Best laptop for hvx200?

Just ordered my HVX today - I already have a Mac desktop, the 24" core 2 duo and FCP flies in it, and I already have a 500 gig G-Drive so I'm going to pick up the 13" MacBook for use with the HVX. And I've had my eye on a 13" anyway for travel since it's way lighter than my 15.5"

BTW- for anyone who's interested, Apple has a promo on Final Cut Express HD for $200 if you buy it with the MacBook.
 
NeverColdCall said:
BTW- for anyone who's interested, Apple has a promo on Final Cut Express HD for $200 if you buy it with the MacBook.
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That version of FCP doesn't support DVCProHD, P2, or MXF files.
 
It's mentioned in the manual in about 10 different places that it supports DVCPro including live capture. Apparently Apple's marketing is stuck on touting HDV but not DVCPro for whatever reason.

EDIT- I'm in there now and it indeed supports both capture and export for those formats.
 
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As an update to this thread, it appears that P2 drivers aren't available yet for Windows Vista. So if someone's shopping for a PC-based laptop, you might want to skip Vista and stick with WinXP until that gets sorted out.
 
I wouldn't get a MacBook. You really have to use a MacBook Pro because you'll not only get a faster CPU but also a GPU which accelerates Final Cut Pro's live RT playback and higher resolution screen to be able to look closely at your HD footage.
 
Dont forget you also get an express card slot, to use a Duel Systems Duel Adapter to load P2 cards.
 
And don't get a glossy screen laptop because it doesn't show you the true contrast and saturation levels of your footage. Glossy screens crush the blacks and show richer colors than your actual video and image files really have.
 
The Gateway NX860XL
is available for $1,800 delivered.

You might want to see if you can get it with Windows XP though, but good price.


Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium (32-bit) w/ Home Backup CD

Application Software: Microsoft® Works 8.5

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.00 GHz, 667MHz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache)

Memory: 2048MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-1024MB modules)

Screen: 17" WUXGA TFT Active Matrix (1920 x 1200 max. resolution)

Hard Drive: 80GB 7200rpm Serial ATA hard drive

Optical Drive: Integrated 8x Multi-Format Double Layer DVD Writer (DVD±R/±RW/CD-RW)

Extended Service Plan Including Limited Warranty: Notebook Value Service Plan -- 1 year parts/labor/no on-site/1 year technical support

Battery: Primary 8-cell lithium-ion battery with AC pack and 1 yr. limited battery warranty

Security Software: No Security Subscription Selected

Carrying Case: Not Selected

Integrated Wireless Networking Adapter: Integrated Intel® 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N Wireless Networking

Bluetooth: Bluetooth® Wireless Networking Module

Speakers: External speakers not selected

Rebate: $200 instant savings (reflected in price, limited time promotion)

Mobile Technology: Features Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology

Floppy Drive: 6-in-1 media card reader (Memory Stick®, MemoryStick Pro®, MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital™, Mini Secure Digital®, RS-Multimedia Card™)

Expansion Slots: One type II PC card slot

External Ports: (4) USB 2.0, VGA, S-Video (TV Out), IEEE 1394 (FireWire)

Video: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS Graphics w/ 256MB DDR Video Memory

Keyboard and Mouse: Full-size keyboard w/ integrated 10-key pad and EZ Pad® pointing device

Multimedia Package: Integrated sound and stereo speakers, headphone/speaker jack, and microphone jacks

Modem: Integrated V.92 56K modem

Network Adapter: Integrated Intel® 10/100/1000 Ethernet adapter

Internet Service Provider: Six months America Online® Internet access

Part Number: 1014230R
 
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I'd just like to chime in that I've been through 4 laptops in the past 6mths...

First was a 17" 1.67 mac... very fast and slinky but way to big and fragile.. screen broke down during our first shoot in the snow... So then I picked up a HP Pavillon DV4000.. nice little PC but it is way slow in tansferring the P2 cards and ocasionly it failed to transfer the footage at all.. and we'd have to re-transfer... then came a 17" 1 GHz Powerbook and it was nice but again just to big in the field...

So now I picked up a 15" G4 550 Powerbook (old machine) replaced the hard drive with a 120GB drive put in a DVD burner and it rocks... OK.. P2 Log cannot play back the HD files but I can see the thumbnails and the in's and out points to tell me the duration of the clips ( I always open up the folder that has been downloaded as a quick check prior to deleting the cards)..

The good thing about the little Powerbook Titanium is thay are built as tough as nails.. had one fall out of the back of a car onto the road and apart from a few scratches all was well.. also parts can be bought of e-bay cheaply and the layout of the system makes rebuilding them quite easy...

Just my 2c

cheers les

www.les.herstik.com
 
Jason Ramsey said:
You can use Panasonics P2 viewer. It is a free download.

Not sure how much P2 genie is.

Jason
Click to expand...

Its only $33 USD - pretty cheap considering how much time it can save you in the long run (which depends on your workflow and way of shooting). But I guess I'm not completely impartial in the matter ;-)
 
considering getting a pc laptop for 100% reliability. is there a difference in transferring p2 to an external hd if using usb, firewire 400 or firewire 800? or is offloading times similar between the 3 interfaces?
 
t- I'm all about your stuff. I didn't mean to imply otherwise :thumbsup:

And still anxiously awaiting your scene file program :)

Jason
 
boo said:
considering getting a pc laptop for 100% reliability. is there a difference in transferring p2 to an external hd if using usb, firewire 400 or firewire 800? or is offloading times similar between the 3 interfaces?
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The only connection method supported by the P2 drivers for the PC is USB, so you will always be limited by the connection speed of that interface. In practice an external Firewire drive will have slightly higher throughput than a USB drive, but in this case it won't matter.

I would still get an external drive that supports USB and Firewire, or even those two and eSATA. The flexibility to be able to use either USB or Firewire is very nice to have, and the speed of eSATA blows even FW800 out of the water. You may not need or even have a way to hook up a eSATA drive today, but six months from now you might.
 
? I doubt that can be true. How can the P2 driver have a limitation of only transferring at USB speeds?

I've got an FW800 drive here, and an FW800 ExpressCard slot, but I couldn't get it to work on my laptop. If I can figure that out and get FW800 speeds, I have no doubt that I'll be able to offload a 4GB card to the G-RAID through FW800 in under 2 minutes.
 
Sorry, let me clarify. I made the assumption (maybe mistakenly) that the camera would be connected by cable. On a PC, that means a USB connection.

If you are using a USB connection to connect the camera to the computer, then the external hard drive interface is pretty much irrelevant. USB has a peak transfer rate of 480Mbps, but it cannot sustain that, and Firewire will have better throughput in real-world applications.

If you have a laptop with PCMCIA/PCCard slot (or a desktop with such an addon card), then then the transfer speed will be limited by either a USB or Firewire connection, with Firewire 800 obviously being about twice as fast as either USB or Firewire 400. With eSATA, I think the hard drive itself would become the bottleneck.
 
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