toddyukdj
I guess I'm pretty typical, I've DJ'd for about 8 years on PC and Laptop, and somehow made a living from it. I started with DJ Power, and now I'm a Virtual DJ convert. I work in some pretty big clubs and some pretty small bars, and use a Centrino Laptop 1.6 with 512ram and a Hercules DJ console with no buttons that work, so (yes i cheat but who notices apart from other DJ's!) the space bar mixes for me all night and being a personality jock it means I have more time to have fun!
With the advent of Version 4 I'm interested in Videos and Behringers B2000 (it's sat in a box in my living room, the sofware that came with it was pants and kept freezing) Here's my questions which even though cover different subject will be helpfull for the less pc literate DJ who can maybe change a soundcard, but not build a pc!
1. What's the minimum spec for a all singing and dancing video playing PC?
The one I'd like to use is a P4 2.4 1 gig Ram 120 gig HD
2. What Video Card should you use?
I take it you need a twin output card, which one is the best option (reasonable price, decent quality etc)
3. Is there a place to purchase video's in the correct format so they play with VDJ, or is it neccesary to buy the DVD's and rip them, if this is so, whats the simplest way of doing it?
4. I have a Digital Music license from PPL which costs me £200 a year, will this cover the playback of Video's?
Any responses to any questions will be helpfull.
Hoping version 4 works with my Behringer Mixer (Which by the way looks and feels worth treble the £120 it cost me!)
Cheers
Phil
With the advent of Version 4 I'm interested in Videos and Behringers B2000 (it's sat in a box in my living room, the sofware that came with it was pants and kept freezing) Here's my questions which even though cover different subject will be helpfull for the less pc literate DJ who can maybe change a soundcard, but not build a pc!
1. What's the minimum spec for a all singing and dancing video playing PC?
The one I'd like to use is a P4 2.4 1 gig Ram 120 gig HD
2. What Video Card should you use?
I take it you need a twin output card, which one is the best option (reasonable price, decent quality etc)
3. Is there a place to purchase video's in the correct format so they play with VDJ, or is it neccesary to buy the DVD's and rip them, if this is so, whats the simplest way of doing it?
4. I have a Digital Music license from PPL which costs me £200 a year, will this cover the playback of Video's?
Any responses to any questions will be helpfull.
Hoping version 4 works with my Behringer Mixer (Which by the way looks and feels worth treble the £120 it cost me!)
Cheers
Phil
Posted Mon 21 Aug 06 @ 12:08 am
andytaylor125
Hi there,
Not sure I can answer all of those questions but i'll give it a shot!
1.I use a dell inspiron 6000 laptop, 1.82GHz centrino processor, 1024MB of ram, with a ATI Radon X300 video card (I think that's the name, either way, it's got 128MB of dedicated video memory). I've got video's up and running anyway.
To be honest about half the time, the video on the external screen holts for just less than half a second as I load the next song to be played onto the deck, but the other half the time it's fine and the sound always continues uninterupted anyway. (I'm sure nobody really notices and the video's always fine when the actual mix is taking place.)
So hope that kind of helps, that's what i use with pretty good results, so anything more than that would be good (if i was upgrading my system, I'd go for 2GB of ram as the first thing to change, then a 256MB video card, then a faster processor).
I've also got an external hard drive for videos as vob files take about 200-250MB (A quarter of a Gigabyte) each most of the time. (An extra hard drive just for songs/videos is pretty useful, apparently it can help VDJ run more smoothly as well.)
2. Video cards, at least 128MB of dedicated memory (256 is better if you can afford it!) Make sure it's dedicated, because some cards will say 128mb, then say in really small letters "shared memory" - no use for videos! Also, it seems to me that people seem to have less problems with ATI cards than other makes, but maybe somebody who knows more can help you on that one.
3. Videos: I'm pretty sure nobody on here knows anywhere you can legally download videos (tell me if there is!!!) I use www.mixmash.com I buy their monthly pop one and got their Dance Anthems Vol 1. But also there's www.promoonlyuk.com their dance, urban, party, disco discs are pretty good. Simplist way to rip is into .vob files. You can use the VDJ dvd ripper or DVD Decrypter or loads of other programs for this. Some people also convert them to a different format (like divx), so they take up less space. But I find they take longer to load on my laptop and take up more CPU to play them.
4. Fraid it doesn't cover videos. www.vpluk.com can give you more information on getting a license to copy videos from dvd onto your computer. The venue you're playing at also needs a license to play music videos to the public (but if they've got one of those video jukeboxes already, they should already have one). I'm not condoning copying music videos to your computer illegally, but I've never heard anybody on hear saying that they've ever been asked to produce their license! :) (Especially if you've legally bought the originals on dvd).
Oh look, I did answer all the questions! (well, tried anyway).
Hope that helps you a bit. :)
Andy.
Not sure I can answer all of those questions but i'll give it a shot!
1.I use a dell inspiron 6000 laptop, 1.82GHz centrino processor, 1024MB of ram, with a ATI Radon X300 video card (I think that's the name, either way, it's got 128MB of dedicated video memory). I've got video's up and running anyway.
To be honest about half the time, the video on the external screen holts for just less than half a second as I load the next song to be played onto the deck, but the other half the time it's fine and the sound always continues uninterupted anyway. (I'm sure nobody really notices and the video's always fine when the actual mix is taking place.)
So hope that kind of helps, that's what i use with pretty good results, so anything more than that would be good (if i was upgrading my system, I'd go for 2GB of ram as the first thing to change, then a 256MB video card, then a faster processor).
I've also got an external hard drive for videos as vob files take about 200-250MB (A quarter of a Gigabyte) each most of the time. (An extra hard drive just for songs/videos is pretty useful, apparently it can help VDJ run more smoothly as well.)
2. Video cards, at least 128MB of dedicated memory (256 is better if you can afford it!) Make sure it's dedicated, because some cards will say 128mb, then say in really small letters "shared memory" - no use for videos! Also, it seems to me that people seem to have less problems with ATI cards than other makes, but maybe somebody who knows more can help you on that one.
3. Videos: I'm pretty sure nobody on here knows anywhere you can legally download videos (tell me if there is!!!) I use www.mixmash.com I buy their monthly pop one and got their Dance Anthems Vol 1. But also there's www.promoonlyuk.com their dance, urban, party, disco discs are pretty good. Simplist way to rip is into .vob files. You can use the VDJ dvd ripper or DVD Decrypter or loads of other programs for this. Some people also convert them to a different format (like divx), so they take up less space. But I find they take longer to load on my laptop and take up more CPU to play them.
4. Fraid it doesn't cover videos. www.vpluk.com can give you more information on getting a license to copy videos from dvd onto your computer. The venue you're playing at also needs a license to play music videos to the public (but if they've got one of those video jukeboxes already, they should already have one). I'm not condoning copying music videos to your computer illegally, but I've never heard anybody on hear saying that they've ever been asked to produce their license! :) (Especially if you've legally bought the originals on dvd).
Oh look, I did answer all the questions! (well, tried anyway).
Hope that helps you a bit. :)
Andy.
Posted Mon 21 Aug 06 @ 1:35 am
DJ-ALF
You can upgrade you ram to 1Gb and that is the minimum for video, 2Gb is better. But your video card should be something like Nvidia 6600(Gt) or ATI X600 and above with it's own dedicated memory (which means it doesn't steal from your ram) with at least 128Mb (256Mb recomended). What video card do U use? Your processor is good enough for video.
You don't need twin output video card, VDJ is the mixer for you ;) and you have a preview on your monitor and main video out on TV output which every video card has today. I don't play video's but many formats are supported via external codecs in Windows. You should wait a day or two and get VDJ V4 where many things are improved, video is one of them as I know.
About Behringer console, yes it will be natively supported in V4, one more reason to wait for it and than start building your setup!
Cheers
You don't need twin output video card, VDJ is the mixer for you ;) and you have a preview on your monitor and main video out on TV output which every video card has today. I don't play video's but many formats are supported via external codecs in Windows. You should wait a day or two and get VDJ V4 where many things are improved, video is one of them as I know.
About Behringer console, yes it will be natively supported in V4, one more reason to wait for it and than start building your setup!
Cheers
Posted Mon 21 Aug 06 @ 1:37 am
toddyukdj
Thanks for your help guys, just back from my hols, shame the behringer isn't supported so I'll have to soldier on with my hercules for a while with about 3 buttons still working!
Posted Thu 07 Sep 06 @ 1:36 am
DJ-ALF
You should check this thread about BCD 2000, it is working for some guys.
Posted Thu 07 Sep 06 @ 2:02 am