a Matrix-like brain-dump of great experience reading over the last 6 months. And more to the point I'm producing stuff!

I have a question (and of course any advice from VASST or anyone is appreciated): what spec PCs and monitors are you using today for your Vegas based productions?

I want to purchase a platform that is tried and tested with Sony Vegas 8. It should maximise Vegas performance for real time previews, multiple fx on the timeline clips and rendering.

(I promise you wont be held accountable for whatever way I decide to use any advice you provide! :-)

cheers
Sherif

Jon Fairhurst · February 14th, 2008, 08:10 PM

I'm not on the VASST team, but I'm enjoying my system which uses an Asus P5K WS motherboard and a QX6600 CPU. It's connected to a four drive MicroNet RAID 0. It's fast enough to read or write uncompressed 1080i60, and the four cores churn nicely when rendering.

The P5K WS mobo has a PCI-X slot that hosts the MicroNet RAID card and keeps it well fed.

I've got a pedestrian video card with two DVI ports. The second connects to a Sharp GP1 LCD TV. (Disclaimer - I work for Sharp Labs of America. But I honestly enjoy having this 1080p TV as my video monitor.)

My current project is more scientific than artistic, so I'm doing all of the intermediate work in the uncompressed domain. If your work is compressed, you can go with more CPU and less HDD.

Sherif Choudhry · February 15th, 2008, 02:17 PM

Jon, thanks, thats really useful - just to complete the picture:
- XP or Vista? - RAM? - Which graphics card?

Are you satisfied with real-time previews in Vegas 8 on the uncompressed HD with FX on the timeline clips?

Sherif Choudhry · February 15th, 2008, 02:44 PM

A colleague is saying I should bypass a custom system and just get a specialist turnkey vendor to provide the system , at an increased 50 to 75% cost however.

I am attracted by the Apple and FCP approach in that you actually have a lower number of key hardware combinations you can select.

Sony should publish recommnded platforms for Vegas if they want to lower all the noise about its speed and stability.

cheers
Sherif

Jon Fairhurst · February 15th, 2008, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sherif Choudhry

Jon, thanks, thats really useful - just to complete the picture:
- XP or Vista? - RAM? - Which graphics card?

Are you satisfied with real-time previews in Vegas 8 on the uncompressed HD with FX on the timeline clips?

I'm running XP Pro 32. I've got 2 GB of fast RAM. My display settings show an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card. (I can't recall the brand. I just looked for a reasonable dual DVI card.)

I'm applying few effects with my current project. It's, um, unique..

Glenn Chan · February 16th, 2008, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sherif Choudhry

What do you at VASST use?

I only did contract work for VASST so I can't tell you that much about what they are using (because I don't know).

Quote:

I can't work out though which platforms are more stable than others?

I think pretty much any hardware works with Vegas. The only major hardware incompatibilities I know of are with the Aja or Blackmagic cards. (Also check the driver support; I suspect that Aja might be better in this department, but you should research that for yourself.) You can look on their websites to see what hardware is compatible with those cards if you think you might want one in the future.

Other than that, I'd just make sure all the parts in your computer are compatible with each other. e.g. in rare cases the CPU is not compatible with the motherboard, RAM not compatible with motherboard, old generation PSU not compatible with motherboard (without adapters that are hard to find).

All the computer stuff changes really fast so I haven't really been keeping on top of it. But if you copy somebody else's parts you should be fine.

Sherif Choudhry · February 18th, 2008, 05:02 PM

Thanks for the input all.

Basically Vegas 8, QuadCore's, a huge number of possible h/w s/w configurations, hdv formats, render options, hd monitoring screens, ie the whole workflow is ALL so UNTRIED and UNTESTED. People are actually learning as they go along with HD....duh. This is typically what you see in leading edge technologies (with the early adopters no doubt all on this forum and paying for it) :-) :-(

Glenn Thanks - from your links I have also read the spec that Christian uses - sounds like what I need !

I'll just keep on hoping that VASST could publish a spec and put people who hate PC-tinkering out of their misery.

(http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=578525)

Baldwin Li · February 18th, 2008, 05:51 PM

see the thread below sherif for plenty of discussion. i set up a PC about 6 months ago as you can see discussed on this thread. gigabyte P35 DS3P mboard, Pentium Q6600 processer, 2gb crucial RAM, Geforce 8600GT, 2x500GB seagate barracudas set up as a striped RAID, one smaller 250GB barracuda as the primary drive, Gigabyte Geforce 8600GT silentpipe.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=baldwin

there's quite a few of us out there with very similar setups and i can safely say mine works great with Vegas. oh i also have a Focusrite Saffire firewire soundbox which sounds fantastic and works fine with vegas - i previously had an alesis i/o 26 which had serious issues with vegas i.e. the asio drivers just didnt work properly and i had to use it routed through Microsoft Sound Mapper(!)

baldwin

February 14th, 2008, 07:32 PM	#1
Sherif Choudhry Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London Posts: 222	VASST team - what spec platforms do you use? Hi, just to say what a great forum this is - I feel like I've had a Matrix-like brain-dump of great experience reading over the last 6 months. And more to the point I'm producing stuff! I have a question (and of course any advice from VASST or anyone is appreciated): what spec PCs and monitors are you using today for your Vegas based productions? I want to purchase a platform that is tried and tested with Sony Vegas 8. It should maximise Vegas performance for real time previews, multiple fx on the timeline clips and rendering. (I promise you wont be held accountable for whatever way I decide to use any advice you provide! :-) cheers Sherif

February 14th, 2008, 08:10 PM	#2
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	I'm not on the VASST team, but I'm enjoying my system which uses an Asus P5K WS motherboard and a QX6600 CPU. It's connected to a four drive MicroNet RAID 0. It's fast enough to read or write uncompressed 1080i60, and the four cores churn nicely when rendering. The P5K WS mobo has a PCI-X slot that hosts the MicroNet RAID card and keeps it well fed. I've got a pedestrian video card with two DVI ports. The second connects to a Sharp GP1 LCD TV. (Disclaimer - I work for Sharp Labs of America. But I honestly enjoy having this 1080p TV as my video monitor.) My current project is more scientific than artistic, so I'm doing all of the intermediate work in the uncompressed domain. If your work is compressed, you can go with more CPU and less HDD. __________________ Jon Fairhurst

February 15th, 2008, 02:44 PM	#4
Sherif Choudhry Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London Posts: 222	What a minefield ! A colleague is saying I should bypass a custom system and just get a specialist turnkey vendor to provide the system , at an increased 50 to 75% cost however. I am attracted by the Apple and FCP approach in that you actually have a lower number of key hardware combinations you can select. Sony should publish recommnded platforms for Vegas if they want to lower all the noise about its speed and stability. cheers Sherif

February 18th, 2008, 05:02 PM	#7
Sherif Choudhry Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London Posts: 222	Its so leading edge....its all untried and untested Thanks for the input all. Basically Vegas 8, QuadCore's, a huge number of possible h/w s/w configurations, hdv formats, render options, hd monitoring screens, ie the whole workflow is ALL so UNTRIED and UNTESTED. People are actually learning as they go along with HD....duh. This is typically what you see in leading edge technologies (with the early adopters no doubt all on this forum and paying for it) :-) :-( Glenn Thanks - from your links I have also read the spec that Christian uses - sounds like what I need ! I'll just keep on hoping that VASST could publish a spec and put people who hate PC-tinkering out of their misery. (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=578525)

February 15th, 2008, 02:17 PM	#3
Sherif Choudhry Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London Posts: 222	Jon, thanks, thats really useful - just to complete the picture: - XP or Vista? - RAM? - Which graphics card? Are you satisfied with real-time previews in Vegas 8 on the uncompressed HD with FX on the timeline clips?

February 18th, 2008, 05:51 PM	#8
Baldwin Li Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Manchester Posts: 69	see the thread below sherif for plenty of discussion. i set up a PC about 6 months ago as you can see discussed on this thread. gigabyte P35 DS3P mboard, Pentium Q6600 processer, 2gb crucial RAM, Geforce 8600GT, 2x500GB seagate barracudas set up as a striped RAID, one smaller 250GB barracuda as the primary drive, Gigabyte Geforce 8600GT silentpipe. http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=baldwin there's quite a few of us out there with very similar setups and i can safely say mine works great with Vegas. oh i also have a Focusrite Saffire firewire soundbox which sounds fantastic and works fine with vegas - i previously had an alesis i/o 26 which had serious issues with vegas i.e. the asio drivers just didnt work properly and i had to use it routed through Microsoft Sound Mapper(!) baldwin