Laptop specs for laptop capturing?

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viellearoue35

Member
Hello there. I've got a question. How powerful of a laptop is necessary to capture HD footage directly onto a laptop (no P2 or firestore drive)? I'm considering purchasing the HVX and am wondering if I can use my G4 laptop with 1.5 ram and 1.33 Ghz to capture the HD footage.

Another question. My understanding is that it is only possibly to capture 720P on the laptop and lower. Is it possible to capture the 1080i quality directly to a laptop? Any info on specs needed would be very helpful. Thanx -jason
 
I have the same laptop you have and have the HVX 200. There is no capturing involved. Shoot HD on the P2 cards and insert the cards into the slot on the side of the laptop where you would put a network card. The card will show up on the desktop like a external disk. Open up Final Cut Pro, set up your project to the size you shot, file import P2 media, select your clips and hit import. Its a piece of cake, but besure you install the P2 CD that is included with the camera.
 
correction

correction

THis is Jason. I posted this ad. My laptop does not have the P2 slot. It is the 12inch G4 ibook. And my question is, if I am to bypass the P2 process and use my laptop as the capturer (like the firestore drive) will my computer beable to handle it? I have friends who shot with the hvx and used the laptop directly to capture the footage, but they had fancier computers. Anyone know if my Ibook G4 12inch 1.5 ram, 1.33 GHZ laptop will be able to directly capture HD footage? thanks, -jason
 
You cant capture HD footage on a laptop without a HD capture card and I dont think they have one out yet. So to get the footage into the computer and you are not using a card slot, use a firewire cable from the computer to the camera and go into the playback mode and it will mount on your desktop like an external drive and import from file-P2media option and select the clips and import.
 
Hi. I have captured 1080/50i 25p (pal) which is slightly smaller than the ntsc counterpart to the same spec'd laptop direct into Final Cut, although the drive had been swaped out for a 7200rpm. Hire or borrow a HVX for half a day and test it out.

Pete.
 
So a G4 ibook with 1.33Ghz & 1.5 ram should be able to directly capture HD footage without P2 cards? I checked the specs of my ibook, it says that it is only 4200rpm, if i have a 7200rpm external drive will it work or must the computer have the 7200rpm also? Is it possible to swap out the 4200rpm drive for a 7200rpm one? thanks.
 
viellearoue35 said:
So a G4 ibook with 1.33Ghz & 1.5 ram should be able to directly capture HD footage without P2 cards? I checked the specs of my ibook, it says that it is only 4200rpm, if i have a 7200rpm external drive will it work or must the computer have the 7200rpm also? Is it possible to swap out the 4200rpm drive for a 7200rpm one? thanks.
Click to expand...
Unless you have 2 fw800 ports you cant capture via firewire and stream to the external via firewire at the same time. You also don't want to stream to your OS hard drive so you will probably want to add a 2nd 7200rpm internal drive to stream video to or off of. Running HD off of the same HDD your OS uses causes hitching and dropped frames, especially with that older machine.
 
I have successfully captured to an external Firewire drive using a single FW400 port on a lowly Toshiba P4M 1.5GHz by daisy-chaining the HVX200 through the external drive -- no dropped frames. The software was DV Rack 2.0 HD.

I'm not saying that this will work with all systems, but it is doable.
 
THoff said:
I have successfully captured to an external Firewire drive using a single FW400 port on a lowly Toshiba P4M 1.5GHz by daisy-chaining the HVX200 through the external drive -- no dropped frames. The software was DV Rack 2.0 HD.

I'm not saying that this will work with all systems, but it is doable.
Click to expand...


.....Thoff.....so, the signal runs THROUGH your external and into the the laptop...and then is saved back out to the external?.... trying to picture this... but I'm get a headache...
 
Correct, the external drive has two 6-pin Firewire ports. DVCProHD only requires 100Mbps, and the bus can deliver up to 400Mbps, so there's plenty of headroom.
 
On a similar note, what is the minimum Intel processor/Ram/Video spec required for realtime fullscreen playback of 720/1080 through the P2 Viewer software on a laptop?
 
I want to use my PB G4 1.67 GHz (1.5 gb of ram) as a "laptop capture device" for DVCPRO HD trough FCP 5.1.2 or just for transfering P2 cards with the help of the PCMCIA slot.

Since i cannot put a 7200 rpm HDD beside my main 5400 rpm HDD (only one HDD per PB), i plan to change my 5400 rpm for a 7200 rpm and install OS X Tiger on an external firewire disk to operate the system.

My question is: The external firewire drive operating OS X will go trought the FW 400's port ? so the FW 800 port is free to do "real time" capture of Dvcpro HD (720 24pn for exemple from the HVX) to the interne 7200 rpm HDD ?

Don't know if is a good exemple, but just want a capturing device (Mac plateform!) free of glitch and able to capture live footage.

Another question, since i plan to use an 35mm adapter, do you thing that FCP 5.1.2 could run beside the freeware FlipFlop (a 35mm adapter flip correction software) so that my director and script can see the shoot and i'm recording in background ?

Thanks


FlipFlop:
(http://web.mac.com/mark.burton/iWeb/Site/FlipFlop.html
 
What you are doing?

You using the laptop as a capture device - as a bare drive?

I can capture directly to a USB2 5400 rpm external TravelStar bus powered HD live on a MacBook.

Do yourself a favor, and put a 7200 rpm Hitachi Travelstar in a FW800 enclosure from wiebetech or g-tech, and buy a PC Card FW card for PCMCIA slot and attach cam to that and the FW800 external to the built in FW bus.

Leave your apps on the boot drive.
 
David S. said:
What you are doing?
Do yourself a favor, and put a 7200 rpm Hitachi Travelstar in a FW800 enclosure from wiebetech or g-tech, and buy a PC Card FW card for PCMCIA slot and attach cam to that and the FW800 external to the built in FW bus.
Leave your apps on the boot drive.
Click to expand...

Need a system that will permit the laptop to go free, fast or to place that doesnt have electricity for taking somes shoots (only for short time, i know!)

Thats why i ask about an external firewire hard disk, bus powered, to deal with the system OS X and FCP 5.1.2 for capturing software, with an internal "7200 rpm" HDD that ONLY record...

I'm asking this, because i know there is some issue about glitch and drop-frame on Mac with P2 and DVCPRO HD footages. I just dont want to deal with that and want to put all the chance on my side by giving best performance where i can.


Just asking if its make sens... dont have all the equipements to test all this by my self!
 
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