The Wave Pool > Need upgrade recommendations
9/1/2007 10:22:19 PM
Hello folks !!
We have an eMachine T1742 mini tower computer that has been running SSP for several years now. We love the application and what it does for our worship experience. I have attended our church and served there for 7 years now and I can remember the time I was sitting in the crows nest with an old 8 channel peavey sound board and they were changing songs on a transparency projector on the stage. Now we have dual digital projectors , church pc and a 32 channel sound board.
We have been learning how to save our services to mp3 and saving them at the end of the service which seems to take forever. I spoke to my pastor about needing to upgrade the computer so the files will save faster and he told me that he attended a church in our area that uses SSP and they were projecting full motion video. I told him our system could not do it due to older hardware.
I am doing my homework and I can see that we need to sink about 499.00 into a Nvidia 8800 pci express video card. I also would like for us to 3.2 duo core processor with a minimum of 2 gb of ram. I am wondering if purchasing all the parts seperately from Tiger Direct or wherever is going to cost us more than just buying a beefed up gaming machine.
I also want to know if I will need two of these high end cards or only a regular video card for the sound booth computer user and the high end only for the projection video card. I figure we can use the faster video card that we are using for projection now on the new system depending on what we get.
Any suggestions or direction would be appreciated. Thanks
We have an eMachine T1742 mini tower computer that has been running SSP for several years now. We love the application and what it does for our worship experience. I have attended our church and served there for 7 years now and I can remember the time I was sitting in the crows nest with an old 8 channel peavey sound board and they were changing songs on a transparency projector on the stage. Now we have dual digital projectors , church pc and a 32 channel sound board.
We have been learning how to save our services to mp3 and saving them at the end of the service which seems to take forever. I spoke to my pastor about needing to upgrade the computer so the files will save faster and he told me that he attended a church in our area that uses SSP and they were projecting full motion video. I told him our system could not do it due to older hardware.
I am doing my homework and I can see that we need to sink about 499.00 into a Nvidia 8800 pci express video card. I also would like for us to 3.2 duo core processor with a minimum of 2 gb of ram. I am wondering if purchasing all the parts seperately from Tiger Direct or wherever is going to cost us more than just buying a beefed up gaming machine.
I also want to know if I will need two of these high end cards or only a regular video card for the sound booth computer user and the high end only for the projection video card. I figure we can use the faster video card that we are using for projection now on the new system depending on what we get.
Any suggestions or direction would be appreciated. Thanks
9/2/2007 1:03:41 PM
All these video cards have dual outs and you can send one to your operator monitor and the other to whatever distribution amplifier, or whatever, to send the second screen from windows to your 2 projectors and 2nd monitor (if you have one).
The 8800 is the highest end option to go with. You may want to check NewEgg. They've got some pretty good prices on video cards.
Remember, if you build your own system, you can put great parts in. But you'll still need to buy a WindowsXP license. That's included with purchased systems, so keep that in mind when balancing your options.
If at all possible, I would still keep an older machine around for the audio recording. I want my projection computer to be concentrating on projecting with the least amount of possible distractions.
Also, remember that the more you spend on the computer now, the longer it will be before you need to upgrade or replace it.
Just my $.02
The 8800 is the highest end option to go with. You may want to check NewEgg. They've got some pretty good prices on video cards.
Remember, if you build your own system, you can put great parts in. But you'll still need to buy a WindowsXP license. That's included with purchased systems, so keep that in mind when balancing your options.
If at all possible, I would still keep an older machine around for the audio recording. I want my projection computer to be concentrating on projecting with the least amount of possible distractions.
Also, remember that the more you spend on the computer now, the longer it will be before you need to upgrade or replace it.
Just my $.02
9/4/2007 4:45:12 PM
Hi,
We just purchased a new pc for our church, it is not built yet since it was just ordered. Here is the specs of what we got for our money. A quad core 2.4ghz, 2 gb ram, Asus gaming MB, Nvidia 320 mb 8800 GTX video, 250GB HD,12 in 1 media reader, DL 16x DVD/RW, XP Pro. The total for it from cyperpowerpc.com (labor day special & free shipping) $1307. Without the special it was $1395 including shipping. When we get it in service I will let you all know how it is working.
Greg
9/5/2007 4:04:12 PM
Thanks for the recommendations Joel, I appreciate it. 
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