MikeD340

Distinguished
Jan 2, 2002
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Best Setup?

I'm building a new system and I could use some advice.
Here's what I've got:

Athlon XP1700
ASUS A7V266 Motherboard
Toshiba DVD Drive
TDK 12x10x32 CDRW Drive
ATI RADEON 64MB DDR
ATI TV tuner card
onboard audio (until I can afford better)
Us Robotics wireless network card


2 Maxtor 40GB 7200rpm EIDE hard drives
1 Western Digital 30 GB 7200rpm EIDE drive

What I would LIKE to do is use this system for recording some of my favorite tv shows and thus reduce the need to have a cabinet filled with VHS tapes. I also wouldn't mind doing a bit of DVD ripping (OBVIOUSLY making BACK UP copies of my existing DVD's :wink: ). In addition, I do a bit of gaming, web surfing, paper writing, yadda yadda yadda.... So I'm looking to use the 40 GB drives to do the video recording/storage and use the 30 GB drive (which is already running windows 98SE and has many files on it already) as my primary drive. I've got Windows 98SE, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. I've also got an adaptec 1200A RAID card, http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/suppdetail.html?prodkey=AAR-1200A , (which does NOT support XP, but DOES support 98SE & 2000). I don't have ANY experience with RAID, but in reading about it this sounds like my best use for video capturing. How should I set this system up? What OS should I use? Should I use the RAID card or just enable it through Windows 2000/XP? Also any suggestions on the best compression/capturing method? I'm ALL about quality of video, but wouldn't mind being able to burn say an hour to 2 hours worth of video onto a CD. I could use all the advice I can get.

Please laugh, because I don't have a witty signature yet. :eek:
 

Lars_Coleman

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Feb 9, 2001
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I have no answers for the video capturing. All I do with video is make backup copies :smile: of my DVD's to DIVX.

My OS suggestions would be to use Windows 2000 and XP. I like both of those Operating System's. But with the SCSI controller you said it isn't supported in XP. You might want to look at doing a Software RAID within XP seeing as you have three hard drives. You can't boot off it, but it will be good for performance applications!