CompuServe Messages

George Here are some more tid bits of information that might help you or someone else wishing to configure a DPS PVR, in:sync Speed Razor Mach 3 system. Many of the tips are not new, but useful if you didn't already know them. I can't vouch for 100% accuracy but would appreciate any corrections or additions to this information from anyone. Sometimes the manufacturers have their hands full when introducing exiting new products like these and could use a little help from all of us in disseminating helpful information. 21/ I have decided to take your advice & use the EIDE controller built on most motherboards to handle my operating systems, audio & 4X CDROM drives. I really wanted to purchase a Fast SCSI2 controller for the PCI bus, but I will run out of PCI slots if I do. I'm intending on using 2 PCI slots for virtual screens (2 screens) using Matrox Millennium 4WRAM cards, 1 slot for the perception card & 1 slot for the future DPS Audio 4 Video card. I know I could have bought a motherboard with EISA slots & put the SCSI controller on that without compromise, but it would also have added significantly to the total cost & there aren't many motherboards with EISA, only ISA. A SCSI controller on the ISA slot would be slower and might not be fast enough to read 8 channels of audio when DPS brings their audio board out. EIDE is apparently faster than Fast SCSI2 although it is limited to 4 devices. I don't know much about EIDE so I sure hope I made the right choice. I had heard so many bad things about IDE that I wanted to avoid it, but Enhanced IDE is suppose to be much better. I bought a Western Digital 1.6 Gig for the systems drive & another for the audio because that was the largest & fastest I could find in IDE drives. Soon larger ones will be available. I was originally going to use a single Seagate Barracuda 4.3 SCSI for systems & audio. You'd be surprised how much hard drive space you can use up with audio. 22/ Thank you for your suggestion of using the Colorgrahic SuperWarp2 graphics card that frees up 2 PCI slots because it works from an ISA slot. At first it seemed expensive until I realized it was 2 graphics cards on one card & allowed virtual screens. I would be interested to hear users experiences on this board. It appears to be a sensible solution to the shortage of PCI slots. 23/ Some motherboards that I have not checked out, that look interesting for use with the PVR are: American Megatrends (AMI) Titan II (quite expensive), AMI Appollo, Micronics M54HL, Intel P5-133, SuperMicro P55CWS, Advanced Integration Reasearch (AIR) 54CDP version 2 and the Intel Zappa. The Alpha DEC Dream Machine computers looked promising too, but I couldn't find anyone who had stock & they were rather expensive. DeVita Associates (905) 771-8373 is the Canadian Distributor of AMI products. 24/ Several people have suggested that insisting on a dual Pentium motherboard right now, limits my choices too much, so I am going with a single Pentium 133 MHz ECS TS54P motherboard. This motherboard doesn't appear to be anything extraordinary and I don't even know if it will be contention free but I'll let you know next week. Dual Pentium motherboards need the Intel NEPTUNE chip set which apparently recently introduced a newer version that will work as high as 133 MHz rather than 120, but is not commonly available yet. Currently, the Neptune chip set will only work with regular 72 pin simms, not EDO ram. Speed Razor Mach 3 by in:snyc for Windows NT, currently doesn't make much/any use of the second Pentium, but they have plans perhaps 6 months down the road to have software that takes advantage of a dual Pentium. 25/ Many motherboards have 4 PCI & 4 ISA slots where one of each is shared. In other words, you either use the PCI slot that is closest to the ISA slots or you use the ISA slot that is closest to the PCI, but not both. Usually this compromise is made because the motherboard is a baby AT size & there isn't enough room to separate the ISA slots from the PCI slots. PCI & ISA boards have components on opposite sides to each other, so they physically can't be put right next to each other without one of the slots going unused. Eric from the Canadian DPS office indicated that "some" motherboards that use this shared "either or" slot arrangement, have the shared PCI slot as a BUSS SLAVE rather than a BUSS MASTER slot. The Perception board must use a "buss master" PCI slot. A requirement that I don't recall seeing in any of the DPS literature. Some other boards can work fine on a buss slave PCI slot. It's important to check this out on your motherboard since it is often this same PCI slot that you want to use for the Perception card if the daughtercard is to overhang an ISA slot. 26/ With few exceptions, most motherboards that have the maximum of 4 PCI slots, have only 1 or 2 of them full length. The others are blocked for full length use by the CPU & fan or some other component. The Perception is a full length card & the daughtercard takes a full length space. If you're considering the DPS Audio 4 Video card when it comes out, you'll need a full length slot for that too. There are some motherboards like the AMI Titan II where all 4 PCI slots are full length or the AMI Appollo where the 3 PCI slots closet to the ISA are full length. If you can't find a motherboard that suites your current and future needs, then you can buy a 1" riser card from DPS part # 804-997 that gets a full length card above obstructions. This particular riser also has a bracket so the new height of the board is accommodated when attaching to the back of the computer opening. 27/ DPS said to make sure the motherboard has adjustable IRQ settings. I presume most new high end boards do. 28/ I'm still waiting to hear back from Matrox & DPS Kentucky about the possible contention problems between the Millennium & the Perception. 29/ When using several hard drives for video, it is recommended to get them into a separate box for additional cooling. Most computer supertowers do have enough space to accommodate several drives, but the drives are usually stacked so close to each other, with such poor air flow around the drives that their life-span is shortened. Additionally, hard drives cause spikes on the power supply which could affect the computer circuitry if the power supply isn't big enough. If you do put video drives in the main computer box, separate them with an empty drive slot between them & install an extra fan on the front to push air into the case. Don't run with the cover off as this usually reduces air flow. If you or others know of supertowers that have "well designed" cooling for several drives, I would appreciate hearing the details. I have come across two suppliers of external boxes with fans and power supplies, designed specifically for housing & cooling several hard drives. One is the JET box by Legendary Technologies (519) 753-6120 or Internet:legend@io.org The other is the one I bought called the QuadBox from Trimm Technologies 1 800 423-2024 and distributed in Canada by Tenex Data (416) 291-5894. I'll let you know how it works out. Even though there's not much to them, these boxes are a lot more expensive than a computer case, but I'm told it's because they're customized. If you or anyone else has found other external video hard drive boxes, please post me the details for my magazine article. 30/ There are two or three types of external SCSI connectors that can connect the computer to the video hard drives box. The 50 pin high density type seems to offer the least chance of problems because it uses 25 twisted pairs (cable is thick). The 50 pin Centronics connector is used quite often, but sometimes has only one ground and not 25 individual twisted pair grounds. Centronics cables also sometimes have a lower impedance than required for SCSI. DPS sells an internal 50 pin SCSI ribbon connector that fits on the Perception board and the other end is a 50 pin high density external connector & bracket that fits in the back of the computer case. Part # is 774-540. The Centronics is # 774-539. 31/ I'm planning on installing a dual or triple booting operating system using Windows NT, Windows 3.11 & Windows 95. If you or anyone else has advice on how to do this properly, please E-mail the details to me. 32/ I just found out that Microsoft does not give any free technical support line help for Windows NT. They do have extensive manuals that come with the software and there is plenty of online BBS help, but talking to a tech. will cost you. Windows 95 comes with 3 months of technical help. Go figure. Apparently Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) will give you one free NT technical call as a customer relations gesture to help increase their market share. 33/ If you or anyone else has advice of Dat tape backups & where they hook in, I would appreciate hearing it. Also, advice on which paint package I should use for touching up & manipulating video stills. Regards Doug Hembruff 102711,1127 Impact Televideo Productions London, Ontario, Canada