I've recently purchased a decent Alienware system for just over 4k. Its primary
use is video and audio editing.

I had a couple of problems early on that just ended up being resolved with a
driver update to the <brand new> video card...of course it took me a week to
figure that out!

In the interim, (of course I was already two weeks late on a project because
the computer took 10 weeks to get to me), I tried to contact Alienware support.
I got an immediate automated response saying they would get back to me within
24 hours. They still haven't and this was six weeks ago.

Is this par for the Alienware course? I'd hate to think that I laid out this
kind of money and can get no service when necessary.

Comments? Experiences?

Thanks,
Chase

Don't wait six weeks before calling and giving them outright hell. What you
are paying for when you allow THEM to build your PC from off-the-shelf
components instead of doing it yourself for cheaper is VAR. Value Added
Resale. One of those values SHOULD be excellent FREE support. I'll call 'em
for ya.. what's the number? /


"ChasProLTD" <chasproltd@aol.comspamless> wrote in message
news:20041208220710.23218.00001811@mb-m03.aol.com...

Computers are an anomaly that nothing else in the world is like. If
you were to purchase every piece of your car singley, piece by piece
you would pay about %800 more than buying in at once.

For computers, the opposite is true. If you buy a no name system with
quality parts (or put it together yourself) you get a cheaper system
that is faster in all respects. If you buy DELL, IBM, COMPAC or even
ALIENWARE, you payed $$$ for a fancy case and a little logo on your
box.

PS, there are only a few HD manufactors in the world, few CPU mfgs and
yes, even the company that makes the Ram. If put together correctly,
it doesn't matter if Mr. Local computer store or a huge multi national
company assembled it for you. Frankly, with the extra $1,000 I could
save on a system like yours, why not get a plane jane box but have 2
GB Ram and get a 3.6 Ghz processor? LCD monitor even.

Sorry bud, you got took.

But as far as building a better system...I did get 2 GB of ram and the 3.6 Ghz
processor. (I didn't need a monitor.) The cost beneift analysis of saving a few
hundred dollars and having to build it myself...and having no one to blame but
myself...just didn't seem worth it to me.

And admittedly, compared to you and many others in this group, I know very
little when it comes to this stuff.

Chase

Yikes! 4K for an editing box? Was this a specialy configured video editing
box with high end capture cards and raid drive arrays?

I thought the Alienware folks were a gamers box focus. But then I don't pay
much attention to who's building what these days.

Ok, to answer the real question. Email support? Are there more than one or
two companies in the whole world who actually answer email support? Of even
if they do, answer with something other than 'canned answer #5'.


"ChasProLTD" <chasproltd@aol.comspamless> wrote in message
news:20041208220710.23218.00001811@mb-m03.aol.com...

Yes.

That's one of the things they focus on.

I've gotten timely and helpful feedback from MS, AOL, and Dell on a variety of
issues.

At this point, it doesn't really matter...I was just wondering what other
Alienware experiences were like. I'm guessing they are not as popular among
video editors as I thought!

Chase

On 09 Dec 2004 15:32:44 GMT, chasproltd@aol.comspamless (ChasProLTD)
wrote:

I'd guess more people look to video editor specialists, who have
that as their main (or even only) PC building business. The support
questions for video go way beyond the computer used for editing.

I've found that email is much less certain to arrive in this era of
mass SPAM and viruses. It gets there, but gets lost, mistaken as
spam, junk, or whatever. I've had a sales order email disappear (the
rep didn't use a company address nor order number or reference in the
subject, and "selling stuff" mail looks a lot like SPAM, even to
automatic filters).

For any company, if you don't get a quick response and you've
already paid for tech support, why not just email them again? Or
call, if the call is toll-free? I wouldn't wait six weeks before
trying again.
--
*-__Jeffery Jones__________| *Starfire* |____________________-*
** Muskego WI Access Channel 14/25 <http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/mach7/>
*Starfire Design Studio* <http://www.starfiredesign.com/>

Read my Video page at http://www.pacifier.com/~jtsmith

1st editing computer (to get it done right!) was Alienware... I did
not have to contact AW with any problems, so can't comment on their
support... the computer worked, right out of the box (but, if I had
needed support, I would have called their 800 number)

2nd, When I felt the need for more speed, I built myself... but this
was after a LOT of reading and talking to other video editors in the
two support forums I visit (for Adobe Premiere and Pinnacle Dv500)

If someone wants to edit video and isn't comfortable building their
own, I would still recommend AlienWare

John Thomas Smith
http://www.direct2usales.com
http://www.pacifier.com/~jtsmith

You're exactly correct. The computer was right out of the box, so I figured it
must have been my error. (I am very good at errors.) After working around the
error for a couple of days, I emailed tech support. I also got our tech support
guy to take a look the next day and he was able to deduce the video card needed
a driver update. Something I would never have thought of being as it was just
out of the box and everything was brand new and latest and greatest. At that
point I didn't need to hear back from tech support, thus I did not call.

Anyway, by now you've figured out that I know just enough to be dangerous and I
freely admit that most computers are much smarter than I am.

Chase

Nasty little cardsees!

Yeah, I would have expected it to work out of the box with the hardware and
software pre installed. Would have been rather annoyed if that not the case.
If you started throwing new software at it and then ran into a conflict,
thats might be different.

The video driver eh? (he says nodding) Its always the video driver........


"ChasProLTD" <chasproltd@aol.comspamless> wrote in message
news:20041209130134.12272.00002032@mb-m28.aol.com...

"ChasProLTD" <chasproltd@aol.comspamless> wrote in message
news:20041209130134.12272.00002032@mb-m28.aol.com...

So you're now ready to get a job at Alienware building computers.

Thank you all for these wonderful post concerning Alienware's systems. As a
systems integrator it makes me feel good to hear this "supposedly wonderful"
company makes terribly crappy editing systems. We have watched them as
competitors and wondered over and over how a predominately gaming oriented
company could produce video editing computers and offer technical support
for those computers as well. Now we know. A company can build a video
editing computer by technical specs but still not know anything about the
field of editing video on a computer. Creating a solid editing system is
more than just putting the components and software into the box.

In the future, go to an integrator that has a track record for creating
video editing computer system for video editors, built from the ground up
for editing video by specialists in turnkey video computer systems. Hey,
come to think of it. That's Digital Video Solutions!! Never a complaint
found on the internet in any form.
--
Larry Johnson
Digital Video Solutions
webmaster@digitalvideosolutions.com
http://www.digitalvideosolutions.com
877-227-6281 Toll Free Sales Assistance
386-672-1941 customer Service
386-672-1907 Technical Support
386-676-1515 Fax

"ChasProLTD" <chasproltd@aol.comspamless> wrote in message
news:20041208220710.23218.00001811@mb-m03.aol.com...

Digital Video Solutions wrote:
<ad deleted>

Building a computer that will perform well in a video editing
environment isn't hard at all. But I'll grant you that a gaming system
isn't likely to be a good candidate.

I've just built a couple (for running both Cinelerra and machochists
that choose Premiere). The specs were:

Dual Opteron 246 processors (248 and 250 are still a bit pricey)
2gb RAM
Dual head Radeon 9800 video cards
Dual mirrored 160gig "system disks"
3Ware 4 port hardware RAID card
4 x 300gig SATA drives in RAID 5 mode for "work space"
Gigabit ether link to NFS server with another few terabytes of permanent
storage space.

I ran some tests encoding large video files and was able store the
result directly on the NFS server without losing any frames. I doubt
that would work for uncompressed video, but it worked just wonderfully
using Huffyuv compression. For real work, however, we just use the
local RAID and then transfer finished product to the NFS server at the end.

And for people who are into Apple, you can just buy a dual G5 with an
external drive array and run FCP. That's not cheap either, but it just
works more or less out of the box. I've been a Linux user for years,
but I must say that OSX sorta grows on you after a while. :-)

Cheers,

This company builds turnkey computer systems that ARE specifically
made for video editing and not those kiddie nintendo games

http://digitalvideosolutions.com/turnkey.htm

no.spam wrote:
I know. We saw the last ad you posted.

"Ritz" <ritz@mordor.net> wrote in message news:R5nvd.52$ob.14@fe08.lga...
You mean you wouldn't buy a PC built in someones garage?
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller5588.html Lol...

I don't know who posted my website link for systems. It was not me. The
earlier post was not meant as an ad, nor did I say anyone should choose our
company over another. Whomever posted our ratings record is not affiliated
with Digital Video Solutions. I attempt to give sound advice on this forum,
and that is my only ad for our business as a whole. No other attempts are
made to gain your business.
--
Larry Johnson
Digital Video Solutions
webmaster@digitalvideosolutions.com
http://www.digitalvideosolutions.com
877-227-6281 Toll Free Sales Assistance
386-672-1941 customer Service
386-672-1907 Technical Support
386-676-1515 Fax

"Ritz" <ritz@mordor.net> wrote in message news:R5nvd.52$ob.14@fe08.lga...

"Digital Video Solutions" <video@digitalvideosolutions.com> wrote in message
news:KqHvd.126239$Oc.74198@tornado.tampabay.rr.com ...