Best laptop for hvx200?

I think i'm waiting for the apple keynote speech to buy a laptop...

I have a feeling they will be releasing a macbook pro quadro, and a 8-way mac pro desktop...

then i have to decide if I want a laptop or a desktop. Considering a 4-core laptop is pretty beefy, I'd probably go with that :D
 
I spent a couple of hours looking for a laptop with 7200rpm, I think those who
have this on their laptops bought the harddrive and then had it installed.

Question: Does it to have a slot for card bus or express card to read the p2?
Yes, I am ignorant that's why I'm asking.
 
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I think the next MBP will still be based on the C2D but this time based on the santa rosa platform so it will make really use of 64 bits. Hopfully it will be reased on March/April 2007 based on their release cadance from the past.


tarionyx said:
I think i'm waiting for the apple keynote speech to buy a laptop...

I have a feeling they will be releasing a macbook pro quadro, and a 8-way mac pro desktop...

then i have to decide if I want a laptop or a desktop. Considering a 4-core laptop is pretty beefy, I'd probably go with that :D
Click to expand...
 
Charli said:
Question: Does it to have a slot for card bus or express card to read the p2?
Click to expand...

Charli, the laptop should have either a PCMCIA slot (or two) which will be directly compatible with P2 (or with P2 Genie http://www.p2genie.com/ ) or if it's a newer laptop, it may only have an EXPRESS CARD SLOT; in that latter case you'll need an adapter that can go from PCMCIA to the Laptop's Express card. Here's such an adapter that is currently in BETA testing, and available soon:
http://www.duel-systems.com/products/adapters.aspx
 
However, isn't it true that all P2 content can be transferred (not streamed in a signal but moved like a file) through the firewire port?

I thought that having a PCMCIA slot would insure that you could transfer without some of the hiccups associated with firewire transfer but that you could still transfer over firewire if needed. I realize that you can not stream native frame rates over firewire but you can transfer the files over can't you?
 
You can mount the cam on the desktop and transfer/copy the contents of the p2 card to the computer. You do have to take the cam out of service to achieve this, however.
 
David S. said:
You can mount the cam on the desktop and transfer/copy the contents of the p2 card to the computer. You do have to take the cam out of service to achieve this, however.
Click to expand...

Good point. Thank you!
 
So are there any other reasons why I would want to try and get an editing laptop with a PCMCIA slot in addition to a firewire port, other than to have the ability to keep the camera in service and for the convenience?

Most of the laptops I am wanting to buy to edit and monitor using DV rack with do not have PCMCIA slots.
 
QUOTE:
The things you need for an HVX laptop, to get the most from the HVX, include:
1) a PCMCIA slot. This is vital.
2) a firewire port, preferably a 4-pin
3) an SD card slot
4) a reasonably decent-sized hard disk
5) USB ports for attaching external drives and devices
6) Windows XP, which gives you reliable card offloads vs. MacOS, which currently isn't 100% reliable with card offloads
END QUOTE

why does the laptop need a firewire port if I plan to dump files from the P2 and then out to an external hard drive via USB2? Is USB2 too slow for an 8 gig transfer? sorry if I am missing something incredibly basic!
 
The firewire port lets you use DV Rack 2.0 HD to do live capturing and monitoring.

Ideally you'd also want a quick dual-core processor and a fast graphics card, so you can use P2 Viewer for realtime fullscreen playback.
 
This is probably a silly question, but ...

Would I be able to use a PC notebook to offload P2 cards onto an external HD via firewire to then edit on a mac?
 
Not a silly question, albeit a frequent one.

Yes, you can do what you are asking. You can copy the P2 cards using a PCMCIA/PCCard slot if the laptop has one, or you can mount the camera's P2 slots as removeable drives using a USB2 cable after installing the P2 drivers -- you can then drag-and-drop from the drives representing the P2 cards to the external Firewire drive.

Also check out P2 Genie, it greatly simplifies copying chores and allows you to copy the material to two destinations for redundancy, i.e. the laptop's internal drive and an external drive.
 
I'm preparing to make the jump to the HVX200... And following this thread and looking around abit i notice that there aren't really any inexpensive solutions for the macusers out there w/o having to hook up the cam to the laptop... hmmm...

but my question (a simple one) would be is a Macbook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz be adequate to handle production needs? I work in FCP as well as with AE 7 and be working mainly with 720/24pn signals I suppose( to make the most of those p2 cards...)
I'm also asking this question because I have some $$ for an investment but I would like to know if this Macbook Pro would hold up or should I hold out a little longer until Mac decides to move on to Intel Core Quadro(whenever that is- circa 3010 A.D.)?
 
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Mackbook Pro is very capable in a high end professional environment. Make sure it is a PRO, Macbook isnt quite as capable.
I use mine for Editing, Graphis, Motion, and boot up Windows to use DVrackHD and any other programs that I am forced to use in Windows flawlessly. I LOVE it. No issues at all.
 
im running a core 2 duo, dell Latitude 820, works fine for me,

doing A1 HD mind you, and rendering is forever with some CC.
 
THoff said:
You can copy the P2 cards using a PCMCIA/PCCard slot if the laptop has one, or you can mount the camera's P2 slots as removeable drives using a USB2 cable after installing the P2 drivers -- you can then drag-and-drop from the drives representing the P2 cards to the external Firewire drive.
Click to expand...

Questions:
After you copy your P2 how can you view it to make sure you have your data (on PC) prior to moving it over to ma MBP/G5?

How much is the genie?
 
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