Windows XP workstation for video capture?
 

I read where people recommend a PC with Windows XP. Is that solely for the drivers for the ATI All in Wonder cards? Are there other benefits as well? For instance does VirtualDub work better under Windows XP than Windows 10?

I have an old XP based PC in the basement. Are these specs good enough?

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.01 GHz
Motherboard: MSI MS-7207G
Memory: 3.5 GB PC3200 (200 Mhz)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS 512 Mbytes
Windows XP Home SP3 32 bit

Here is a link to the specs of the motherboard.
http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/mo...8MS-7207%2529/

Any thoughts?

Its best to get a motherboard that uses an AGP slot. Those are the ones the ATI AIW cards use for capturing. The board you have has the PCIe x16 slot which won't really work. Video RAM makes no difference with capturing.

You can do your captures with XP SP3, but the recommended version here is to use is SP2. There's nothing in SP3 that really helps with capturing, and actually may cause more problems.

RAM and CPU looks good though, as 32-bit OS can't address more than 4GB anyway. But either way you will have to get a MB with an AGP slot, and a separate audio card like the Turtle Beach cards.

VirtualDub works best under XP, as all the filters and such are 32-bit. I've built 3 XP capture boxes recently and that's all they will be used for, to capture video. You can do the editing on a more modern machine with more horsepower.

Sadly, that is the PC I had laying around. I know it is has a PCI-E x16 card slot so I ordered an ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 256MB PCI Express Video Card off of eBay. The card has all the cabling and should be here soon. ATI AIW 2006 was in the recommended sticky. I will downgrade/uninstall XP3 to XP2.

I have an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card that I will use for audio.

Thanks for the info on 32-bit and VirtualDub. It makes sense to do the capture on the XP box and then edit on a more modern PC.

John

The reason for Windows XP is simple: it supports most higher-end video cards and video software, while newer ones do not. This is because of how Microsoft changed the video/audio subsystems starting with Vista, as well as changed some of the backend functions for display. So, for example, lots of quality Matrox, Canopus, ATI and Aja cards no longer work. And newer cards remove functions, and are tuned to HD work not SD work. You also have capturing, editing, and authoring software that fails to work well, or at all, in post-XP Windows OS.

Yes, ATI AIW is one of the many reasons you'd want an XP system.

non-SP has some issues
SP1 is fine
SP2 is best
SP3 needs all that "security" junk disabled, nag messages especially, as it causes dropped frames when capturing

AGP slot is best, but some PCIe are fine, the ATI AIW x1800 and x1900 being two of them. The ATI AIW 2006 is hit-or-miss for me, and I'm not sure why. For that matter, I remember having issues with an x1900 once as well.

The CPU is nice, and a dual-core or faster allows for 15mbps MPEG-2 capture.

I use something similar, on a backup system: AMD dual-core, Gigabyte board, PCIe ATI AIW, 2gb RAM.

For capturing, the system will never even use 2gb. So don't waste funds there.

Yes, get a quality audio card. The Santa Cruz Turtle Beach is suggested. Never use onboard audio. Be careful that the M-audio board isn't boosting audio levels on you. That's bad for tape capturing. Lots of fancy audio boards are actually terrible due to distortion and drivers.

I edit and restore on my new Skylake, and formerly a Phenom II.

Thank you all. I will keep playing and learning.