laptop specs..

Paul Llewellyn

Paul Llewellyn

Well-known member
What would be the min. specs needed to offload P2 cards and to be able to view the clips?
Full editing wouldnt be too important but to be able to watch a clip once its gone from the p2 card would be a handy reference while shooting footage that will later need to match.
 
Any old laptop with a 32 bit pcmcia slot and atleast a 5400 rpm hard drive.

I'd stick with a minimum size of 60 gigs for the hdd.

Besides that, it doesn't really matter. After all, the laptop is just acting as a hard drive for offloading. It doesn't need much power to do that.

As for viewing them, that all depends on what NLE you'll be using, different NLE's require different cpu power.
 
And to play clips? Is it possible just to play back the clips without an editing platform? I havent installed my p2 cd yet so I'm not sure exactly whats on it. Thanks.
 
Yes you can play the clips back without needing an editing program, you can download the Panasonic P2 Viewer program for that. But if you want to play back HD clips in realtime, you'll need a decently powerful laptop. My Pentium M 760 with 1GB can play back 720P clips full-screen in realtime, but chokes on 1080 clips.
 
Great question. My 1.7gig won't play real time. (didn't plan on the HVX when I bought the laptop a few months ago).
I was just looking at some dual processor laptops but I don't think that's all that's needed for real time playback.

A laptop in the field is what I've decided to go with also. Instead of spending 2-5 thousand on a decent HD monitor, I'll take a $2,500 laptop with good display capabilities, storage and playback capabilities, get a good metal case and the filed workflow is awesome. Clients think its cool too!

I would love to hear what resolution and speed options are recomended from those in the know.
When giving stats, figures and opinions, please give reasons to back your statement. :)

60 gig ain't going to be near enough, (in my opinion). I'm thinking 120gig would barely be safe for whatever project comes along.
We might have multiple day shoots or 2-3 client shoots before we get back to the edit bay for transfer.
 
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Is there a way to view realtime the HVX out by firewire to the laptop? So you can use the laptop as a monitor? What do we need for that to let it work?
 
Hello,

This is my first post in this forum after spending months reading with interest everything thats been happening with my two favourite cameras.

I am going to be investing in my next laptop next month with the HVX in mind to buying later this year.

Whilst my laptop will actually be my work horse at home and on the go for Aftereffects, photoshop and flash work I hope to use it as my NLE when Adobe finally get their act together and offer MXF file support for DVCPRO HD in Premiere.

I'd like to check what people think of the specs of the laptop and if people think it will be quick enough to playback the 1080i and 720p footage running at 100Mbps.

Its going to be a windows XP Pro system with an Athlon64 X2 3800+ processor, 2 GB of RAM, 2 x 100 GB internal S-ATA HDs configured in RAID 0.

With regards to Premiere, I hope to speak to Adobe to find out when and how they are going to implement the support.

Any answers or posts would help greatly !!!

BTW this is a great forum and has been very helpful in letting me know about these two great Panasonic cameras. There's a wealth of knowledge and expertise, a great community spirit and excellent examples of what people can achieve and make for themselves.

Thanks,
Richard M.
 
We're looking into using the laptop as an on-set monitor. Anyone done this? Probably not as DVRack doesn't currently support DVCProHD, but if it did that would be very cool.

Use it to offload P2/Firestore footage + monitor for colours and sharpness, etc. Nice :)
 
What are the minimum needed specs for a laptop to play 720p clips on the p2 viewer?

Would a Intel Pentium M 740 1.73ghz with 1 gig ram work?
 
Pb

Pb

colinmday said:
Mine works great with it. FCP 5 is a breeze handling P2 cards.
Click to expand...

So how is the Powerbook working with the P2 card? I know FCP 5 works. Does the PB see the card like a harddrive, I have a ibook and was looking to jump up to the PB. which PB do you have/recommend.
 
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