Editing on a laptop

Amuse-WS

Amuse-WS

Carbonite Member
Are any of you using a laptop as your main editing rig?

I'm asking because I'm thinking of building a new desktop PC, or if I should just buy a laptop.

Storage wouldn't be too much of a biggie, since the laptop I'm consdering supports USB3.0/eSata.

In consderation of video editing only - what are some pros and cons for you guys?
 
A desktop gives you more power, more flexibility, more expandability, and costs less pound for pound to boot. Laptops are great for portability, but that's where the advantages end.
 
Agreed. Portability's important for me, so I got a laptop, but a desktop would have given me more power for the same or less money.
 
Unless you can output to a production monitor from the laptop, you are mostly limited to general cutting. You can't color correct without a production monitor. You can't do sound edit without studio monitor speakers. Rough cut is just about the best you can do with a laptop.
 
There are ways you can do those things with a laptop, but then portability is out the window, and you overpaid for what you get. For the price you'd pay to do it, you can get a (more powerful) desktop with all that stuff included, AND a laptop for quick field work.
 
What you could do is use that laptop docked at your workstation, with a prod monitor, studio monitor speakers, and a nice big working monitor connected. Use it in that setup for most of your work, but detach it and take it with you from time to time when you need to do work on-the-go. Best of both worlds, maybe.

Just make sure your laptop has some way to get firewire in and out. If you're capturing from tape, this is a necessity. Even if you aren't, it lets you output through a MiniDV camcorder to a regular TV, which can be handy as well.
 
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