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Home: Video University Forums: Wedding & Event Videography:
laptop advice or suggestions

 
 


X-al
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Apr 28, 2003, 1:58 PM

Post #1 of 8 (1862 views)
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laptop advice or suggestions Can't Post
Looking for something in the 2+ Ghz range, 40gb(min) and half a gig a memory - suggestions anyone?
Thanks Al


X-Steven_Hacker
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Apr 28, 2003, 2:02 PM

Post #2 of 8 (1861 views)
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Re: laptop advice or suggestions Can't Post
I went that route because I did a lot of editing on airplanes. I had 512 ram and found it not enough.


X-Chris
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Apr 28, 2003, 3:05 PM

Post #3 of 8 (1861 views)
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Re: laptop advice or suggestions [In reply to] Can't Post
If your going to do onsite editing/remote via laptop etc... Maybe you should buy a strong,fast and powerful laptop with a good warentee (ex. 3yr dell warentee.)
The higher the resolution of the screen the happier you will be. Go for the gig of ram you'll be happier with the stability of programs like adobe on it.
Insted of loading footage into the hd you shoul think of using a small firewire harddrive such as the pyro's.
The hd on most laptops are 5400 rpms..not 7200 whcih is the standard for dv editing. Also mixing footage with programs on a single HD is trouble waiting to happen. Buy the laptop and use a external hd for footage... Joel will agree on that since he was done it in the past with great success.
-chris


X-Coleman
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Apr 28, 2003, 5:50 PM

Post #4 of 8 (1861 views)
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I have a question about this Toshiba and all laptops with firewire. If I want to capture to a firewire harddrive using my digital camcorder what do I plug into the laptop? Shouldn't there be two firewire slots in the laptop, one for the camcorder and one for the firewire hard drive?
Coleman


X-Chris
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Apr 28, 2003, 6:28 PM

Post #5 of 8 (1861 views)
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Re: laptop advice or suggestions [In reply to] Can't Post
Most laptops come with 1 ie1334 port. I would "assume" you'd need a small hub to plug multiply your in/outs.
-chris


X-Jeff_Kirkland
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Apr 28, 2003, 6:34 PM

Post #6 of 8 (1861 views)
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You'll need two firewire slots at some point in the chain so that you can plug both devices in at the same time.
Also, and this may not be universal, I had a lot of issues (dropped frames, glitches, etc) capturing via firewire to an external drive on the same controller. I didn't look into it all that much as using Vegas Video forced me to swap to USB 2 but I figured there were bandwidth issues in that the DV stream + hard drive I/O saturated the firewire bus. Again, this probably depends on the laptop, the controller, the camera, the capture app and a dozen other variables so your mileage may vary.
Cheers
Jeff K


X-Ricky
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Apr 28, 2003, 7:49 PM

Post #7 of 8 (1861 views)
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Re: laptop advice or suggestions [In reply to] Can't Post
The firewire drive that I have hooked to my laptop has another firewire port that I hook my VX2000 to. It captures and edits everything in adobe fine. It is a slow computer compared to the ones you are talking about 256 ram and 750 PIII. I capture and edit on the airplane, but when I export to tape, it is jerky! So I transfer everything to my dekstop and export from there and it works just fine.


X-Joel_Peregrine
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Apr 28, 2003, 8:20 PM

Post #8 of 8 (1861 views)
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Re: laptop advice or suggestions [In reply to] Can't Post
Hi Coleman,
Most firewire drives have two ports, which allow chaining. Jeff's problems with firewire are not uncommon - there are so many variables to deal with - from hardware to software to drivers to firmware. Whatever decision you make regarding firewire peripherals be sure that you have seen or have first hand proof that the set up you are going to purchase works for others. Otherwise you'll drive yourself nuts trying to get perfect results. Perfect firewire capture and playback is based on a combination of the OS, firewire bridge board, firewire support software, hard drive efficiency and overall computer system maitenance. Any weak links in this chain can cause the dreaded dropped frames. In fact, most turnkey system sellers discourage against firewire drives because there are so many things that can go wrong. That said, I couldn't do what I do without mine...
Joel

: I have a question about this Toshiba and all laptops with firewire. If I want to capture to a firewire harddrive using my digital camcorder what do I plug into the laptop? Shouldn't there be two firewire slots in the laptop, one for the camcorder and one for the firewire hard drive?
: Coleman