Best OS for capture/editing?

[pr-guy]

I read different opinions

[Dr Mordrid]

Win2K if your selected hardware fully supports it.

Dr. Mordrid

[pr-guy]

hmm well I think the WinTV Theater fully supports Win2k

[Brian Ellis]

Win 98SE if your hardware does not fully support W2k (although you can dual-boot both to get the best of both worlds)

[wkulecz]

I consider dual boot the worst of both worlds -- you've got to install everything twice, twice the chance of an incompatability, twice the work when you upgrade anything. I've maintained dual (multiboot) systems for years for testing/debugging and its a PITA I wouldn't recommend to anyone, YECH!

If you must, put together a second system with your non-W2K compatible parts for win98se and invest in a good KVM switch (about $70 from Linksys and others).

The only thing that I see in XP is the X windows like remote operations, I forget what MS is calling it, but it was featured on TechTV awhile back.

--wally.

[Brian Ellis]

Wally,

Pray, tell me how you do it your way without installing everything twice?

I repeat:
"Win 98SE if your hardware does not fully support W2k"
The dual booting is optional.

[wkulecz]

When you have two machines you aren't forced to change both systems unless you want to test/use the new device in both systems. Dual boot obviously has cost savings here, but if you actually want to use your computers and need some stuff that only works with win9x I think in the long run you are better off with two machines, a network connection and KVM switch.


If you never change anything or must test everything in both systems then dual boot is the same amount of work, but its a lot more work when something goes wrong and only works in one system. Sometimes you get lucky and its a wash -- you discover it doesn't work in the first system you install to, but murphy's law seems to apply and you have revert the first system when the second doesn't work.

There are ocassionally BIOS issues where W2K works better with one set of settings and Win9x another -- PNP OS installed is usually better set to YES for W2K and NO for Win9x (or vice-versa depending on the MB!).

I only recommend win9x (dual boot or two machines) if you've a lot more time than money, in the long run you are better off junking what doesn't work with W2K and not buying future products from the companies that abandoned you!

I certainly agree that win98se is the best of the inferior breed. But once you start using W2K you'll resent having to shutdown and dual boot into win9x -- pain thresholds vary greatly, but I was fed up with windows95 by the time NT4 came out!

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

I have 8 machines and they're all dualboot. In fact most of them are MULTI-boot with Win98SE, WinNT4, Win2K, Linux etc.

It's part of having the right tool for the job. Some very excellent programs I have cannot run on Win2K, so the OS they do run on gets some extra life.

Dr. Mordrid

[Indiana]

I'd vote for a Dual-Boot system as well if you have a HD large enough for this. Besides, you really don't have to install everything twice.
For instance things like CDex, EAC, AudioGrabber, VirtualDub, 3DMark99/2000/2001, MoreTV,... - generally every app that puts all it needs in it's own drawer - will happily run if installed once, in the other OS you just can use a shortcut to the program.

Things like M$ Office only really need to be installed in the better/more stable OS - that is Win2k. Not much sense in installing those on the Win98 partition as well.
But you still have the Win98 partition for gaming and compatibility. And again, there's no advantage in installing games on the Win2K side as well.
So basicly install only those things that work reliable (most apps, probably vid-capturing) in Win2k and only the other programs on the Win98 partition. The third partition for the captured video (or better a whole HD that's reserved just for this) should be formatted in NTFS to avoid the 2/4GB limit.

[wkulecz]

IMHO if you don't use NTFS with W2K you are largely wasting your time and might as well stick with your favorite Win9x flavor.
They all leave a bad taste in my mouth.

--wally.

[AndrewDV]

Hello,

Just my 2 cents, but the stability of Win2K is worth it alone. Both the software and hardware I use work nicely in Win2k, while have annoying crashes in Win9x.

On other machines, I have dual boot Win2k and Win9x only for games. Even still, the Win9x partitions may go away now that SP2 is out.

[Flying dutchman]

I use disk caddies instead of multi-boot. If you need different OS'es for other reasons than gaming or video capturing, there's another solution:

I now run Windows 2000 and I use "VMWare", that allows me to run Windows 98 (or whatever) in a window that emulates a complete PC with sound and network card. It is damn practical for testing and development purposes, and you can use it as a "sandbox" if you're not sure if a program is virus-free.

One of the greatest features is, that the "virtual machine" is in fact a container file that you can copy on a CDROM. A clean install of Windows 98SE costs me about three minutes, that's the time needed to copy the image file from CD!