98SE Good Enough For Now?

[EndBoards]

I am putting together a new machine with the following specs: Soyo Dragon Ultra MB, Athlon 1600XP, 512MB Crucial RAM, 20G system drive and a dedicated 40G 7200 RPM for video.

I plan to use the ATI TV Wonder to do some basic capturing for my home videos. For now, I'm just going to burn to VCD. Extensive editing isn't necessary just yet, but I do want to be able to do enough to get my feet wet.

Eventually I will move to XP but with my first kid on the way in a few weeks, I'd like to keep costs down. Is W98SE good enough for now or are there good reasons for me to spring for XP Pro?

[psx_pirate]

I use 98 SE for all my cd/dvd stuff and have no prob so i dont see that there is any need to go to xp i use athlon 1gb with 512mb ram and it works great for me

[Thommers]

I have XP only because I wasn't offered 98SE. XP has some advantages, but many times it has problems that only time can fix.

[LanEvo7]

If its working for you, then don't change it. Upgrade when you run into major unfixable problems.

[EndBoards]

I'm building a new system and I've already got 98SE. If I wanted to use XP, I'd have to shell out the $150. I will do that eventually, but if I can get away with 98SE for now then I will...

Is the 4G file size limit of 98SE going to come into play for the simple video work I'm doing?

Since my destination for now is VCD, I don't see how I'd have to deal with files over 700MB or so. Just want to make sure I'm correct...

[Vejita-sama]

The FAT32 4GB file limit is a huge pain in the a&& for digitial video work. But there are ways around it. You can capture with a program that has a 'spill system' (eg. VDub or AVI_IO) which will capture to smaller files (I use to set VDub to capture 1.9GB files). Then you can use AVISynth to frameserve the pieces to TMPGEnc (or frameserve from VDub).

DVD wise you can't rip some ISO files to your HD as most DVD5 discs I see are just over 4GB But you can rip anything in file mode as the DVD standard set the max file size at 1GB.

There are other advantages to NTFS, but basically to answer your question the 4GB limit is a pain, but you can work around it to do most of the things you need.

[Gabriel]

I'm building a new system and I've already got 98SE. If I wanted to use XP, I'd have to shell out the $150. I will do that eventually, but if I can get away with 98SE for now then I will...

Is the 4G file size limit of 98SE going to come into play for the simple video work I'm doing?

Since my destination for now is VCD, I don't see how I'd have to deal with files over 700MB or so. Just want to make sure I'm correct...

You can get XP for a lot less if you buy from an internet source instead of local store. Try newegg $93 + $4 shipping. I recently built a new system and changed to XP. It is MUCH better and more stable than 98SE which I kept on a second hard drive. I really hate to say anything good about a microsoft product, but this one is a lot better than anything to date.

[txpharoah]

You'd be surprised at the number of system still running 98SE. Only change if you need to (from errors, new hardware, or NTFS), not because you want to.

[poopyhead]

win98SE seems to still have the most driver, software compatibility...at least equal to, but most likely more than, the newer OS out there

[energy80s]

I use Win98SE all the time. I have XP Pro but have severe problems trying to run it. Unless you need support for single files bigger than 4Gb, stick with 98.

[Bradskey]

Aging and sneered upon, 98SE continues to be the de facto baseline standard for most apps and games, and for casual video cap/processing I find it works quite well. I dual boot 98SE and XP and I find I spend WAY more time in 98 because 1) it works, and 2) it works, and 3) it works. I'd have to say 98SE was probably the best general purpose OS Microsoft ever released before XP. 2000 was pretty good, but I feel like XP was more of finished product, tho' plenty of people hate it. If there was a way to upgrade the filesystem on 98 I could use it quite happily for years, but with the real DVD era about to spring upon us 98's limitations are going to be a real liability and will ultimately relegate it to the archaic status enjoyed by Win95.

[psx_pirate]

the 4 gig file size limit of win 98 se isnt a major problem as the only thing thats likely to be of that size are dvd movies and ps2 or xbox games the solution to this problem is to rip nwith dvd decrypter as it will automatically split the files at the 4gb limit and apend a second file to the main iso when u burn back to dvdr you will have a few files in the folder you saved the rip one of which is "filename".mds (where "filename" is the name you gave to the file, this is the file you need to select for the burn, it will then burn the entire image of the disk that you copied (works for dvd 5's only) this works both for movies and ps2 games i'm not sure about xbox as i dont have one so i've never tried.

for dvd 9's use dvd decrypter in file mode as you will need to reencode the dvd, in file mode the files will be no bigger than 1gb (this is a dvd limitation not a limit produced by dvd decrypter, all dvd's have files of 1gb or less) you will however require a different program to burn the files back to dvd i recommend record now max it works brilliantly

[poopyhead]

(this is a dvd limitation not a limit produced by dvd decrypter, all dvd's have files of 1gb or less)

most vobs have a limit of 0.99 GB......howver, on some rare occasions, i've seen a DVD have a vob file over that limit....don't remember, but it was 1.00 GB...