DVRack work on an intel mac? (and other DVRack questions)

L

Lenilenapi

Carbonite Member
Will DVRack work on an intel Mac laptop?

Also can you run it while recording to P2 cards?

How big can the monitor image be on the screen ?

Will it fill the screen, and if so how does a say a 17" laptop running DVRack compare to a dedicated 17" monitor like the 17" Panasonic?
 
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Full screen
4. Depends on the laptop's screen; I compared my Dell XPS laptop against the Panasonic 17", and I'd say the laptop was a good 80%, maybe 85% as good as the Panasonic, once they were both properly calibrated. But laptop screens can be quite reflective, with nowhere near as good off-axis viewing, so -- a dedicated monitor will always be better, but DV Rack's monitor can look pretty good.
 
Wow, I'm considering getting a 17" laptop instead of shelling out for the Panasonic . I didn't think it would be that close.
I have a host of other questions if you don't mind.

1) How powerful a machine would I need?

I guess that's both a PC question and a Mac question.

I've always been a Mac person but I am aware of the problems you have pointed out about MAC's & P2 cards, so i guess I should consider both. I assume a PC would be cheaper as well.
I know very little about PC laptops and what they cost.

2) Do you think there would be any problems say with an Intel Mac between using it as a PC when shooting with DV Rack, then switching over to using it as a Mac with FCP?

3) Have they solved the import problem of not having a PCMCIA slot on the Mac's yet?

That could be a big problem.

4) Then there is the issue of using it in the field off battery power. Can you get an external battery for these things or would you just need a bunch of laptop batteries? Can you get an external battery charger?

5) Have you figured out a way to mount the laptop on a stand to use as a monitor near the camera?

6) Is this a reasonable idea instead of a 17" Panny? I guess you are limited in how long your firewire cable could be.

7) here's a a wild one - Can you feed a signal out from the laptop running DVRack to another monitor.

- Lenny Levy
 
That's a lot of questions.

All I can say is that I run DVRack Pro on a 15" MacBook Pro Core2Duo under BootCamp without problems. No release yet on Express34 to PC card adapter. But I have a SATA card in my Express34 slot for external SATA drive. As primarily a Firestore user, I am less concerned personally about importing P2 cards.

Meanwhile, I just find that the Intel Mac gives the best of both worlds.

The only way you could output a video signal from DVRack Pro is to have another monitor hooked to DVI port and mirror the displays. I've done that before while doing a demo of DVRack Pro.

Ned Soltz
 
1) I don't know how powerful it *needs* to be, but a 2.00GHz Core 2 Duo with 1GB of RAM and 5400RPM internal SATA drive is working just fine. You should be able to get something that meets the basic specs for about half the cost of the MBP.

2) No, should work perfectly.

3) Not yet, should be out soon but no announcement. If you have a P2 Store you can use that as a slot reader for an MBP.

4) My battery lasts about 4 hours, and yes you can buy extra batteries for about $100 or so.

5) I have a monitor platform from Matthews which mounts on top of a C-stand or light stand.

6) Reasonable? Well, in some ways it's infinitely superior, in other ways it's unquestionably inferior. A monitor can't capture... a monitor won't offload your P2 cards. A monitor can't edit scene file data or run P2 Viewer or annotate metadata. But DV Rack, as good as it is, isn't quite as good as a true monitor. It's a halfway solution. On any professional shoot I've done, I've had both there. Going with just DV Rack would be a little... well, I dunno, just a little "ghetto" I guess. It can work, it can be a substitute for an LCD monitor and it can do about 80% of the job depending on the quality of your laptop's screen. But when big bucks are being spent on a "real" production, I want that last 20%, if you know what I mean.

7) Haven't tried; I imagine if you had a monitor that runs DVI you could put DV Rack in fullscreen mode and use the external DVI port to drive the other monitor. My laptop allows the built-in LCD and the DVI port to be active simultaneously, so I imagine that would work.
 
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