NewTek recommends the following hardware, based on tests by NewTek Engineering and Technical Support staff.

CPU:

Pentium 4, Pentium 4 XEON, or higher*
*CPU Speed of 2.4GHZ or higher recommended for both single and dual processor setups.

Chipsets:

Intel 845*
* Boards with built in graphics cards will not work for 845 series
Intel 850
Intel 860
Intel 865
Intel 875
Intel 7205
Intel 7505

Software required to be installed on the VT[3] machine:

For Windows 2000:

• Service pack 3
• Windows Media Player 7 or higher
• Windows Media Encoder 8 or higher for streaming
• Direct X 8.1 or higher
• Latest graphics card drivers

For Windows XP Professional:

• Service pack 1
• Windows Media Player 9 or higher
• Windows Media Encoder 9 or higher for streaming
• Direct X 9a
• Latest graphics card drivers

Additional Hardware:

For hard drives and additional cards, the following is recommended:

Video Stripe Set: Four 10,000 RPM Ultra 160 or 320 SCSI hard drives or three 15,000 RPM Ultra 160 or 320 hard drives.

SCSI Controller for Video Stripe Set: Adaptec 29160, 39160, or 39320 Ultra 160 or 320 SCSI cards

DV Capture and Switching: any IEEE1394 Firewire card

NewTek does not recommend use of IDE video drives. Hard drives used for video storage and retrieval should be striped in Windows. Hardware RAID cards push data in burst speeds which are not appropriate for video editing. The sustained speed attained by Ultra 160 and 320 SCSI set up in standard Windows stripe-sets is what is needed for dependable video recording and playback. Systems which provide both a 32-bit PCI bus and a 64-bit PCI bus are recommended. The VT[3] should be installed in the 32-bit bus, and we recommend you use a 64-bit SCSI controller in a slot on the 64-bit bus to obtain the highest possible data rates. Systems with a single PCI bus rather than with separate 32-bit and 64-bit buses will offer slower performance due to the VT[3] card utilizing a portion of the bus bandwidth.