The Access Grid site here is currently using a Dell T1500
workstation (i5 3.2GHz, 4GB RAM), capturing 4 inputs using the
Osprey-450e, displaying four video outputs from an older PCI Matrox QID
video card, and simply using the motherboard integrated sound card for
audio. The computer runs Windows 7 x64 Enterprise .
In the past, I have also used other Xi-Fi Soundblaster sound cards
which *mostly* worked. The Creative drivers caused problems, and I had
better luck using the generic Windows drivers.
-Nikkos Svoboda
LSU Department of Mathematics
On 2/25/2011 8:29 AM, Jonathan Klubek wrote:
> My group at our university was recently tasked by one of our departments to
> construct an access grid facility (this facility will also function for
> other types of conferencing and classroom needs also). After much reading
> we have determined many pieces we need to get including things such as
> several ClearOne, Crestron and Extron products to control the various audio
> and video pieces ranging from scaling windows on the projectors and
> switching sources to mixing and cancelling echo on the microphones on the
> various tables. The problem we are running into in examining everything is
> with the access grid machine itself. We have looked at the technology and
> many of the pieces of hardware are many years old and we are seeing possible
> issues with integration as things such as PCI are replaced with PCI-e.
>
>
>
> We are looking at going with a Dell Precision workstation T7500 to be the
> access grid machine and have thought about adding more memory and a second
> processor to it (remember that it will serve multiple purposes. . My
> questions are the following:
>
>
>
> 1. I see that the software is listed for Linux, OS X, and Windows.
> We most likely will be going with Windows so we can support Microsoft Link
> also. This software is listed for Windows XP but does it work with Windows
> 7 32-bit and 64-bit. This is extremely important with Windows XP support
> coming to a close. Also, with the increased resources we plan to use it may
> be necessary to use 64-bit to take advantage of things such as 4+ GB of
> memory.
>
> 2. As mentioned before the technologies listed are out of date. We
> are especially seeing this with the video capture cards and audio cards. I
> was wondering if the following would be supported:
>
> a. SoundBlaster X-FI XtremeMusic (D)w/Dolby Digital 5.1 (this was the
> card option on the Dell) - if not is there a newer card than the one listed
> that is? We will of course need to integrate with our other products.
>
> b. Datapath VisionRGB-E1 PCI-e RGB/DVI capture card
>
> c. Osprey Osprey-450e PCI-e Analog video capture card
>
>
>
> If not we are looking for several recommendations of much newer technology
> that is supported as we see this to be extremely important.
>
>
>
> Jonathan
>
>
