3D-Album Home

[Bill Smith]

I just bought a HP Pavillon a720n PC. It has an AMD Athlan XP 3200 processor, 512 MB, etc. I added a XTASY ATI Radeon 9550 video card.

It comes with Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 and Windows Media Player 9.0, along with some other software, etc.

I reloaded my CS 3.0 software from CD, and then re-applied several upgrades to bring me to 3.16.

I've only created one album so far, and only captured one MPEG and one MPEG-2 (actually the MPEG-2 was DVD NTSC). It ran fine, no problems.

Actually, it ran better then fine. I couldn't believe the speed. I think the capture created 30 frames every four seconds, which is about 4 seconds to capture 1 second of playing time. This is such a great improvement for me. Of course, since my old PC was a 350mhz, I shouldn't be too surprised at the vast improvement.

Anyway, I was quite happy to find that service pack 2 "co-existed" with my 3D-album software.

[Frogprintz]

Bill,

I bought this same machine a week ago as a gift for a family member. Like you, I discovered this machine performs very well. I choose the ATI Radeon 9800 as the video card, and upgraded to Win Player 10, but everything else is the same. Cost? $600 for the system w/ a $50 rebate. $129 for the video card. It processes 3D Album captures fast and accurately.

It also has a DVD/CD writer - a 2nd CD reader, modem, 200 MB harddrive, ethernet, USB, firewire, 7-1 memory card(s) reader, mouse, keyboard, software, etc. All this is standard equipment!

In addition, I purchased a Viewsonic 19" Flat Panel monitor (750 to 1 contrast), for $399.

The only other recommendation I can make is a broadband DSL or Cable subscription. DSL is increasingly cheap. In my area, you can get an annual fee of $19 per month for 384KB to 1.5 MB throughput. Not a bad deal at all. This also comes with a Yahoo ISP connection that includes 500 MB of web hosting space and other nice features. With this, you can post your 3D albums to your own website for family and friends to view.

A system like this would solve any of the hardware problems many of you encounter when setting up and successfully using 3D Album. Of couse, this doesn't mean you won't have to practice or learn how to access and use certain 3D Album software features, it just means that from a hardware standpoint you will have the right combination.

For those of you considering a system change or upgrade, this is an excellent low cost combination. A great gift for yourself or family.
_________________
Michael Young
FrogPrintz Productions
Authorized Resellers of 3D Album

[Bill Smith]

My only concern about this product/package is that the DVD/CD writer only handles DVD+. (It does handle dual layer, but I'll hold off on that as I heard, but don't know for sure, that some DVD players can't handle dual layer).

If this causes a problem, then I'll add another DVD writer that handles DVD- as well. But, first I'll see how the DVD+ works on some different DVD players.

I was also pleased to find that the product came with a copy of "muvee" for creating movies, Intervideo WinDVD Creator, Intervideo WinDVD Player, Itunes, and Sonic Record Now. Oh yeah, it came with a copy of Works that I haven't installed or looked at. My point on the software is that a person can add 3D-Album, and then have pretty much all the other basic software that they need to create DVDs to share with their friends and family.