computer lingo? help!!

[west_matta]

Next year at some stage i'm looking to buy a laptop (or notebook if you like calling them that) to be used with my HVX

I did the search and came across a great topic discussing computers but it got a bit lost by the third page with a mac VS pc war.
what i did get from it was that people liked toshiba's satelite range.

Alot of people talk about RAM and external video cards and 2.0 dual core processors....What i dont understand is why these parts of the computer make it so efficient with the HVX footage?

thanks
West

[mikkowilson]

RAM = Random Access Memory ... that's the operatign memory of the computer. The more you have, the more it can be processing at the same time.

The Processor is the "Brain" of the computer. The total processing power is the speed of each processor "core" times the number of cores.. 2 "dual-core" 1Ghz processors is a total of 4 Ghz of Processing power. (2 x 2 x 1). The higher the totoal processing power, the faster the computer can think.

You overall performance is limeted by the slowest part .. so if the processors can "think" faster than the RAM can "remember" then you'd want more RAM, and vice versa. It's a carefull balance to get optimal combinations.

A Video card has it's own processor and RAM ... the more powerfull the video card, the less the main parts of the computer have ot worry about showing the image on teh screen, and the more they can concentrate on the actual computing - leaving the monitor output to the video card. Generallyt he better the video card, the higher quality (more pixels, faster update, etc..) the output image to your monitors is.

- Mikko

[ProfessorU]

****Oversimplification Alert*****
Don't search for a "carefull balance", get the components you're going to use.


If you're looking at getting a laptop to dump footage from p2 cards, I'd recommend a PC, since there have been issues reported with Macs.

If you're editing, the bottlenecks will be the processor, ram, video card, and hard drive speed. If you're just dumping footage, your bottleneck will be hard drive speed. Any modern CPU, Video Card, etc. will be fine. Capacity and battery life are also important for a field laptop. Being able to run a program like OnLocation is an added bonus.

My advice is buy a cheap laptop for the field, with PCMCIA, and get an extra battery. You can buy a 250 GB notebook drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000150380+1309729183&name=250GB) for about $150, so don't even worry about HD size when you're shopping.

[west_matta]

Thanks for the replys,
What i've gathered from more searches is that a 2GB RAM and a 2 duo core processor would be sufficient but im not sure what a good hard drive speed and video card size would be.

is a HDD with 5400rpm speed and a 256mb video card acceptable?

Once i understand that i should be able to confidently go out and buy a laptop without getting talked into things i dont need...thanks guys.

[jjraabe]

I'd suggest more than 2GB of ram. You'll get by, I do, but you could do better.

As for your hard drive... it could be faster. 7200 is generally the standard. You could check out using an external hard drive for your footage and what not. I like G Drive, personally.

I'd say, grab a 15" MacBook Pro
(if you're mac, if not, consider it) with a RAM upgrade, and you'll be peachy.

[ProfessorU]

I completely disagree.
* Mac isn't the way to go for reasons already stated. While both Mac and PC are both officially supported by Panasonic, it's obvious which one has more support and more stable operation.
* You'll only use 2GB of RAM if you're editing in the field. If you just want a playback machine, don't spend your money. RAM upgrades are easy and cheap, too, if you ever change your mind and want the extra performance.
* 7200 RPM drives have a downside. They take more battery power. If all you're doing is dumping footage, you'll get significantly more life from a 5400, and you'll only save about 60 seconds on dumping each card. Plus, if you buy a high capacity 5200 drive, you can get better throughput than on a 60 or 80GB 7200 RPM drive anyway. If you're editing, you'd probably want RAID anyway, and go external.
* 256 MB video card is good. Video cards use that RAM when they are running video games and 3d applications. Unless you're using OpenGL acceleration (like in AfterEffects) or playing 3d games you're not going to see much of a difference above 64 MB. You won't save much money by going below 256 MB, however, so it makes sense to buy a midrange card like what you're talking about.
* Don't pay extra for a big screen, and avoid the new crystal clear displays that don't have the matte finish. They're more difficult to view outdoors.

The critical things you need are a firewire port, a PCMCIA slot, a big drive, and lots of battery power. The rest is optional.

[west_matta]

thanks professor, you've told me exactly what i needed to know and understand. You hit the nail on the head in knowing that im mainly after a dumping and playback field laptop. Gives me shudders thinking of money i may have wasted or not used wisely when it comes time to buy.

[wgzn]

im gonna jump in here. first on the mac side - i use an OLD mac powerbook G4 17" 1.0ghz with 1.5gigs of ram - it WORKS FINE for p2 injest and basic dvcproHD edit using final cut pro. in fact its never given me even a hint of trouble. additionally, i capture to the internal 5400rpm drive.

and west, a lot of this comes down to how you plan to use the laptop. is it mainly for occasional field work and capture? OR do you plan to use it as your main production machine? if you plan to use it as your main production station, get all the ram, processor speed and video ram you can afford - as ALL of that WILL matter to various degrees.

the problem with pretty much any notebook is that its going to have lower specs in just about every category as opposed to a desktop machine. - cpu/bus speeds, max ram, video card size, etc... and all of this matters in video production. however its all only going to be a really big problem when you start doing complex multi-layer compositing and exporting/rendering - and in these cases the speeds will be FAR slower on a notebook

for day to day capture/edit, basic titles and effects, any mid to higher end machine will get you by. 2gigs of ram is FINE (but always more never hurts!) the 5400rpm internal dive will be ok (but as said in earlier posts, and external firewire/esata raid will be nice - but they will require external power) and a 128meg video card is enough.

if you are going to go with a windows machine i HIGHLY suggest that you buy a copy of windows XP pro and do an erase/reformat of the machine - as just about ALL off the shelf windows machines come preloaded with all kinds of useless crap that bogs down the machine and may well conflict with pro-apps.

funny story, i bought an HP dv8000 laptop (that im still VERY happy with) a year or so ago and the system was pre-configured NOT to allow booting from a CD and it took a full day on the phone with both HP and microsoft to figure out that it was simply a matter of a system setting to get around it. point of this story is that on the windows end, you can often spend as much time keeping the machine running as actually using it ; )

[west_matta]

ok yes i probably should have said in the first place what i do.....

I live in the very isloated area of western australia, I film primarily bodyboarding but from time to time a bit of surfing. I have made one bodyboarding film that sold fairly well (globally) for a first film and have started filming for a second one. To gather footage of professional riders your required to fly and drive all over the country to some very isloated areas.....so what i am after is a laptop to follow me everywhere i go so i can dump the footage and have the ability to do just some basic editing. i work with another guy who's home desktop computer we use as the editing machine.

i was thinking of a laptop like this (but with 2GB or more of RAM) http://www.isd.toshiba.com.au/71/live.dll/topic/content/pu_prod_details.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1331218196.11 96119716@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccfaddmjdhhkjkcefecekfdffhdfgj.0&PRODOID=92944&CATOID=-8157


West

[David Saraceno]

I mostly disagree with the professor's comments on the Macintosh laptops.

I've seen no evidence that a PC laptop is more "stable" than a MacBook Pro running FCS2 and DVCProHD footage.

I'm not certain understand what support he has for that comment.

I run a MacPro and MBP, one on Tiger and and one on Leopard and everything seems to work just fine.

I have a duel adapter to PC Card bus adapter for ingesting p2 cards and that runs fine in Leopard on the MBP.

Remember also that a laptop can serve the dual purpose of running a NLE and ingesting footage. Our 15" MBP with a 5400 rpm internal drive and 256 GB video card is a dream to work with.

We can ingest p2 cards with the duel adpater card, and then load those cards into the desktop using the firewire target mode.

I also use Scopebox for direct capture, and a G-TECH RAID mini for editing on both systems.

There are some issues with P2CMS app in Leopard, but given that most HVX200 users are on a Mac and there is native DVCProHD support on a Mac and Raylight for the Mac exists, I do not support the Professor's conclusions.

Ask questions and I'd be happy to answer

[ProfessorU]

The classic Mac issue with P2:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5915317


For my work I won't use the Mac to transfer footage, I just don't trust it. Every case we've ever heard of this happening [artifacts in footage] has been on the Mac, and the footage on the cards is always fine; it's after the Mac transfer that the glitches show up. from this thread:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=1105380

Panasonic offers P2 viewer, p2 format station, and SD card formatter for the PC but not the mac. The mac P2 drivers don't even have a version number! The first NLE to support p2 natively was Edius for the PC.

On top of all that, you'll pay more for identical hardware from Mac than from most PC manufacturers.

I would encourage you to source your statement that "most HVX200 users are on a mac."

I'm not saying that one or the other is better for everyone all the time. Just that PCs are a more natural pair for the HVX if you're using them as a glorified P2 store.

[west_matta]

before this errupts into a big argument over what type of computer is better....do you think that this toshiba satelite pro laptop would be a good choice if i upgraded the RAM to 2GB? http://www.isd.toshiba.com.au/71/liv...4&CATOID=-8157

Yes its a PC but will it do the job of footage dumping and some very basic editing with P2 footage?

[wgzn]

for injest and edit of p2 content pretty much ANYTHING with a pcmcia slot will be fine.

if i can do it on my old powerbook, i cant see why even the most meager modern windows machine wouldnt work just fine. for injest and basic editing, almost NONE of the ram/cpu speed/video ram specs matter very much at all...

just find something with a PCMCIA slot and shy of some unforseen glitch (which is a possibility with ANY machine) you'll be just fine.

what you DO want to look at is the specs of whatever NLE you'll be working with (premiere, edius, vegas, avid...) they will all have their own minimum/suggested hardware spec and OS requirement that you'll need to satisfy to work happily

[Jason Ramsey]

If you just want to dump cards, get a 500 dollar laptop with pcmcia slot.

If you want to dump and do basic editing (only a preference, not a set in stone statement), I would recommend that you consider looking at a slightly more expensive laptop w/ EDIUS. Whatever NLE you want to use, of course is completely fine. The only reason I say EDIUS is b/c you can do a lot more on it with a lot less computer.

You can get a 900-1200 dollar laptop and EDIUS and edit 2 or 3 streams of 1080 DVCPRO HD in realtime.

The only difference now (with v4.5 and later) is that the video card comes more into play with performance in EDIUS.

But, you can get a core duo (1.8ghz range around in there. on the lower end) with 2 gigs of ram (I would still recommend 2 gigs of ram) and a decent video card, and do probably more than just "basic editing" within EDIUS. EDIUS is better with realtime performance on less computer. This is the only reason I say this...

Now, you may already have your own NLE, so you can take that money and put it towards a better laptop if need be for use with that particular NLE... So, no dollars really saved either way...

The one thing to consider though is battery life, and that is where you can gain by needing a lesser performing laptop. Look for something with a good long rated battery life for offloading cards in the field etc.

Later,
Jason

[Timothy Harry]

before this errupts into a big argument over what type of computer is better....do you think that this toshiba satelite pro laptop would be a good choice if i upgraded the RAM to 2GB? http://www.isd.toshiba.com.au/71/liv...4&CATOID=-8157

Yes its a PC but will it do the job of footage dumping and some very basic editing with P2 footage?
im not sure that everyone is getting that he just wants to use it to dump and view. It also sounds like his buddies desktop computer is probably a PC. I think the toshiba laptop provided it has a PCMCIA slot and at least 1 GB of RAM would be just fine for his purpose here. (The site was down for maint. when I looked a few minutes ago) There is absolutely no reason to talk him into a MAC, or to argue about which is better. for his purpose right here, the computer he is looking at should be just fine.

With that being said I use both platforms (IT director by day, video junkie by night). I prefer the mac for editing, but if I was looking for a laptop to function as a P2 store I would seriously look at a PC rather than spend the money on a macbook pro. Ultimately I would purchase the macbook pro because I am stubborn and want every computer in my house to be brushed aluminum and it would give me something to argue with my wife about. I guess I am just confrontational like that. West, buy that laptop, it will serve your purpose!

[west_matta]

THANKYOU TIM!
ill make sure it has a PCMCIA slot and maybe just upgrade the RAM a tad. If it looks like this option isnt working out ill keep in mind what everyone has told me and keep digging for the laptop that suits "ME". thanks to all who have assisted me. greatly appreciate it