In the Name of Better Posture

The jump to HD video editing via the Black Magic Design's Intensity Pro capture card has necessitated upgrading to a computer monitor that not only supports DVI-D for when I'm working, but also HDMI so I can pass along along the signal from an Xbox 360 or PS3. I've been running two 20" LCD monitors side-by-side and will still need a second monitor for taking notes and writing while playing games. Because of this I was hesitant about getting too big of a monitor for fear of running out of space on my desk.

It's amazing how you can make things fit when you come across a superb 26" widescreen monitor for nearly half the price I paid just 4 years ago for a dramatically inferior 20" one.

I ended up picking up the Samsung SyncMaster 2693HM at Fry's yesterday afternoon (nobody local had the 24" model in stock, else I would have gotten that one... and Fry's had a $50 mail-in rebate on the 26" model) and I have been giggling like a schoolgirl ever since.

The monitor is sleek, bright, has zero dead pixels (not always a gimme), and with a native resolution of 1920x1200 and full support for 1080p, is not only making my photos pop off the screen, but my games look better than ever too. I typically sit hunched over my desk, leaning heavily on my elbows, staring into the monitor at a range far too close to be healthy on my eyes, but not anymore. I'm kicked back in the chair, arms outstretched, and finally after so many years of deskjockeying, am finally comfortable.

I had no idea a monitor of this caliber could be had for so (relatively) little money. It even boasts built-in (albeit tinny) speakers, has a height-adustable stand, and can swivel and rotate into vertical mode. The only complaint I have is the same one that many people registered on Best Buy's website and that is that there is no remote control and the source, volume, and menu buttons are essentially touch-screens on the bevel and are impossible to see without shining a spotlight on the lower right-hand corner of the monitor and squinting. But, in all honesty, this is a fairly minor complaint, as the only time I'm really using those buttons is to switch input sources.

Horses, Vista, and a Guy Named Stan

My bundle of various Adobe CS3 products arrived Friday evening and my initial excitement was quickly squelched by the realization that it wouldn't install on my computer. Oh, it should have installed without trouble, but after attempting the solutions detailed on over a dozen "knowledge base" articles on Adobe's website, I came to one that simply said, if nothing else works upgrade to Vista.

Sigh.

I also picked up the Infinity Pro HDMI capture card on Friday and knew a Vista upgrade was going to be required to get that running -- and to maintain friendships with a certain local MS employee -- so I spent Friday night preparing for the dirty deed. I copied everything and anything I can think of onto my external 250GB harddrive. And by everything and anything I mean everything except for the all-important product activation keys I would need to re-download electronic software purchases. And email. Oops.

Saturday morning came as it always does and I rushed over to Staples and picked up an upgrade version of Vista Ultimate. I intended to do a clean install rather than a straight upgrade. I knew the odds of catastrophic failure on my part were greater, but I really wanted to at least feel like I had an uncluttered new PC.

The install would have to wait. We had a date at the race track with friends for the opening weekend. Emerald Downs is only about 30 minutes away and is a pretty fun way to spend the day. Kristin and I brought $100 and intended to nurse it through the ten races and, if all went well, enjoy a few beers and hotdogs along the way without having to make a run to the ATM. We typically bet about $12-14 per race and were lucky enough to win about $18-20 on each of the first few races. Things got even better after that though. We hit the trifecta in the 5th race and won $256 on a $2 bet. That was exciting, save for the realization that if not for a totally bone-headed maneuver on my part, we would have won close to $2000. In addition to a random assortment of $2 bets for each race, we also made a couple of $1 superfecta bets. Winning a supefecta bet requires you to predict the first four finishers in order. Some call it a sucker's bet, but I don't see it that way. It's only a dollar, and you're guaranteed to win over a thousand if you hit it. You mean to tell me you wouldn't risk a latte on a couple of chances to win a grand? The odds are steep, but they're still a zillion times better than winning the lottery.

Anyway, we did have the correct four horses picked for one of our superfecta bets for that race -- but rather than just adding the fourth horse (#6) to the tail-end of our winning trifecta pick, we jumbled the four horses up in a totally different order. Had we have simply stuck with the trifecta-winning order and added the fourth horse to it, we would have pocketed over $2000 on a total $3 bet. I hate even typing that. We won some more during the final races, but also bet larger quantities too and ultimately went home with $320 in our wallet and a belly full of beer and snacks. Our friends won a couple of $2 show bets, totalling about $5 in winnings. Between me and the 1's and 0's of the web, I don't think they were betting enough to have much chance in winning. From what little I know, horse-racing is like playing craps in that you have to have a lot of bets on the table to have a good chance of winning.

The four of us came back to our place to watch Into the Wild and I ordered some pizzas with our winnings. The movie was just as good the second time through, but I had forgotten how long it was (2:27) and they didn't leave until almost 11pm at night. Vista had to wait until Sunday.

Sunday was Vista day. Kristin helped prepare me for my arduous quest with a plate full of french toast and a hot mug of coffee, then it was upstairs to my office to slay the dragon that tormented my dreams the previous two nights.

The install went smoothly, all things considered. Windows dumped my old stuff into a Windows.old file on the C drive that allowed quick access to some of the essentials. This came in handy to an extent, but I had nearly all of it already backed-up anyway. It would have been even more helpful if it had saved the "app data" folder, but it doesn't.

As for the problems, there were a few. For starters, Vista wouldn't recognize my printer and after much trial-and-error I learned that HP is refusing to release a driver update for the printer I had. The printer was over 5 years old but still worked very well. Other owners were told by HP to buy one of their new printers. I think it's pretty lousy that we can't even expect things to last more than 5 years anymore without the manufacturer deeming them obsolete. I was pretty ticked off about this and was determined to buy an Epson or Canon instead, but HP is running a program through May 3rd with Staples that gives you $50 off a new printer if you recycle an old one. I ended up getting the HP Deskjet 6988 which has built-in wireless networking -- Kristin is thrilled to be able to print without having to carry files on a memory stick to my PC. And, to be honest, the selection at Staples was pretty lacking in terms of non-HP printers.

Our mid-crisis trip to Staples did have the added benefit of introducing us to a barbecue place in Issaquah called Stan's. The owner grew up in Kansas City learning how to smoke meat from his father or grandfather or uncle or somebody and it definitely shows. I'm a big fan of barbecue and I had been wanting to eat at this place for a while and just never got a chance to. I knew it was going to be good before we even walked inside -- you could smell the smoke on the sidewalk. Kristin and I shared the Who's Your Daddy combo platter: 1/2 pound pulled pork, 3 ribs, 1/2 pound brisket, 2 hot links and 2 sides. We ate until we were full and still have enough for at least 2 more meals. Everything was delicious (the ribs were the low-point, If I had to pick one) and it only cost $24. I think I have a new favorite place in Issy to eat, even if it is decorated in Kansas City Chiefs memorabilia -- it's a good thing the Seahawks moved from the AFC West to the NFC West, otherwise I'd have to boycott this place. And that would be a shame.

Back home, I ran into a few other problems with the upgrade that stemmed from having purchased program upgrades online and forgetting to either burn the download file to a disk or saving the activation key. I also ran into other printer-related problems but a quick Google search found the answer -- I had to change the setttings in the "turn Windows features on and off" area of Control Panel. Oddly enough, I had to repeat this step in order to get the printer to work on our two laptops too.

All in all, everything went really well. Vista recognizes my 4gigs of RAM, all my programs installed easily, driver updates were easy to find online, and the computer is running very fast and appears very stable. The only really big hiccup that had me banging my head on the desk (other than the printer problem) was that I couldn't get the capture equipment I have for the Nintendo DS to work -- and I desperately need it to work. Long story short, I was emailed the Vista drivers for it this morning. That was a close one!

Computer Upgrades & HD Recording

The cat isn't just out of the bag, it's clawed its way up the curtains, leapt to the ceiling fan, and is now currently gnawing through the wiring.

A while back I posted a question about upgrading my PC and, as I guessed, many of you know far more about PC upgrades than I and sent emails and comments that were very helpful. And, lucky for me, many of your suggestions matched my gut feeling on what I needed to do. The problem, as I laid it out, is that I have a very capable machine that is starting to show its age and that I need to prepare it for HD video capture and editing. My goal is to spend a little bit of money to hopefully squeeze another year or two out of this machine.

First things first, I don't do much gaming on my PC anymore. I used to, but then again I used to only pay 50 cents for a cup of coffee too. Nowadays I use the PC for writing (obviously) and for batch-editing thousands of screenshots and using Photoshop & Illustrator for maps. I'm also soon going to be recording significant portions of my gameplay in uncompressed 1080i video files. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, BradyGames offers downloadable strategy videos (for a small fee) over Xbox Live and, I believe, on the Playstation Network. The gameplay you see in the Gears of War videos, for example, is that of me playing -- we dubbed Cliffy B's voice-over work on top of it, but it was me working the controller. The problem is that I had to make a special 1-day trip across the country to Epic to record that gameplay on account of not having any HD capturing equipment. The reason I didn't wasn't because of an unwillingness to invest in equipment, but rather that the cheapest capture cards back in 2006 were thousands of dollars and required dedicated machines, not to mention broadcast-level know-how.

It's 18 months later and cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives now exist. I can't put off the upgrade expense anymore -- I need to have HD video capturing capabilities for work and I can't justifiably say no any longer. Fortunately, I was tipped off to the Black Magic Intensity Pro capture card. It very simply uses an HDMI input and a PCI Express slot to capture full-resolution 1920x1080 HD video. I can use it to capture live gameplay (I'm getting the "Pro" version for the added analog inputs in case I ever need to do anything with a Nintendo Wii) on one monitor while running a second HDMI cable from the card's output to a second monitor for gameplay, as the captured video stream will be a little jittery and not conducive for gameplay.

Now for the hurdles: Recording uncompressed HD video at 1080i takes up 350 gigabytes of space per hour of video. Even compressed HD-Jpeg 1080i video occupies roughly 36 gigabytes of space per hour of gameplay. In contrast, recording uncompressed 720x480 standard-definition gameplay took up about 17 gigabytes of space per hour of video. I usually end up with a minimum of 15 hours of gameplay when I'm recording video. And for a lengthy RPG or, say, a sophisticated racing game, that total could approach 100 hours. If I recall correctly, I had over 60 hours of recorded gameplay for Okami.

So, to prepare for this increased demand for computing power, I upgraded my RAM. The PC had 2 gigs and I upgraded to 4 gigs of RAM. Best Buy had a sale on 1-gig sticks of RAM for $35 each and I picked up four of them (the PC came with 512 sticks and they were in the way). Yes, I'm running Windows XP and yes it's only recognizing 2.0 gigabytes in the System Properties box, but both the bios and MSinfo32 (thanks Erik!) are reporting all 4 gigabytes. I spoke with Dell and they said (and MS Erik concurred) was, in effect, that it doesn't matter what Windows thinks you have, you're still going to feel the benefits of having twice as much memory. And so far so good.

I also upgraded from a GeForce 6800 videocard with 256 MB on-board memory to a GeForce 8500 GT with 1 gig of on-board memory. The 8500 isn't a gamer's card per se, but is actually more geared towards HD video and application usage which is what I needed. I originally bought two of them (Best Buy on sale for $149 each) to run in SLI since I have an SLI-capable motherboard, but after much trial and error (and a housecall from Erik) we realized I simply didn't have enough power to run two of them. Each card draws 300 watts and although I have a 650-watt power supply in my PC, it was cutting it too close and the system denied the necessary resources for the second card. Since I was on the fence about running SLI again anyway (I really like using the two monitors and you have to drop down to one monitor with SLI) I decided to forego upgrading the power supply and simply returned the second card. I was already deeper into the rabbit hole than I wanted to venture in the first place.

So, moving forward, it now looks like I may have to upgrade to Vista. Black Magic says their card works with XP Professional but not XP Media Center. In fact, they specifically say it doesn't support Media Center. They also mention that it works with Vista Ultimate edition (which would at least see all 4 gigs of RAM, so it has that going for it). I supposed I could find a new-in-box copy of XP Professional for sale online. We'll see...

Then there's the issue of HDCP. HDCP is an encryption used to protect HD-quality video being output from devices like Blu-Ray Players and, I believe, the Xbox 360. I haven't gotten a straight answer on this yet but if the new-and-improved Xbox 360 with the HDMI outputs does in fact utilize HDCP I may have to get a new monitor that is also HDCP compliant. Else I won't be able to play on a second monitor and would have to actually try and play in the capture window of Adobe Premiere Pro.

Speaking of Premiere Pro, I have to get that too. I got a killer deal on the Adobe Design Standard CS3 bundle the other day through Kristin's access to the Seattle University bookstore: I scooped up CS3 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro for just $479 (normal retail is $1100 to $1300 for this bundle) but now I also need to get Premiere Pro as well in order to utilize the HD capture plug-ins that come with the card. It's either that or buy a Mac and install a copy of Final Cut. Since I don't have limitless funds, that's not an option. It's bad enough after all is said and done I'm going to have to get at least one terabyte-sized hard drive as well.

As an aside, I'm really excited to have Illustrator and InDesign again. I'm taking over layout/editing duties for the brochures and leaflets for Kristin's social justice project and have also been asked to make some changes to the Village Volunteers logo and potentially help design a fund-raising brochure for them.

So, as you can see, the upgrades are a happening. The system seems to be stable and I'm sure as soon as I get back to work on my current project -- I had to exchange the build I had for a new one so I'm at a standstill right now -- and start diving into the maps and screenshots, I'll know for sure if the new card and increased RAM are having an impact. I just dread the thought of having to upgrade operating systems. I just know I'm going to run into driver issues and other compatibility problems. Ideally I'll be able to keep on using XP until I plunk down in 2010 for a new machine.

PC Upgrade Question

I know a few of you out there are pretty savvy when it comes to computers and upgrades and whatnot, so I'm going to ask for your help.

I have a 2 year old Dell XPS 600 that runs pretty well, but is starting to chug a bit at times. I want to give it a boost and try to make it "new again" but not sure where to start. Essentially, I want to extend the life of the machine so I don't end up spending another $3k to replace it next year. Between games, video editing and batch-processing hundreds and sometimes thousands of screenshots at a time, I need something on the beefier end of the spectrum, especially now that I'm working a lot with HD-quality images.

Here's the nuts & bolts of the current machine:

- Windows XP Media Center S.P. 2
- Intel Pentium D 840 (3.20 GHz) w/Dual-Core Technology
- 2.00 GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
- Nvidia 256MB Geforce 6800 videocard
- 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
- 160GB NCQ Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
- 16X DVD-ROM
- 18X DVD-RW

The system came with twin Geforce 6800 cards with SLI support but one of the cards died recently and since I typically run two monitors simultaneously (not supported with SLI) I usually had to turn SLI off and only use one card anyway. Also, the originaly DVD-RW died a few months ago and I replaced it with the 18X one shown in the list. I also have a 250GB Maxtor external hard-drive.

What I'm thinking of doing is this: replace the video card with something a bit more current, perhaps with DirectX 10 support, and to also replace the RAM with 4GB of something better. Maybe replace the Hard-drives with faster hard drives as well.

Thoughts?

Also, while I'm at it, should I wipe the discs and reformat the entire machine and use the OEM discs Dell provided and re-install the OS and everything else Dell sent along or should I make the jump to Vista? My laptop is Vista and while I definitely *HATE* the new version of Office 2007, I might grow to hate it less if I was forced to use it regularly.

Any specific suggestions or product advice you can provide would be appreciated. Espeially when it comes to choosing RAM and Hard-Drives and going about reformatting the machine and making it new again.

Edit: I should also add that if anyone is local and would like to help me complete the upgrade, I'll happily buy you lunch and beer at the Snoqualmie Taproom.