Video Question
 

I just ordered a Dell Inspiron 15 and it comes with an integrated Intel video card. I'm told by Dell that I can't upgrade the card to an ATI Radeon 9000 or higher since the card is integrated. Is that going to be a problem for my display and if so, what are my options???
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It depends on how much memory the video card comes with. I don't use laptops so I have no experience here but with any computer, the more memory the better. From what I've read on the foum, some laptop video cards used shared memory which has cause video issues. My suggestion is to put as much RAM in your laptop as possible.

There are other on the forum who have had more experience with laptops than me. I'm sure they will be posting their advice soon.

I hope this helps some!

Jim :g

I had a Dell Inspiron 15 with a NVidea GForce 8600m vidoe card and had problems. Had to have lappy sent back to Dell 4 times to have video card changed. When it was running it ran well (had XP os). Dell finally had to replace my lappy with a XPS M1530 with the same video card (Vista os). Now that MTU has Hoster running stable on Vista I have had NO PROBLEMS.

They can upgrade to NVidea.

How much RAM did you have installed on the Inspiron 15? Just curious.

Jim :g

In the customize section you could have selected the 256MB ATI Radeon HD4330 which would have been better than the Intel.
I hope you added memory as Jim said, especially if it has Vista.
Be sure before you install Hoster to go through all the recommended changes/fixes for Vista.

I have a DELL with integrated video and only 1 GB shared RAM, but don't have any problems. I disable just about everything I don't need and keep the video and color resolution fairly low. Now this is a desktop, not a notebook, so things mey run differently under the hood. That said, MTU has just shipped me a notebook PC that I will start using going forward.

I was able to change my order to include the 256MB ATI Radeon HD4330 for $100.00 more. Thanks for your help.

i hope you also ordered a s-video cable too, i have 2 dell laptops ( e1505 & 1405 ) all or most of dells laptops came with 7 pin s-video cable. my 1505 has an ATI card in it, i'm not sure what i have on the 1405 , but make sure you order one..and if you can if i'st not too late do not, order the one with window media center, i'm not sure if do alot of djing but most dj software don't work ( not compatible )with windows media center.

Thanks Billyo! We'll get-r done.

Best decision you could have made. Well worth the extra performance gain.

Nita Galloway
 

What format will be used to add videos to the database? If a form of KMA is used, how do we convert? I have captured over 2,500 video songs from laser to mpg1 (then burned them to vcds) but I have now converted those files to dvix to play on Hoster (with half the space).. I just want to know what format and how to convert them... to load to database and play in future.

Jim, It had 2gig of ram. The video card went bad in the first week I had it. Like I said it ran good when the video was working right.

Do the Divx play now in Hoster (I don't have any videos that I use)? If so then they will work fine in that format when they are included for the database.

Video format for Hoster
 

Yes, I have all my laser (Pioneer) and some of my vcd ripped and converted to dvix... they work great, but while playing it's hands off... If I try to do anything like add someone's song, etc. sometimes Hoster messes up. I lately purchased a program from AVS to convert videos and have been able to adjust the gain volume before converting them on to avi... it has worked well... all the studying I've done so far says that KMA is a format used for cdg conversions.. have nothing about videos, and have found nothing to convert actual videos of any format to KMA, that's why I have been wondering.

As far as Hoster goes, this being able to play so many formats including vids. is why I chose this program. So far, the formats i have played successfully have been: mpg1 (from vcds), avi (I made from cdgs and from video), wmv, divx (made from mpg1 files captured from the lasers). They play beautifully and the color and sound quality is great. But if you don't have the codec for the different vid formats it might not play right. I had to go get a free divx program from divx.com (the player) before it would all go smoothly on my toshiba.

Why I was asking is I'm sure that I read somewhere in the Hoster information that the future upgrade was going to use KMA (from vids) to add vids to the database.... if so, then how can I change them, as to be ready?

Thanks, Nita

Video more
 

oh, and .dat format also plays. While experimenting on what format was the smallest, I also tried .dat format and it plays. I now am going to convert most of my files to avi because with the AVS video converter I can change the perimeters and make it any size I want. :) I think the reason that Hoster might have been having problems with the vids that I've been playing is because they are so large, but with the converter I can get them down to about the same size as a mp3+g made into a KMA (abt. 4-6 mb each)

Do you show these on a big screen ? surely the quality is reduced to view on anything bigger than a laptop at 4-6 Mb a piece.:e Dat & AVI works OK for me and as you say there is more scope for size with the .AVI.

I find that some conversions used not only reduces the quality of the picture but take a lot more computing power to decode the compression.
I have quite a lot of promo videos that are in MP4 format around 100 MB each. This format is perfect for transferring direct to DVD, top quality.
I have found that if I just rename the file from .mp4 to .mov they show up in Hoster search and play perfectly no long conversion needed. Top quality picture and no stuttering. I think it is because there is less computer power going into the decoding of them. I need the quality because I show them on big screens at venues.
Yes you do need a big hard drive to store them but I got a 1 TB drive for under £80, they are getting cheaper all the time.

Roy.

Yes in a future release Hoster will list videos in the database, but you can't convert them for Hoster except in Hoster and that won't be until that part is released, so there is nothing more for you to do at this point.
As Roy said and compression takes processor time to uncompress for playing. This doesn't effect CDG types of compression nearly as bad as it will for videos just because of the large size for them.

At the moment all you can really do is make sure they are named in such a way as to make it quick and easy when you can import them into the database
If the files are now Title - Artist, get a renaming program and tack on a diskid and track number up to 99 per diskid.
If you are lazy like me:) and just use the songbook # as the file name you'll (and me) have to go through and manually add all the artist and titles. My file names are the bookids I plan to use later. It works well for me now but will be a pain when the time comes

Sam

videos
 

Thank you everyone for your input.... I guess we will all learn this video thing together... ha

Actually, I checked the size and I was wrong... the mpgs that I had originally made were larger and when I made them into divx the average size is abt or just under 20 mbs.. and the quality (and size) is and was depending on the original quality of the original laser.. some of the first ones I did were the old ones in the colored sleeves, probably the first issue of the pioneers (probably the first 12-15 lasers), some of those were not a really good picture in the first place, poor vhs quality at best and the sound was very low gain. But, the later ones I bought (the ones in the gray sleeves) were very good quality and took lots of space on hard drive.
I'm now saving them to avi, they seem to open and play just great, my laptop that I use for my show has a big enough internal hard drive for what I've got. But I can also play them on my other laptop (not as fast) and play them off of a 500 GB external drive and they work fine also.

Back (several years back) when I was first capturing from the lasers, I had no idea what I was doing, all I knew is that I wanted to capture them and burn them to a vcd format so I could play them in my machines.... we've come a long ways baby!!!! My original desktop comp. that I was making them on wasn't fast enough and if the video had too much going on in it, like flashing lights, people moving and dancing and the like, the ati program would start dropping frames.... ha, that was 2 desktop computers and capturing devises ago.... we learn, don't we? It's been a fun ride...

i have about 50-60 vcd disc and imported ( copied )them in.dat format on my ext. hhd. the quality is good when being played in my flat 52" LCD TV..