VideoVision and Mac-OS Compatible Machines

VideoVision Studio and Telecast

Radius 81/110

It is considered to be compatible, with the following notes:

• The motherboard video connector is not compatible with VideoVision Studio; its use will cause dropped frames. You must use a card to drive a secondary display.
• If you intend to upgrade to Telecast, you will need a slot for the VideoVision, a slot for the Telecast card, and a slot for the SCSI card. Therefore, your secondary display must be an HPV card (which the 81/110 lacks). This can be purchased separately; see your authorized Radius dealer.

Power Computing PowerWave with Stargate NuBus Riser

This is incompatible with VideoVision Studio, and therefore Telecast. A hang occurs when rendering or running the data rate estimator (the 'Find" test).

VideoVision PCI

VideoVision PCI is currently undergoing testing in several MacOS-compatiblemachines. As of September 15, 1997:

Umax/SuperMac

S900: VideoVision will not physically fit in most of the slots in the S900, as the plastics do not allow for a full-length daughtercard. In the top slot, where the plastics do not interfere, the second processor daughtercard slot is too tall for proper seating of the VideoVision PCI card, and there is no support for the back of the card. VideoVision is a heavy card, and not supporting the card may result in (at best) improper seating of the daughtercards ar (at worst) damage to components near the PCI connector, or to the connector itself. Finally, the plastic supports on the inside of the cover do not allow for daughtercards and will need to be removed.

Radius and UMAX are working together to provide a kit containing replacement plastics that will solve this problem. Recently-shipped S900's contain an ISA-length Card Guide Assembly (If you have a part that looks like this then you don't have it, and you will need to contact UMAX technical support about getting a replacement ISA-length card guide assembly. Then, you will need to contact Radius to get the "ISA-Length Extender" kit, which is compatible with the new UMAX Card guide assembly.

Furthermore, VideoVision PCI and SP require version 1.3 of the software for compatibility in all slots of the S900. This software is currently in beta, and we have made it available for download on the Betas Page.

C600/240: This machine is currently incompatible, as it hangs at the end of a recording when using the Micronet DataDock or the internal drive. We are investigating this and hope to fix it for version 1.3.

 

Power Computing

We are no longer testing Power Computing compatibles:

PowerWave: A forthcoming kit containing replacement plastics is required for support of the PowerWave machines, as the back of the card is not normally supported. VideoVision is a heavy card, and not supporting the card may result in (at best) improper seating of the daughtercards ar (at worst) damage to components near the PCI connector, or to the connector itself.

PowerTower: Occasionally, Premiere will hang while starting up. Additionally, the machine may hang at the end of a QuickTime capture. This is under investigation. In all other ways, the system appears to be compatible at 180 and 166MHz. (We have not tested any other processor speeds yet.) In this machine, the Adaptec card appears to be approximately 1.5MB/sec faster than the ATTO ExpressPCI when used with a ProMax Remus-based array.

PowerTower Pro 225: On this system, several users have reported a failure to load the VideoVision Audio drivers, but apparently removing the card, reseating the daughtercards, and reinstalling it seems to fix the problem.

Occasionally, Premiere will hang while starting up. Additionally, the machine may hang at the end of a QuickTime capture. This is under investigation. In all other ways, the system appears to be compatible at 225MHz. (We have not tested any other processor speeds yet.) The standard bundle-option array is compatible (when used with the latest Adaptec firmware update, included with the VideoVision PCI kit), and performs at above 6MB/sec. A ProMax array was also tested using the ATTO and Adaptec cards, with satisfactory performance (>6MB)

Motorola

StarMax series: These CPU's are currently incompatible (the video codec causes a hang at startup). Engineering expects to fix this in version 1.3.

 

Daystar:

Genesis series: The 600 and 800 appear to be compatible when used in the bottom three slots of a B-revision Daystar motherboard.

Apple

The current list of supported Apple computers includes the 7300, 7500 (with interleaved RAM), the 7600, the 8500, the 8600, the 9500, and the 9600 (as long as the VideoVision SP card is not in the fourth slot from the top). At this point all other Apple machines have inadequate bus characteristics or PCI card slot space inside to accomodate VideoVision PCI or SP.

Testing will continue, and results will be posted here.