Alright, so what was my hardware setup for this event?
I’ve had a few people request my hardware setup for the conference. My setup isn’t the most efficient one because of the size of the equipment which I had to take with me. However, because you guys asked, I’ll provide the relevant information after the jump.
I used two computers. Specs:
Laptop: Dell Inspiron E1705 from May 2006
- CPU: Core Duo 1.66ghz
- RAM: 2GB
- GPU: GeForce Go 7900GS
- HDD: 80GB hard drive
- Screen: WUXGA 17″ screen (perfect for those 1080p videos)
Rendering Workstation: AMD-supplied machine.
- CPU: Phenom 9700 B2 stepping
- RAM: Corsair 2GB
- GPU: ATI Radeon HD3850
- HDD1: 150GB WD Raptor
- HDD2: 500GB
My recording equipment is as follows:
Microphone:
- Make: Sony
- Model: PCM-D50
- Accessories:
- Tripod
- Windscreen
Camcorder:
- Make: Canon
- Model: HV20
- Accessories:
- Lots of batteries and a battery charger.
- Tripod (another one!
- Case Logic bag
- Two firewire cables (6/4 and 4/4)
Finally, my software setup:
Adobe AfterEffects CS3 (my video encoding medium)
Adobe Photoshop CS3 (used for a few of the effects, such as the squares)
HDVSplit for dumping the footage to the workstation
DivX Pro codec 6.8. This codec was what made the magic happen!
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
A few notes: I recorded my footage in 24p because AfterEffects had a far easier time removing the pulldown from the 60i output of the camcorder than what I’ve faced from other software trying to deinterlace 60i with no pulldown (30F). Some people don’t like my overuse of 24p, though the vast majority seem to enjoy it, so I’ll be doing it for my next event as well.
I chose Windows Server 2008 for one reason. I was taking the rendering box in a suitcase to Las Vegas. I did not have room for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so the only viable option was to equip the machine in such a way that it would operate flawlessly over a remote connection. I had problems with automatically generating an ad-hoc wifi connection on Server 2008, so I instead installed the RRAS, DHCP, and DNS server roles. The RRAS role allowed for me to connect to the box without me needing a crossover cable as well as giving me and anyone else who demanded it a router to the internet connection in our hotel room (when used in conjunction with DNS and DHCP). Unfortunately, this box only served as a remote workstation since the wireless connection within the Venetian was utter crap.
Overall, this was a good setup, though it could be vastly improved (Powerful laptop for the next event?). My thanks goes out to AMD and their extremely helpful machine. The Phenom processors and Spider architecture aren’t that bad, people!
