Tim: As you say, this isn't a Canopus discussion group, but there is a relevance in that you are attacking e-on for V4P's instability, then announcing that you are running a hardware setup that is not just unusual but (in my experience, not just mine trawl some NGs) very likely to lead to irresolvable hardware conflicts. You introduced Canopus support as a paradigm for small software house support, it may be great in the US, outside it's non-existent. So, detailed response: "No problem on the rant, other than you're statements are completely false. Please don't take this as a personal attack, but you don't know what you're talking about." Don't be silly, of course that's a personal attack. "It wasn't clear from your post, but if you're using a non-NT OS (i.e. Win98, ME), then there is no point in even going any further." I administer and maintain around 70 boxes, some running dedicated CAM OS's most people have never even heard of, the boxes in question were running W2KPro. "However, to address some of your other points ... 1) "If you're using Storm cards, then I'm frankly amazed that any software, including Premiere, works properly on your system." Actually, everything works BEAUTIFULLY on my system. I run all my machines (save my laptops) 24/7/365 and I have yet to have ONE BSOD in Win2K ... EVER. Do apps crash? sure, occasionally, and even then it's always only the poorly-written ones." Well, aren't you the lucky one? Want my job? I've got users who can crash anything from Linux prompt to notepad in XP Pro. "2) "The suppliers won't take them back, they've no second hand value and Canopus have never answered any of my e-mails." The fact that the suppliers won't take them back is no surprise since they're used, and that is on an individual supplier-basis, some will some won't, that's not Canopus's fault. First of all, email would be my LAST RESORT. I have emailed them and they always got back to me. BUT WHY NOT JUST CALL THEM?? They have FREE tech support and they're very good." Here in the UK there are laws which should give us recourse against the supplier but, frankly, we don't have time for litigation. Things may have changed since we had these problems (Feb, March and April this year) but then e-mail was our ONLY method of getting tech support - the phone numbers were unavailable outside of the US. "3) "... they're redundant anyway, why buy a capture card that's no faster than a standard firewire and uses a proprietary compression so that every frame captured has to be re-rendered?" Wow, I don't EVEN know where to start here. But I'll try. First of all, it's many, many, many, many, many (you get the idea) times faster than a standard firewire card. It does everything in REAL-TIME, no rendering at all. I have no idea what you're talking about." OK, steady now: that card that's piggy-backed onto your Storm card, the one that you plug everything in to? That's an IEEE 1394 (firewire) card, it's what the Storm card retrieves all its data through. It can't be any, any, any times faster than any, any, any other IEEE 1394 (firewire) card, coz that's what it is. What the proprietary part of the card does, that was once useful, is fast hardware MPEGing - redundant on a well set up, modern, machine. "It is also the only card on the market (that I know of) that is future-proof. That is, it is fully scalable ... it only gets faster as computer hardware technology gets faster. It is not limited by the hardware of the card itself. Finally, ALL realtime cards use a proprietary compression. Canopus happens to be recognized as one of the best. Secondly, I have NO CLUE what you're talking about when you say it needs to be re-rendered. This is simply not true, unless you're importing footage that was not captured using the Canopus DV-codec, and even then it takes no time at all to reformat clips. It think you need to RTFM before you give up on it, as you are missing out on one of the best realtime cards ever made." I very much doubt that any real-time capture cards are future-proof, they're all redundant. I can do real-time capture from a pro VidCam through the firewire on my laptop without dropping frames! Let me give you a clue about the re-rendering thing: you have a series of frames saved with non-standard compression, you have a series of frames saved with a standard compression: which takes the longest to render into a standard compression format? Would you like a clue? I spent longer RTFMing than was acceptable to either me or my directors. "Oh, and you said "they've no second hand value" ... yeah right, go list your boards on eBay or the Canopus forum ... see how long they last. They are in HIGH demand. Again, I have no idea what you're talking about." Disposing of company assets is not in my remit, however as I am getting the blame for buying this rubbish and I might find a sucker...