what laptop do you use?

gkb444

gkb444

Active member
So i would like to buy a laptop for p2 card offloading and was wondering what laptops people are using. I have an hp dv9000 that does not work with the pcmcia adapters and would like to stick with a pc. I know many use mac but I have been using pc for over 15 yrs. and would like to stick to it. overall I am looking for the best pc laptop I can find that still has the pcmcia slot.

any advice is welcome.

Thanks!
 
check out lenovo.com They seem to be one of the few where you can get most of the components you would need and want, and be able to actually still choose windows xp as an operating system.

Good prices too.

As for me... I consider optimal for p2 (and editing with EDIUS) to be:
pcmcia slot - for p2 cards
expresscard54 slot - for expansion (eSATA drives for fast editing capabilities, FW800 ports, etc, etc)
sd card slot - for firmware upgrades and scene files
firewire port (4pin) - for offloading footage, etc... I've used the firewire port on my pc only once actually, and that was just to test a bug in some software. It can be used for offloading from camera to laptop, straight to laptop recording from the HVX, external drives to offload to from p2 cards, etc.

Stick with xp. I'm using a vista laptop to type this message right now. You don't want to go there :) Not to mention its a resource hog and will require add'l hardware (ram) specs in order to meet the performance of an equal xp system.

Later,
Jason
 
thanks! yeah I have vista for my home pc but it is in the box unopened. the only reason i got it was it was cheaper while I was a student and figured I would eventually upgrade to it but now I don't know. I currently use avid to edit but it is the student version and was thinking of moving to another editing program. how does edius compare to avid? should I stick with what I have learned in school and have some experience with or should I branch out?
 
Your choice of NLE is up to you. whatever you are most comfortable with is probably the right answer. I've never used avid, so I can't give you any kind of comparison there.

My recommendation would be to use what you are most comfortable with and to use an NLE that will allow you take the fullest advantage of the workflow benefits of p2. Choose which of those two are most important to you.

For me it was the 2nd one.

What I generally say about EDIUS is that it's super powerful, fast, realtime, and supports practically every camera format known to man. It has full and complete p2 support and no other NLE that I'm aware of can compete with it in terms of realtime performance and p2 functionality.

The other thing I say, is that it's not as "robust" and feature rich as some of the other NLE's out there, and I consider it not to be the most intuitive piece of software out there. But, for being powerful and working with p2 like every NLE should, it's the one. Just a question of whether or not you can live with lack of some other features you may be used to for a while while the new owners (appear to) continue to polish it around the edges.

AVID supports most (if not all now) of the recording formats of the HVX. Can't really tell you much more than that.

Premiere has recently added p2 support. Haven't really heard any accounts as to how it works.

Vegas requires Raylight. FCP can use Raylight to let you use native mxf's and have metadata instead of having to first convert to quicktime's, etc.

Many will say that if you are using Vegas, or FCP (and used to be Premiere.. don't know now) that Raylight was pretty much mandatory if you wanted to experience the p2 workflow properly with those NLE's. Not anywhere near the realtime performance of EDIUS though, but same functionality.

Hope that gives you some stuff to chew on.

www.lenovo.com

later,
Jason
 
i have an old 1.0 ghz, 1 gig ram mac powerbook G4. it works great for offloading and fcp does a decent job of editing dvcprohd in the field when the need arises.
 
I got an Alienware which I love. But you can get better value especially if you're just offloading cards. We also use it for location editing and playback so it was worth it for us.
I also got a decent HP as a backup and found I can't use the Dual Adapter with it. That bites!
 
Asus. Inexpensive and well built. Apple's notebook are Asus, but that still hasn't stopped me. :)

I paid around $1000 a couple years ago for a model with a 16x9 screen, PCMCIA slot (for dumping P2s) and 4 USB ports. I use it in the field for dumping P2, and minor editing at the client's office.
 
I use a dell latitude 610 it has the slots for the cards right on the side. I have a 60 GB hard drive and a portable 40 GB just in case, But if you use it exclusively to dump to as I do you can get about 1 hour worth of footage on it and then start dumping to the portable drive if needed. My advice is to go to ebay and buy one used for about 300 dollars You have to find one that has the slots before everything went internal Y-fi
 
Lenovo R61. Nicely powerful, 2.4GHz dual-core processor, SATA hard disk, firewire, and it has both a P2 slot and an ExpressCard slot, and it was about $1,000 brand new.
 
I've got an acer with vista, yeah vista I dont even want to get started but point is that its got a p2 slot, its not terrible fast but for 300 bucks I paid on ebay its perfect for offloading p2 files to an externl that I then take to my main macpro edit bay
 
A G4 powerbook with a busted back light. I have to shine a flashlight on the screen to see what I'm doing when dumping footage :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
DM rider - that sounds like a pain. have you checked on getting it fixed?

Once again thanks to all for the input! i'm thinking the lenovo site is the answer. I don't really care for buy electronics from ebay, too much that could be wrong that Iwon't notice right away. it's a personal trust issue.
 
Right now for P2 dumping I have a cheap Acer pc laptop, with Vista.:furious3:
P2 slot, but it runs pretty slow in general, mostly the startup. I got a MBP I just got, just waiting to get a few dollars available so I can buy the dual systems adapter.
 
Powerbook G4, which i just picked up.

Was going to sell my Macbook and just use the powerbook as my only laptop.. however have just reconsidered and im keeping my Macbook. The powerbook will be for P2 dumping only.
 
Joe Lawry said:
Powerbook G4, which i just picked up.

Was going to sell my Macbook and just use the powerbook as my only laptop.. however have just reconsidered and im keeping my Macbook. The powerbook will be for P2 dumping only.
Click to expand...

Too hard to get rid of the mbp, eh?
You every just only use the mbp via dual adapter?
 
macbook macbook macbook not pro heh.

if i had a macbook pro i would have never bought the powerbook.

I cant be bothered selling the macbook as its quick wee beasty and after looking into the price of second hand machines its not worth selling.

That and i've also decided i dont want my personal laptop out on shoots with me.
 
gkb444 said:
DM rider - that sounds like a pain. have you checked on getting it fixed?

Once again thanks to all for the input! i'm thinking the lenovo site is the answer. I don't really care for buy electronics from ebay, too much that could be wrong that Iwon't notice right away. it's a personal trust issue.
Click to expand...

ya, I just need a new backlight... but I'm lazy and don't want to spend $60 when a flashlight works just fine, haha. I don't use the computer for anything other than a dump drive, so it works for now.
 
I got a cheap $400 HP laptop for school, and suprisingly enough it handles DVCPRO HD just fine. It doesnt have a P2 slot for offloading. No big deal to me, I just plug my camera up to it via ie1394 or usb2.0. I got it at office max in august.
 
Switching over from PC to Mac isnt as bad as you would think, things are actually simpler in OSX. I think you get more for your $ from Final Cut Studio 2 than you do anything else. And all the programs are fairly easy to learn/navigate through. Not to mention MacBook Pros are solid.

Just my 2 centavos.
 
If you decide to go cheap, just get a clunker from Circuit City or someplace similar for about $400.

I custom-designed a Dell for my laptop. Use the large business section of their website, they will have the most options for CardBus and for WindowsXP configs.
 
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