Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR

[BOMOON]

One of the reasons I built my PC last year was to have a motherboard that would give me a lot of options like you propose.

Per what I just posted to jagabo, is there any chance you could PM me with the specs for the PC you're using for HD capture? I don't need a great deal of specifics beyond MB brand, CPU, RAM. chipset, card set. Hope this isn't a big deal. If it is, that's cool, I'll keep looking through this thread for some of things you guys have already said about your systems.

Thanks again,

Alan Mintaka

[Tom Saurus]

The file I edited and converted, I watched it today. The lip sync was good all the way through. I did notice a slight flaw in the sound on occasion, but that was just the rare little moment as the vast majority was just flawless sound wise. I chose .mp3 for the sound. The video was a bit hard on the eyes, until I went into the VLC video settings and set Interlace to automatic. It was just movement was a little hard on the eyes, but it smoothed out quite nicely and I watched the show being played on my sister's laptop outputted via an HDMI cable. The TV is a 20 inch LCD 480p. It did look good. If I had my druthers I would of preferred to edit with AviDemux and then encode with Vidcoder as I prefer the way it does the .h264 .mkv files. The problem I ran into with AviDemux was it kept telling me I was cutting on the wrong type of frames and crashing. AviDemux could stand a little bit of a change making the info at the bottom of the screen where you are cutting in a bigger type.

[jagabo]

When I was using the Hauppauge USB 2 HD PVR 01212 to capture HD component it was on a Core 2 Duo E6300 with a Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT. At some point the motherboard and CPU were upgraded to an Intel Q6600 quad core CPU.

AviDemux is a piece of crap. It crashes all the time.

[SHS]

You should look and review this over this which about the best installation guides I know of for motherbaord
http://biorobots.cwru.edu/server/howto/buildcomp/mountmobo/

When come to cpu installation guide there eazy there is enough video out just type in Youtube "(Type of CPU) or (Socket Type) CPU Installation Tutorial" like Core i7 CPU Installation or LGA1156 CPU Installation Tutorial see the two video below.

When come to CPU cooler yup they can be a bit of a plain in rear more so with good 3rd party cooler, but stock intel/amd are usely very eazy to do
Intel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBae0TOdBqw
AMD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzZQgJDyzGI

Things you want lean is Motherboard BIOS Setup and Basic Tuning there two types old school Menu and UEFI

[SHS]

One of the reasons I built my PC last year was to have a motherboard that would give me a lot of options like you propose.

Per what I just posted to jagabo, is there any chance you could PM me with the specs for the PC you're using for HD capture? I don't need a great deal of specifics beyond MB brand, CPU, RAM. chipset, card set. Hope this isn't a big deal. If it is, that's cool, I'll keep looking through this thread for some of things you guys have already said about your systems.

Thanks again,

Alan Mintaka

This my TV Recoder
SageTV Media Server
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
Crucial Ballistix 4x1GB 4GB
ATI Radeon HD3450 (This carp for playback of H.264 some day I upgrade it to HD 6450)
Hauppauge Colossus
Hauppauge HD-PVR 2 Gaming Edition
Corsair CMPSU-450VX
Seagate Barracuda (2) 500GB and (3) 1GB drive
Samsung SH-S223Q DVD R/W
Dell USB Keyboard
Logitech M100 Optical Mouse
Samsung SyncMaster 920N
With Battery backup

This what I used to edit with it and it my gaming system.
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P
AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 4x2GB 8GB (CM2X2048-6400C5)
Diamond ATI Radeon HD5850 (5850PE51G)
Corsair CMPSU-650TX
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache
LG SATA Blu-Ray/DVD Disc Rewriter WH12LS38
Microsoft SideWinder Precision Racing Wheel USB
Microsoft SideWinder Precision 2 USB
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech M100 Optical Mouse
Samsung SyncMaster 2233BW

[BOMOON]

This my TV Recoder
...
This what I used to edit with it and it my gaming system.
...

I figured you'd be loaded to the gills with top-end systems. I keep two systems for that purpose too, i.e. one for editing and one for capturing and other media-intense work (I do a lot of transcribing of audiobook cassettes to MP3 CDs and players).

Obviously my systems are nowhere near as high-end as yours. I "hope" to be able to use the Dimension 8400 as the editing machine after I get an HD capturing PC.

Yours is another vote for GigaByte MBs. I've been hearing from more than one person that they're easier to work with than the ASUS boards, which are too densely populated for easy placement of expansion cards, etc.

Thanks for the exhaustive system list! It's going into my file, especially that note about upgrading the ATI card.

Have a good one,
Alan Mintaka

[BOMOON]

When I was using the Hauppauge USB 2 HD PVR 01212 to capture HD component it was on a Core 2 Duo E6300 with a Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT. At some point the motherboard and CPU were upgraded to an Intel Q6600 quad core CPU.
...
AviDemux is a piece of crap. It crashes all the time.

Thanks jagabo!

I couldn't get AviDemux to produce output files that Vegas Pro 11 would read. Hence, no improvement over the TS files captured by the Colossus.

I can still use AVS Video Converter 8 to generate readable files, but I keep hoping I can find a bare-bones deMUXer that will do the job without re-encoding the video and audio.

With the AVS Converter I have to settle for output that has parameters as close to the input TS file as possible. That's still recoding everything, though, which I'd rather not do just to get Vegas to read the files. Part of the problem is that any video editor I've found that can read the TS files is short on features that I use all the time in Vegas.

Off on another tangent. What else to do, in a hurricane?

Thanks again,
Alan Mintaka

[BOMOON]

You should look and review this over this which about the best installation guides I know of for motherbaord
http://biorobots.cwru.edu/server/howto/buildcomp/mountmobo/
When come to cpu installation guide there eazy there is enough video out just type in Youtube "(Type of CPU) or (Socket Type) CPU Installation Tutorial" like Core i7 CPU Installation or LGA1156 CPU Installation Tutorial see the two video below.
When come to CPU cooler yup they can be a bit of a plain in rear more so with good 3rd party cooler, but stock intel/amd are usely very eazy to do
Intel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBae0TOdBqw
AMDhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzZQgJDyzGI
Things you want lean is Motherboard BIOS Setup and Basic Tuning there two types old school Menu and UEFI

Excellent info, thanks again!

[jagabo]

I can still use AVS Video Converter 8 to generate readable files, but I keep hoping I can find a bare-bones deMUXer that will do the job without re-encoding the video and audio.

Try TsMuxer, h264TsCutter, TsSniper, TsPacketEditor.

[BOMOON]

I can still use AVS Video Converter 8 to generate readable files, but I keep hoping I can find a bare-bones deMUXer that will do the job without re-encoding the video and audio.

Try TsMuxer, h264TsCutter, TsSniper, TsPacketEditor.

I tried the first two without luck but will give the other two a shot. Thanks!

[Tom Saurus]

After reading through this thread and others, it seems to me the best program to edit with for the type of file the Colossus produces is VideoRedo. It cost 90 bucks but sometimes you just have to pay out the money, especially if in the long run it saves you tons of aggravation and time.

I have a question since some computers have HDMI output, and the Colossus accept HDMI input, could you use the Colossus to record screen activity from a computer desktop? If so if you had a streaming video playing that you couldn't record any other way, would there be a way if you were to play it full screen for the Colossus to record it, as a file that you could edit and watch later?

[jman98]

For what it's worth, I use VideoReDo TV Suite plus H.264 (I think that's the name of it) to edit my Colossus recordings.

I think I've seen posts about people trying to use the Colossus to record streaming media to a desktop, but it's not really designed for that. The streaming media capture programs are really better because you can just capture the window where the media is playing. I could be wrong, but as far as I know if you used the Colossus to record streaming media, it would get the entire screen rather than just a specific area. I guess if you expanded the player to take up the whole screen that might be OK. I do not know how to make the Colossus do a screen capture session.

[BOMOON]

I think I've seen posts about people trying to use the Colossus to record streaming media to a desktop, but it's not really designed for that. The streaming media capture programs are really better because you can just capture the window where the media is playing. I could be wrong, but as far as I know if you used the Colossus to record streaming media, it would get the entire screen rather than just a specific area. I guess if you expanded the player to take up the whole screen that might be OK. I do not know how to make the Colossus do a screen capture session.

I tried this using 2 PCs. I ran an S-Video cable from the nVidia GEForce 6200 video card and analog audio cables from the HT Omega Striker 7.1 audio card on the Dimension 8300 to the Colossus on the 8400.

Then I ran a full-screen video stream on the 8300 and captured it as S-Video Channel input on the Colossus.

My results were less than stellar, but that's because my playback equipment, as described in other forum posts, is lousy. However with decent playback capabilities, a similar setup could be used with DVI-component cabling or HDMI to use the Colossus as a stream capture device for a different PC. If you can get decent full-screen HD playback on the other PC, then capturing with the Colossus this way would be no different than capturing from any other component or HDMI source.

Alan Mintaka

[BOMOON]

For what it's worth, I use VideoReDo TV Suite plus H.264 (I think that's the name of it) to edit my Colossus recordings.

The agenda of my workflow is to create video and audio files that I can import into DVD Architect, then author Blu-Rays or DVDs that don't require any recoding of the audio or video.

I've been able to do this by using Vegas to render M2V video files and AC3 audio files as separate streams. I have to configure Vegas to generate the right frame rates, resolutions, etc, in the output files depending on which media type I want to author, but as long as I do it correctly, DVD Architect is able to generate the media without re-encoding.

The problem with the TS files created by the Colossus is that I have to do an extra re-encoding step with the AVS Video Converter before I can even import the files into Vegas.

In order for me to use VideoRedo to eliminate that extra step, I would have to be able to do everything with VideoRedo that I do with both the AVS Video Converter and Vegas prior to importing the files into DVD Architect. Because of the source video I often capture, VideoRedo would have to:

1. Zoom a 1280 X 720 frame to fit a 1920 X 1080 display. Vegas does a good job with this step. Obviously I don't always need to do this, since some of the source video is already 1920 X 1080. However much of the source is 1280 X 720, and I like to "un-letterbox" it without playing with my TVs resolutions. The Vegas results just look better to me, is all.

2. Apply various filters and effects depending on the source: adjust brightness and contrast, use sharpening filters, etc. Once again, Vegas does a great job doing this.

3. I use the Vegasaur plugins to create subtitle tracks in Vegas, rather than add them later in DVD Architect. That's because DVD Architect's rendering of subtitles is lousy. If I could do something analogous in VideoReDo, that would be great.

4. Audio: As yet I don't know if VideoRedo can handle audio-recoding the way Vegas can. In Vegas I use the VST plugins to recode the audio to 5.1 Surround AC3. It works pretty good, considering how it fakes 5.1 channel sound from an analog stereo input. Vegas has some built-in capabilities for doing this, but without the VST plugins it doesn't seem to do much beyond mapping different frequencies to different channels.

I've looked at VideoRedo in the past, before I had a very good idea of all the things I wanted to do in Vegas. I'll revisit it to see if I can use it.

Alan Mintaka

[baunduley]

Hi,

I was hoping I could get some help with ripping from cable. The only HD output I have from my cable box is HDMI, there is no component output. I have a Hauppauge HD PVR, which only has a component input. So, my set-up at the moment is as follows:

HDMI cable from Cable box to HDMI to Component converter
Component cable from HDMI to component converter to HD PVR
HD PVR connected to PC by USB.

I'm using Total Media Extreme to capture video, but with the above set up, I'm getting no video or audio. The HDMI cable definitely works, and the component cable was brand new. Can anyone tell me if I'm doing something wrong?

[BOMOON]

Hi,

I was hoping I could get some help with ripping from cable. The only HD output I have from my cable box is HDMI, there is no component output. I have a Hauppauge HD PVR, which only has a component input. So, my set-up at the moment is as follows:

HDMI cable from Cable box to HDMI to Component converter
Component cable from HDMI to component converter to HD PVR
HD PVR connected to PC by USB.

I'm using Total Media Extreme to capture video, but with the above set up, I'm getting no video or audio. The HDMI cable definitely works, and the component cable was brand new. Can anyone tell me if I'm doing something wrong?

Try running the component output of that HDMI-component converter directly into the component inputs of your TV, just to check if you can see the output from your converter that way.

That would serve to verify that your converter is at least working, and/or not being blocked by HDCP protection on the HDMI output.

Because of HDCP protection, I never had any consistent luck trying to mix and match HDMI and component video with converters.

Alan Mintaka

[jagabo]

HDMI cable from Cable box to HDMI to Component converter

You need a converter that ignores HDCP. Like an HDFury.

[BOMOON]

HDMI cable from Cable box to HDMI to Component converter

You need a converter that ignores HDCP. Like an HDFury.

Here's a link to HD Fury's explanation of HDCP and the legal aspects of using the HD Fury to defeat/bypass it.

HDFury.Com - HDMI/HDCP

The home page has product links for all of their converters. Looks like hot stuff!

Alan Mintaka

[jman98]

Given the prices of the HD Fury devices, you would come out ahead financially to buy a Hauppauge Colossus and use that instead, but do note that the Colossus will not record encrypted HDMI. If there is any chance your cable box HDMI output is encrypted, you can't use the Colossus.

[SHS]

I don't think I posted this here
You can eazy get around the HDCP problem you get need a few thing for it to work like this and you need some over price HD Fury devices
DVI-HDMI Converter: http://tinyurl.com/ou6k8k
DVI-HDMI Cable: http://tinyurl.com/y4ujp9
Optical Cable: http://tinyurl.com/2cynkv
HDMI Cable: http://tinyurl.com/3up9czp

[Tom Saurus]

I hope this is not stealing the thread. I did some research and have been able to get AviDemux to trim some footage at the beginning and end of the 1920 x 1280 True HD video file and the program did not crash. It is all about understanding to cut on the key frames. You get the key frame positions by pressing the up or down arrows on your keyboard. It is not as fine tuned as the frame level accuracy that I am used to with .mpeg2 files. The video that got exported even though it was in copy mode, AviDemux stated it was encoding. It didn't take very long to complete. The specs other than the duration look the same as the original. This could be because I get confused as to the part of AviDemux that says Output Format; I chose MKV muxer.

I thought perhaps this information would be useful. If one can get AviDemux to do the job of editing, then it is just a matter of using a free video encoder to export to the final file you want. I doing a test right now where I am resizing the file with the resize filter in Avi-Demux to a 640 x 360 .mkv file that even though I am loosing quite bit of the original HD video quality it will be smaller in size and still look pretty decent on a TV screen no bigger than 32".

[BOMOON]

I hope this is not stealing the thread. I did some research and have been able to get AviDemux to trim some footage at the beginning and end of the 1920 x 1280 True HD video file and the program did not crash. It is all about understanding to cut on the key frames.
I thought perhaps this information would be useful. If one can get AviDemux to do the job of editing, then it is just a matter of using a free video encoder to export to the final file you want.

The problem I had wasn't that it crashed - I just couldn't get it to produce a file that Vegas Pro 11 or DVD Architect could read, so it didn't help me fix whatever problem Vegas has with those TS capture files.

Note that I wasn't doing any "cutting" or other modifications of the footage - just importing and exporting the files in a different formats. Nothing I tried worked, so I shelved the program and moved on.

If it works for you, great. If I ever got it to work I'd be doing something like the opposite with the sizing though - scaling 1280 X 720 captures to 1920 X 1080, for example. I'd also be adding chapter marks, applying sharpening and contrast filters, recoding the audio to 5.1 surround (didn't do far enough to check if AVIDeMUX would do that), and exporting in a format that DVD Architect could import without having to recode in order to burn a DVD or BD.

That's probably a lot of unrealistic tall ordering for AVIDeMUX. However if you manage to figure out how to do any of those things with it, I'd love to hear about it.

And no, you didn't hijack the thread. I did!!!

Alan Mintaka

UPDATE on i7 MOTHERBOARD SHOPPING: thanks for all the input, folks. However this is property tax month here in NH, so I'll have to postpone a new system build until maybe post-XMAS.

[Tom Saurus]

BOMOON: I checked out the screenshots and the price tag for Vegas here at videohelp by clicking on the highlighted word. It looks like a very sophisticated and powerful program. This being said shouldn't the developers be working on adding support for the HD TS files? I would say perhaps try a trial of the latest that Tmpgenc has to offer; I doubt it can do what Vegas can do, but I am thinking if Tmpgenc Xpress 4.0 accept the HD TS files shouldn't there latest programs as well. There is a Tmpgenc Video Mastering Works and Tmpgenc Authoring Works. Perhaps you should download a trial version of one or both these programs and see if you like them. It being a trial there is a probably a limit on what you can do with the programs, but still it might be worth a try.

I think ideally you want to drop your capture files in Vegas, edit them to your liking, then add your special touches and make a BluRay. Are the tech people at Vegas, friendly? Perhaps you should let them know there program is not accepting the AVCHD files and ask them if they can work on adding support so that you don't have to use other programs to finness your files to be accepted into Vegas and DVD Architect.

[BOMOON]

BOMOON: I checked out the screenshots and the price tag for Vegas here at videohelp by clicking on the highlighted word. It looks like a very sophisticated and powerful program. This being said shouldn't the developers be working on adding support for the HD TS files? .

They may or may not be addressing the HD TS files issue, but unfortunately their upgrade path now is 64-bit only. I'm still running on a Windows 7 32-bit platform. I found out about the Vegas upgrade path when I tried to upgrade from Vegas Pro 11 to Vegas Pro 12 - it was 64-bit.

There may be reasons having to do with HD file handling for Sony to dedicate their upgrades to 64-bit. Certainly their reputation as an HD file editor for versions previous to Pro 11 is lousy. The program is slow as hell just trying to figure out the current frame location in a 1920 X 1080 HD file when you move the cursor on the timeline.

Things may or may not be different with the 64-bit version. I won't know until I build a new 64 bit system, at which time I'll research the upgrade and see if it makes any sense to continue with the Sony suite of programs.

Back in the old days of DVD authoring on 32 bit platforms, there was a fantastic program called DVD Workshop 2 by Ulead. Then Corel bought them out and wrecked it. Too bad. There was a lot of promise there for people who liked to go into detail with their DVD authoring, but Corel decided instead to "dumb down" the product line with programs like MovieFactory, basically a crippled version of DVD Workshop. Either that, or they didn't know what to do with the technology. That's when I made the jump to the Sony Vegas suite, and after a learning curve, recovered the authoring capabilities that Corel threw away when they abandoned DVD Workshop.

Tmpgenc rings a bell. I probably tried it when it became obvious that Corel was going to dump DVD Workshop. I'll look at it again, thanks for the pointer!

Alan Mintaka

[jagabo]

There may be reasons having to do with HD file handling for Sony to dedicate their upgrades to 64-bit. Certainly their reputation as an HD file editor for versions previous to Pro 11 is lousy. The program is slow as hell just trying to figure out the current frame location in a 1920 X 1080 HD file when you move the cursor on the timeline.

That was a problem with all frame accurate editors. With large frame h.264 and long GOPs it takes a lot of CPU power to locate a random frame. The program must first locate the I frame before the requested frame, decompress it, then reconstruct all the other frames from there to the requested frame. With 60 frame GOPs that can take a long time.

Later programs started using GPU decoding and buffering the intermediate frames in memory (to make the next seek in that GOP faster). But that buffering takes a lot of memory -- about 3 MB/frame. Hence the 64 bit requirement.

The situation was simpler with standard definition. Most common codecs were all I frame (DV, MJPEG). The most compressed source videos where MPEG 2 with short (~6 to ~15 frame) GOPs, requiring on the order of 1/100 the horsepower.

[BOMOON]

...
Finally after some time searching I found a website that listed about 30 things that can cause a motherboard to not POST (this is an initial startup state) and one of them was failing to put spacers between the case and motherboard.
...

Hi jman98,
As I continue to research my options for a new system, I've been looking at motherboard footprints vs. cases. I was reminded of your older post regarding the spacers and in this context I was wondering:

When you added the spacer to the motherboard, how did that affect the alignment of the card slots with the knockouts in the back of the case?

Some of the cases I've seen have big rectangular cutouts back there but there doesn't seem to be any way to adjust how the stop of the card rails (the 90 deg bend) will fit against the side of the cutout if the motherboard's position is moved away from the wall of the case by separators.

In a pre-built like the Dimension 8400, everything is spec'd pretty tightly in terms of that fit. I can see that changing the separation of the Mobo from the case could cause real problems securing those card rails to the sides of the knockouts.

I have an old Gateway 2000 tower case that's big enough to garage a B-52, with big knockout slots and many, many drive bays. It's a good candidate for a new Mobo in a lot of ways except for that knockout panel - it's slotted for big AT cards !!!. The only thing I can think to do is just saw the whole thing out into an open rectangle, but that raises the question of securing those card rails. Do they sell frames that attach to the Mobos for this purpose?

Thanks for your time,
Alan Mintaka

[BOMOON]

That was a problem with all frame accurate editors. With large frame h.264 and long GOPs it takes a lot of CPU power to locate a random frame. The program must first locate the I frame before the requested frame, decompress it, then reconstruct all the other frames from there to the requested frame. With 60 frame GOPs that can take a long time.
...
Later programs started using GPU decoding and buffering the intermediate frames in memory (to make the next seek in that GOP faster). But that buffering takes a lot of memory -- about 3 MB/frame. Hence the 64 bit requirement.
...
The situation was simpler with standard definition. Most common codecs were all I frame (DV, MJPEG). The most compressed source videos where MPEG 2 with short (~6 to ~15 frame) GOPs, requiring on the order of 1/100 the horsepower.

Thanks jagabo! I suspected that the 64-bit requirement had something to do with it but didn't know the details. So in addition to a multi-core CPU, I'm going to need a 64-bit graphics card with a fast GPU and mucho memory. I'm going to revisit those specs you guys have sent me to see what you're using.

I'm doing a render right now but when it's done I think I'm going to look around in Vegas to see if there's some option in there to use the GPU hardware somehow ("hardware acceleration", etc). Even though I'm limited to a 32 bit system, maybe I can at least speed up the frame search process a little.

Alan Mintaka

[jagabo]

So in addition to a multi-core CPU, I'm going to need a 64-bit graphics card with a fast GPU

The "bitness" of the graphics isn't related to the bitness of the CPU/OS. But it does have an effect on how fast data gets to and from the graphics card, and how fast the graphics card can process data internally. Look for 128 bit to 256 bit graphics cards. Don't get a cheap 32 bit card.

and mucho memory.

Memory is pretty cheap these days. You can pretty easily live with 8 GB. You can get that for as little as US$25 these days (I see Fry's selling at that price quite often. Or about $35 not on sale). Or get 16 GB. You'll probably never use it all but you'll feel safe.

http://www.frys.com/product/6408922

I'm going to look around in Vegas to see if there's some option in there to use the GPU hardware

I don't know about the version you have and your exact system, but Vegas definitely has the ability to use the GPU for decoding and encoding. And some filtering too, I believe. From what I've seen GPU encoding may be faster than CPU encoding (and even that varies depending on what CPU and GPU you have, and the software and settings you use) but the quality is inferior.

[BOMOON]

I don't know about the version you have and your exact system, but Vegas definitely has the ability to use the GPU for decoding and encoding. And some filtering too, I believe. From what I've seen GPU encoding may be faster than CPU encoding (and even that varies depending on what CPU and GPU you have, and the software and settings you use) but the quality is inferior.

Thanks for the Frys link!

In Vegas Pro 11 the only option I could find was "GPU Acceleration" on the Preferences | Video tab. Unfortunately it was set to "Off" and there were no other options in the combo box. I took this to mean that Vegas didn't recognize the GPU on the ATI card, and/or couldn't enable any kind of GPU acceleration option for the card.

There was another option somewhere to select a Video device for preview. "Windows Graphics Card" was selected. There were two other devices that were "unavailable" (and which I also did not recognize). The ATI Radeon 2600 HD was not in the list.

The ATI Catalyst Control center was useless in that regard. The only option I could find related to GPU performance was to overclock it - it was already set to do so. There was no option anywhere to enable or disable hardware acceleration.

I've started another 1920 X 1080-29i render so I won't be able to do any exploring in Vegas for another 8 hours or so.

This downtime really impedes a lot of work to figure this thing out.

I think I should just keep using this setup as-is (albeit slow) since it at least works, and give higher priority to building a new system. Trying to tweak the current one is a waste of time.

Wow, memory really is cheap these days. I haven't shopped for any memory sticks since the last artificially inflated price increase resulting from "Monsoons" that weren't happening!

Alan Mintaka

[jagabo]

In Vegas Pro 11 the only option I could find was "GPU Acceleration" on the Preferences | Video tab. Unfortunately it was set to "Off" and there were no other options in the combo box.

The graphics card, graphics drivers, DirectX, the OS, and the software must support it. Make sure you have current version of all. Especially the graphics drivers. Make sure you install a version from AMD/ATI. The default drivers included in Windows are minimal and probably don't include GPU acceleration. The drivers must support OpenCL. OpenCL may not be supported by the 2600.

From Sony:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/gpuacceleration