Designing A New Build

[Foxbat]

My mouse pad at work is the one that came with the Video Toaster we used in the late 1990s on our A4000 boxes.

In fact, I just got a e-mail from NewTek asking if I'd like to upgrade my LightWave to the latest version for only $295. I'm very tempted, but if I did, then I'd need something like this New Build box and now we're talking a little more than a $300 upgrade.

 

[harshness]

You had a Commodore Amiga?

I bought my first in 1985. I bought the "kipper can" 256KB memory expansion with it. After I made some money on Commodore stock, I bought an A2500 and eventually got a Toaster and subsequently a Flyer (the NLE part with 18GB of storage).

But to finish it, with graphics and more inserts, we used my FAST Video Machine. Do you recall those?

I never used my Toaster for live switching but I used Amigas weekly up until the cable access facility went digital around the turn of the century. The FAST was perhaps a little more sophisticated in terms of handling AB roll but as I recall, it begged you to use controllable VTRs and it cost a whole lot of money.

 

[navychop]

A friend of mine tried to sell an Amiga to a business. Things were going well until “Guru Meditation....”

 

[TheForce]

I never used my Toaster for live switching but I used Amigas weekly up until the cable access facility went digital around the turn of the century. The FAST was perhaps a little more sophisticated in terms of handling AB roll but as I recall, it begged you to use controllable VTRs and it cost a whole lot of money.

I had been editing cuts only with a pair of 3/4 Umatic decks and a Basic RM450 controller. But I was losing jobs to competition because I didn't have beta SP capability. The Toaster offered some effects with two players but no control and the Composite video output was really bad and you couldn't air it on broadcast TV without running it through a frame store synchronizer and they were really expensive at the time, like $50K. Then I discovered tyhe Fast VM and it could do everything I needed with component YUV 8:8:8 quality. I could do better quality 6 generations of copy than the toaster at 1 generation. It had an RS422 deck controller, a iLink deck control, Betacam component I/O, Y/C I/O and composite video I/O. I could connect up to 6 feeder decks and one edit recorder. I had standards conversion from PAL - NTSC- SECAM. Later they came out with a APR that added a digital non-linear editing capability. I had 8 SCSI hard drives on that system for non-linear editing. I could mix and edit just about any format out there with betacam SP quality. The final format I used on the system was DVCAM. I converted all my dockable cameras to DVCAM backs for the 3 hour record time and all digital. I still have my feeder decks here to play and digitize my old tapes. But I recently gave all my production truck equipment to the fellow who worked with me. He got for broadcast cameras with both beta SP and DVCAM decks, light kits, pro audio tripods dollys, steadicam EZ jib, a truck load. I told him if he couldn't use it sell it and buy something you can use.

 

[TheForce]

Update: I had so many problems all of a sudden, I ended up scrapping the whole computer. The problems just kept returning and the final nail in the coffin was the computer CPU went dead! Could have been something on the MB but it just refused to even turn on, even with a new power supply. So my game plan for the year has changed. I migrated my backup and system drive to my windows 7 video editing computer that has dual boot 7 and 10 on two separate 500GB SSD. I installed a new Virtual machine on win XP for those old 16 bit programs I have lots of historical data on, including Quicken. So I now have one box with 3 OS on it. The disadvantage of this setup is that if I need to do a 10 hour render in windows 10 I can't access my win 7 stuff. Later this year I still plan to build that isolated computer with an i9-7980 or similar for video editing.

One of the basic sets of programs most people need is a good email, word processor, and spreadsheet. Microsoft Office is hands down the best in this category but it has always been expensive and soon out of date. I decided to go the rental route and happy with the decision. A single computer was $6.99 a month for the entire Office 365 suite. But an even better deal for me was the 5 computer bundle for $9.99 that includes Mac versions and unlimited mobile devices. The new Microsoft word even can edit and create pdf files. This compares to what Adobe charges of $19.99 a month for just the Acrobat Pro. I already tested this and it works flawlessly and totally compatible with Acrobat readers.

 

[Foxbat]

Don, I wonder if you had some bad electrolytic capacitors on the Motherboard in the CPU Power filtering area. We've had a ton of computers (and LCD monitors!) die for this reason. I've replaced caps when it was necessary, but especially with the monitors, it makes more sense to get a new LED-backlit panel with better contrast, more inputs, larger screen, all for less than my time and the $2.00 in parts. On the computers, if it was something we couldn't take the hard drives over to a different box, we'd attempt replacing the caps, usually with good success. But then we ran into data corruption on the system or data due to the frequent crashes. SpinRite can help on some of that, but it's a crapshoot.

 

[harshness]

On the computers, if it was something we couldn't take the hard drives over to a different box, we'd attempt replacing the caps, usually with good success.

For those under the thumb of Microsoft's retail licensing for Windows, this can be rather challenging. The new computer can only have one thing different from the original computer. If you don't use most of the same components, Windows may balk and then you have to do battle with a really stinky automated system to get your license turned back on.

SpinRite can help on some of that, but it's a crapshoot.

Spinrite has issues with many computer configurations as it hasn't really been updated in 13 years. Steve hinted of a 6.1 update over six years ago and it still hasn't materialized. Old hard drives typically aren't worth the time and effort to recover them and a good data recovery program may get you as far or further.

 

[TheForce]

or those under the thumb of Microsoft's retail licensing for Windows, this can be rather challenging. The new computer can only have one thing different from the original computer. If you don't use most of the same components, Windows may balk and then you have to do battle with a really stinky automated system to get your license turned back on.

Oh, I know that story, The tech support at Microsoft sucks. Unless you have a problem that exists in their AI analysis, you can forget about getting help. The AI is so good it fooled me the other day. I thought I had a real person who introduced herself as a "tech support in training" But it became clear I was dealing with a robot when "she" kept answering "I didn't understand that request." to My question- "How do I stop the denial of permissions when I move a data drive from windows 7 computer to a windows 10 computer or back again?" after the third non response, I just sat there laughing. The best trouble shooting are the forums these days. I'm amazed that there are so many who have same issues and a few figured out how to fix it.

Roland- My days of doing component trouble shooting are over. If it isn't obvious, I just toss the thing and buy a new one.

 

[harshness]

My question- "How do I stop the denial of permissions when I move a data drive from windows 7 computer to a windows 10 computer or back again?" after the third non response, I just sat there laughing.

The reason it balked is that there is no satisfactory answer to your question. It simply isn't possible to synchronize the permissions even between the same version of Windows.

The best trouble shooting are the forums these days.

Certainly not the Microsoft forums. Those are littered with incorrect and stale responses that Microsoft seems completely disinterested in culling.

Windows 10 has made things even more difficult by putting a new face on old problems and not revising the solutions to account for the changes. Adding to the complication is that so much changes with each public build but they don't allow you to choose the windows build when searching.