minimum laptop specs to edit native AVCHD GH2 footage

T

teuron

Active member
im in the process of building a desktop pc which will be the primary editing machine, however I was wondering what are the minimum graphic specs to do very lite editing ( just joining and crossfading clips wit no fx) on a laptop (most likely will be using sony vegas platinum)

i want the laptop to be as portable as possible (between 12.1 to 13.3") and most of the units in that size have integrated graphics. i guess my question comes down to being:
- can i do lite editing (native avchd gh2 24fps 1080p) on a laptop with intel hd graphics?

such as this one? (lenovo x201)
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=B322BFF47FC24E5BBC4FEB010B8961EC
 
Well, unless your using Adobe CS5 for your editing, the graphics card doesn't affect editing performance. Just aim for the fastest CPU you can get.
 
so is it safe to say that if the laptop can PLAY a native avchd in say VLC player, and it has a good processor, then I can assume that I can edit with it?

my last laptop (3 year old hp with a integrated gma3100 i think) could not even play a 720hd file in any player.
neither can my current netbook.

i was thinking of going around computer stores with a usb stick with some native avchd gh2 1080p 24fps footage on it and test out some units.
but i need to know whether by simply being able to play the file on a laptop; if that means that it is good enough to do some lite editing on it (ofcourse i will only be testing out units that have a i3 or i5 chip on it)
 
Well again- you will only be editing 'native' if you choose an NLE that supports native editing such as Adobe CS5. From that point it's a question of whether you'll do it native or transcode to a less processor intensive codec. I think it's safe to say that a current model CPU and GPU that can comfortably playback AVCHD clips in something like VLC should provide usable performance for editing. As with all things processor intensive- the more powerful CPU, GPU, fast hard drives and RAM you throw at the problem the better your performance will be. So it is really more a question of budget than technical specs.

Noah
 
Corel X3, Sony Vegas, includes GPU acceleration as well, so it's a good idea to check on the software end to see what it supports, and then build your system around it.
 
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