Vegas on a laptop

Curtis_Rhoads

Curtis_Rhoads

Active member
Okay, so I had to move in with my In-Law's and have no where to setup my main editting machine. I'm looking for a laptop that I can use in the mean time to edit my short movies and some wedding footage from 2 weddings that I shot for my sister-in-law's wedding and then my best friends wedding...

Questions is, what is the minimum spec I can get away with? I know that Vegas 6 says 800Mhz CPU and 256 MB RAM, but I know that some of you out there have been running Vegas on laptops and are a little more adept at knowing exactly what kinda specs work best. Not planning on HDV, so just standard DV, and I'll be installing Win XP with SP2 on whatever laptop I get. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

Curtis
 
I have run Vegas 4 and 5 on an AMD Athlon XP 1.4GHz notebook with 512MB RAM and 20GB HD. It runs slower than my editing workstation, but it works without any problems.
 
Yep, Vegas is the only professional level NLE I'm aware of that can actually still run on a dog of a system. That said, you don't need much in your lap top to get the job done for basic edits, and even still do okay with some of your more complex edits.

I'd go with 512MB Ram at a minimum, preferrably 1GB, and at least a 20GB HD, but then have a separate external for all of your video files ... probably at least 80GB, but you can get external 250GB+ drives now for $250-300. Go with at least a P3 system, but P4's or AMD64's are coming down in price as well.

If you're going with a laptop, pay attention to the screen ... if you can get a good one for the price, go widescreen.
 
Have any of you editted using a laptop with a res of 1024x768? Just looking around at my options and wondering....

Thanks!
 
That's awesome that Vegas lets you run it on a slower system, but in turn acts slower... it really grinds my gears when software demands a certain processor chip or whatever to even 'run'. (cough... Apple... cough, i shouldn't say that... my iBook wasn't bad... I just couldn't afford to purchase a new OS every year just so that I could install their lasts internet browser.)
 
Does everyone that uses external drives buy the full external drive kits? Seriously, just buy an enclosure with USB and Firewire (under $50), and you can find 250gig for under $100 if you look. That's half the price of getting the all in one package... plus, you can easily swap out drives down the road.

Oh and if your laptop has a firewire slot open, you can preview out of that (to your camera and s-video to a tv) which clears up room on the screen since the rez isnt that high on most laptops (plus gives you the true dv output). Or, most have a VGA out (can use a cheap CRT) which allows you to expand your rez or use as a monitor.
 
Curtis_Rhoads said:
Have any of you editted using a laptop with a res of 1024x768? Just looking around at my options and wondering....

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I have, and it's perfectly workable. It's a 1 GHz, 512MB RAM, 60GB HD Toshiba, running Windows 2000 Professional.

Of course, for the 'real stuff', I have an editing box at home - 3GHz, 2GB RAM, about a terrabyte of hard disks... dual monitor plus a Panasonic DV deck hooked to a monitor.

Now the question: why do my movies suck? :embarasse
 
I'm using Vegas on a K37 laptop, max rez is 1024 x 768, works just fine. When I really need to, I can set up a second monitor as well...3.2 GHz, and 1gig RAM, it's a snappy system, especially for the price.
 
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