[AG-TECH] Access Grid Hardware/Software Questions

Fri Feb 25 10:08:21 CST 2011

Sorry, ment to say Osprey 450e in that 2nd paragraph.... - John

From: John Quebedeaux <johnq at lsu.edu>
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:02:05 -0600
To: Adam Taylor <ataylor at ulm.edu>, 'Jonathan Klubek' <jhklubek at buffalo.edu>,
<ag-tech at lists.mcs.anl.gov>
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] Access Grid Hardware/Software Questions

Adam, wasn¹t that machine a Dell T5500....? And yes, on Windows XP/Vista/7
the 4th input wouldn¹t work on that Osprey 440, but it works just great (all
4 inputs) on a Dell T5400, something changed on that machine... note: my guy
Chris noted new (non-beta) drivers on the Osprey 440, maybe we test it
again.

I understand from someone that the Osprey 440e works OK with the AG
toolkit....

We too found that the onboard audio worked just fine on our Dells.

-John Q.
-- 
John I. Quebedeaux, Jr.; Louisiana State University
Computer Manager LBRN; 131 Life Sciences Bldg.
e-mail: johnq at lsu.edu; web: http://lbrn.lsu.edu
phone: 225-578-0062 / fax: 225-578-2597

From: Adam Taylor <ataylor at ulm.edu>
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:51:10 -0600 (CST)
To: 'Jonathan Klubek' <jhklubek at buffalo.edu>, <ag-tech at lists.mcs.anl.gov>
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] Access Grid Hardware/Software Questions

Well, my two cents.

We are running a T7500 fully loaded with windows 7 64bit.  We run everything
on it except for the video capture which we run on an Ubuntu machine.  The
reason for this is driver issues with most to not all capture cards and
windows.  We have an Osprey 440 and no matter how hard we tried we could
never get the 4th input to work.  Under Ubuntu, it works just fine without
any tuning, and is as stable as can be.  Any machine that is a first gen
Core2Duo can run the video capture part without a problem.

As far as the sound, we had horrid problems with the Soundblaster X-FI that
came with it.  We ended up taking it out and just using the onboard audio
that comes with the machine.  We have not had a single problem since.

Thanks,

Adam Taylor
Computing Center
University of Louisiana Monroe

From: ag-tech-bounces at lists.mcs.anl.gov
[mailto:ag-tech-bounces at lists.mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Jonathan Klubek
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 8:30 AM
To: ag-tech at lists.mcs.anl.gov
Subject: [AG-TECH] Access Grid Hardware/Software Questions

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

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