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Posted: Friday, 7 Dec 2007 11:21 AM -- by Cristian BalanOK, I understand :), so is most good wait the Gf8800GT... :)
Thanks again! |
Posted: Wednesday, 5 Dec 2007 5:08:44 PM -- by John Schilling Both are more expensive, slower, and less capable than "consumer" boards using the _exact_same_parts_ costing over 100 Euros ***less***.
So--these are O.K. as long as you are fine with:
Spending more money,
Getting less performance,
Being restricted to having a less capable system.
--JSS
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Posted: Wednesday, 5 Dec 2007 10:49 AM -- by Cristian BalanHi,
I can have this Dell Precision 690 configuration with ATI Fire GL V7200 256 MB or nVidia Quadro FX3500 256 MB (must add 150 euro in this case). This I think can be a good graphic card, more power vs Gf8800GS or ATi HD2900. In this case not have 512 MB but I hope 256 MB on nVidia Quadro FX3500, is not much but must be enough however for this job. I wrong?
I understand about HW capabilities (Designer vs Player), thanks really! |
Posted: Wednesday, 28 Nov 2007 10:35 AM -- by John SchillingGet the machine with the cheapest possible, or no, graphics card.
Add a 3rd party card of appropriate capabilities. For a machine of this caliber a Gf8800GS or ATi HD2900 with 512MB or 1GB.
Remember though--its not a good idea to have your "Designer" have too much HW capabilities over your Players--you will end up creating scripts that your Players will not be able to Display properly!
--JSS
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Posted: Tuesday, 27 Nov 2007 3:21:01 PM -- by Cristian BalanOk, thanks!
What you think about the DELL Precision 690 for work with Content Manager, Designer, Player preview, Wiindows XP Prof., Photoshop and another? Can be a good solution? |
Posted: Monday, 26 Nov 2007 7:09:41 PM -- by Cristian BalanThanks very much. Tomorrow I reread all again.
For the RAID, sorry, my confusion... I already use RAID 1... not RAID 0... and I know the RAID 1+0 is more 'good' but must have almost 4 disk... |
Posted: Monday, 26 Nov 2007 9:49 AM -- by John SchillingWhile stable--as are the rest of the nVIDIA GeForce series--the 8500 is a pathetic marketing created creature. Do not use it.
There is maybe 20 Euros price difference between an 8500/512MB and an 8600/512MB--with the 8600 having some 40%++ better performance.
Get a less powerful CPU if you are on a budget. An Athlon-X2 BE-2400 would be a more practical part than the Athlon64-X2 5000+. [why? look at the power consumption/thermal numbers and the _cost_ v. performance!!!]
With the current Scala products--never use an "x64" edition of the Windows OS'es. [x64 makes _no_ sense as all of the DirectX functions are 32-bit code--the result is that its slower and has MultiMedia CODEC compatibility issues]
RAID-0 is suicide. ["zero" is simple striping between two disks--one fails you lose EVERYTHING!!!] RAID-1 is mirroring. [complete disk duplication] If you want performance and safety--implement RAID-1+0. a "Mirrored Stripe Set", with four drives.
Don't use XPHome. Use XP Pro. Penny wise--Pound Foolish.
--JSS
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Posted: Friday, 23 Nov 2007 6:03 AM -- by Cristian Balansorry, the English link to DELL Precision 690 must be
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_…
For remote I use Remote Office Manager from
http://www.aledensoft.com/products/remote_office_manager/ |
Posted: Friday, 23 Nov 2007 6:00 AM -- by Cristian BalanHi, I see more into topics here then on the Scala support forum and I'm surprise by John Schilling... him is really serious, sometimes ironical, and have a good how-know IT package. Bravo :)
So, I must find the 'good' HW for Player and another HW for CM + Player + Designer + Photoshop + Windows :) + Office etc.
I already have one HW only for the Player, thinking for dual output video (like a 2 x TV 42", one PLASMA and one LCD):
CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual 5000+ (2.6 GHz and cache 2x 512 KB)
motherboard Asus M2N-MS SE (chipset nvidia MCP61)
SO Win XP Home SP2 ( I know, for my CPU is better 64 bit but I think the SO is too expensive for my needs )
RAM Kingston 2 x 1 GB in dual channel PC2-5300 (333 MHz)
graphic card Asus nVidia GeForce 8500 GT with 512 MB
HDD 2 x Maxtor 250 GB S-ATA in Raid 0 (my reason: if one breaks I have the other one)
... is enough?
In another case for HW for CM + one preview Player + Designer + Photoshop + Windows :) + Office etc. I think to buy one workstation machine like DELL Precision 690 (the middle model)
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_…
This I haven't already bought. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks. |
Posted: Monday, 22 Jan 2007 11:55 AM -- by John SchillingThe HW required to appropriately playback given content largely depends on the nature of the content.
Considerably more HW would be need in order to display four 90-rotated 19.2MBps 1080i MPEG-2 video clips than a couple of 800x600 JPEG files.
You basically need to define your requirements 1st--then think about the HW:
Example: I have two scripts--One is a 1360x768 display that has four zones of content--one of which will be a 1280x720 MPEG-2 video, three will be static text and small graphics clips and one will be a 36pt screen wide text crawl with shadows. The second script is either displaying full screen 1024x768 text or full screen 1024x768 video clips that are resized from their original MPEG-2 720x480. Both displays will be 32-bit color running at 60 Hz.
A script such as this would need, approximately, a Core2Duo@1.83GHz/Pentium-D 820, GHz on a motherboard with a good chipset--i946GZ, G965, nVidia 6xx--with Dual bank, (2x256MB), DDR2-667 or better memory. The graphics card would need to be either an ATi RADEON X1600 w/256MB GDDR3 or an nVidia Geforce 7600GT or better.
Depending on the bitrates of the video involved--oen might need a bit more CPU or a bit less and still have a good margin of spare CPU cycles to deal with "peak events".
If the system is being updated at high data rates during "peak viewer times"--some thought to the disk subsystem might be in order. [RAID-1, RAID-1+0, large disk caches, etc.]
--JSS
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Posted: Saturday, 20 Jan 2007 1:30 AM -- by DhruvWhat is the Player Hardware configuration required to run Multiple Independent Channels from Single IC5 Player Hardware?
How many independent Channels can be run from Single player hardware?
Does one have to buy as many player licenses as per no. of channels run from the single hardware or only one?
Can I run Full Screen Video, Flash, TV etc. or do I need to scale down my content when I share the single harware to run independent content on diff. Screens.
how easy / hard it is and what is the playback quality and on how many Screens to single player
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Posted: Friday, 12 Jan 2007 9:40 AM -- by John SchillingYou will see:
Cards with a single aVGA-15 port;
Cards to a single DVI-I port;
Cards with aVGA-15 and a DVI-I port--both where #1 is aVGA and #2 is DVI-I and where #1 is DVI-I and #2 is aVGA!
Cards with two DVI-I ports--many of these ship with "Dongles" that can convert a DVI port into an aVGA port!!!!
nVidia or ATi? See the HW-FAQ on video cards--the answer is: it depends on what you want to do--bot product lines have their strengths and weaknesses.
As for what a user interacting with Content Manager 5 can program or modify? That is entirely Dependant on the "Rights/Roles" assigned to the specific user account. The system is quite flexible. Want a user to be able to modify Player1917-Channel#1, but not Channel #2? Done. The reverse? Done.
Variety! The wonder of the Capitalist Markets!
--JSS |
Posted: Thursday, 11 Jan 2007 6:23:37 PM -- by BryanExcuse my ingnorance. Is a dual output card have both a DVI and a VGA output. What brand do you prefer Nvidia or ATI.
Will the the template based insertion tool be able to have the appropriate parties able to have access to both the channel 1 and 2. |
Posted: Tuesday, 9 Jan 2007 9:01 AM -- by John SchillingThe Player software "knows" how to deal with multiple outputs.
So basically one would configure it, in the Player Config Tool, to say: "Channel #1 to OUTPUT #1; Channel #2 to OUTPUT #2". In the "Content Manager 5" the Player Definition entry says in effect that "This Player has Two output channels". So you then have the option in Content Manager of assigning scripts and schedules to each output.
As to what HW to use--the answer, as always, is: "It Depends". At a minimum a dual output ATi RADEON X1300PRO/X1600 or nVidia Geforce 7600 are the practical low end devices. [what is most important is the _bandwidth_ of the video memory--128-bit and 256-bit video cards are important--avoid 64-bit cards!!!]
Its advisable that the motherboard support "Dual Channel" memory--and there there be a single, identical, DIMM in each Channel. Dual-Core CPU's are also a "Very Good Idea"(tm). If there is going to be a lot of high bit-rate I/O--e.g. many HiDef video clips--then its a wise to implement either a RAID-1+0 array or to use a RAID-1 controller that permits alternate device/interleaved read operations.
Regards,
--JSS
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Posted: Tuesday, 9 Jan 2007 2:14 AM -- by Bryan |
Posted: Tuesday, 9 Jan 2007 2:09 AM -- by BryanI understand IC5 will be able to have one computer power 2 screens playing different content. Has there been any hardware test regrarding sytem reqs to run such. Must there be 2 video cards and are they recognized as 2 players within the content manager. I really like this feature and would ap preciate advice on how it may look with crawls and HD content to explain to customers |
