Building PC for AIW 9800 Pro?
 

First time, long time. Lurker no more!

What should I look for, when building a capture rig? I've never built a PC before, and I'm pretty steeped in the Mac ecosystem.

Are there any beginners mistakes I should avoid? If I buy components separately, do I need to source an older case?

Current/relevant hardware:

JVC HR-S9800U
ATI AIW 9800 Pro
RCA LDR400

Well I'm no wiz kid with PC internals but essentially accomplished my first complete rebuild for my capture PC; just finished a few weeks ago. Others more experienced will add to/revise this info.

You can reuse an old PC. I had an old Pentium III Windows XP Gateway collecting dust and started out thinking to reuse it and just add an ATI AIW card. It started going downhill when I messed the BIOS up trying an update. Just as well. The single core Pentium did not have enough Umph anyway. I did reuse the case but replaced everthing inside.

1. You need a motherboard with PCI slots for the sound card, and an AGP slot for the AIW video card. Those boards have not been made for some years now. You see them sold used in the usual places and once in a while a gem like this pops up new: https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/775i65G%20R3.0/
The AsRock has the required card slots but also both IDE and SATA hard drive sockets. The BIOS will also permit use of larger GB SATA drives (up to 2 GB anyway). You can use an old PC case or a new one from Newegg, etc., which provides for more ventilation capability. The AsRock board mentioned is of the Micro ATX size.

2. Preferably a dual core CPU w/ appropriate cooling
3. The AIW card/SW
4. Separate sound card like Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or Soundblaster, which work with Windows XP. The TB Santa Cruz is well liked with the AIW cards. You'll need an internal cable for AIW and sound card to talk to each other.
5. Windows XP, SP2 - required to run the AIW card/SW and sound card with SW
6. Two hard drives; one for system and the other as target drive for your captures.
7. An optical drive

With a Windows XP PC you won't be able to have adequate antivirus protection and don't want to clutter it with internet capability anyway. It will be a "dumb" but very capable dedicated capture machine.

Have probably forgotten much but that is essentially the HW/SW outline. Good luck!

You'll need an external frame TBC between the VCR and capture card. (Hint: See marketplace forum.)

I use Mac and Windows and Linux. Computers are computers. OS is just the OS.

You'll want to acquire an audio card, preferably the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, to pair with the AIW. The AIW is just video, an slaves audio with the card. You cannot use onboard audio, just disable it in the BIOS.

Use Windows XP, preferably SP2.

colony has laid it out pretty well.

@colony
Care to write a guide for the site? You start it, I can polish and finish. :)

Thanks for the info! I knew some of that going in - staying offline, long-finished production runs, copping a Santa Cruz - but a lot I didn't.

I'm visiting a few markets today, to check for scrap PCs.

TBC is TBD - hasn't been overlooked though!

My only concern with Mac is the pre-Intel era, and failing to run the right software. Or am I missing something? Is an AGP Powermac just as viable?

Hi lordsmurf,

...and you'll throw in a TBC to boot???...just kidding:wink2: Well, let me see about it. You know I am a sub-novice, but then I expect that would be the approach for such a guide? "How to start out when one is new to these things?"

I did fail to mention the obvious but often overlooked power supply unit. My old machine was dead to begin with because of a dead PSU, which I replaced with a Corsair model, with rebate at the time through Newegg. Also reused the optical and floppy drives.

Sorry to bump, I recently picked up an old PC and was wondering if the mobo was useable. It supports AGP 8x, so I hope/think I'm on the right track

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard...-775-rev-20#ov
The PC was pretty much free, and has a working PSU and optical drives. It's in a Foxconn TLM436 case (if that matter).

I figured even if I have to swap boards, it's a starting point.

Has a SATA port, which is nice, but I'll still need an IDE adapter for the second drive. Should I use the SATA drive as the target or system?

If you have to choose, make the SATA drive your capture drive. It's best to have two capture drives (in addition to the system C: drive), one internal and permanent and the other in a hot-swap bay or else in an external dock with eSATA (USB in an older-spec system may not be reliable at capture data rates).

Use PCI audio card, preferably Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. While some onboard audio is sometimes fine, AC97 is not one of them, rarely good option.

The board is probably fine. Most are.

What are the full specs of your system?

I ordered a Santa Cruz last month, still waiting for it to arrive.

CPU is an Intel P4 (1M Cache, 2.66 GHz, 533 MHz FSB). RAM needs upgrading, just 512 installed. No hard drives yet, any recommendations? PSU is SPARKLE FSP300-60ATV 300W ATX Power Supply.