laptops and video editing

[barneygumble742]

hi,

i know A LOT about desktop hardware and graphics cards and peripherals regarding video and editing. however when it comes to laptops, i dont know anything. currently i'm looking to buy a laptop and i dont know what to look for.

how fast should my laptop chip be? i know a ton of memory is required. one usb and one firewire port is needed. and my main question is towards video editing on a laptop. what graphics chip do i need?

do i want something like the dazzle video capture equipment - something external that does all the video editing/capturing stuff or have the microprocessor in the laptop (p4) do all the work?

thanks,
barneygumble742

[piccoLEW]

well the thing with dazzle is u will need to plug it in, which means the laptop cant be far away, might as well just keep to desktop for video editing

i consider the laptop the "mobile phone" of computers, you can take it anywhere you like... well most places.

[Áedán]

There's a number of differences between laptops and desktops

Some laptops will slow down their processor when on battery to save power. I've generally found that running a laptop flat out, in terms of processing power, usually puts a big dent in battery life. Big dent in this case seems to be around 1/4 to 1/3 of the 'normal' battery runtime.

Laptop hard disks are SLOW by comparison. Laptop drives tend to be 4500RPM or 5200RPM, rather than the 7200, 10000 or 15000 RPM drives you might find in a desktop machine. Seek times are pretty high too, the disk in my machine here sits at around 18ms seek time.

Memory bandwidth is lower, as FSB speeds tend to be lower.

What kind of capture input will you be using? Digital or Analog? Most low end analog capture devices don't do compression, relying on the CPU to do it for them. This isn't a great idea on a laptop, where there's less bandwidth available for such things.

[barneygumble742]

Originally Posted by Áedán

There's a number of differences between laptops and desktops

Some laptops will slow down their processor when on battery to save power. I've generally found that running a laptop flat out, in terms of processing power, usually puts a big dent in battery life. Big dent in this case seems to be around 1/4 to 1/3 of the 'normal' battery runtime.

Laptop hard disks are SLOW by comparison. Laptop drives tend to be 4500RPM or 5200RPM, rather than the 7200, 10000 or 15000 RPM drives you might find in a desktop machine. Seek times are pretty high too, the disk in my machine here sits at around 18ms seek time.

Memory bandwidth is lower, as FSB speeds tend to be lower.

What kind of capture input will you be using? Digital or Analog? Most low end analog capture devices don't do compression, relying on the CPU to do it for them. This isn't a great idea on a laptop, where there's less bandwidth available for such things.

my capture input will be a digital camcorder. i don't know much on the dazzle products but i think they capture video. i don't know how good they are. i would like to build a desktop but i don't have the space for it. i'd like to do some video editing at home only and want the laptop for its portability; for taking down notes in class or capturing ideas and images on the fly. i think its much better to get a visual immediately than on paper. i can't spend much. around 900-1000 dollars. i was actually thinking of getting a dell laptop (for its price) and get a video card upgrade. and then for the video editing, get an external for capture/compression.

also, will this external capture/compression setup work well with maya? can the external device do a lot of the rendering stuff so the p4 in the laptop won't be overused?

those are my main concerns.

thanks,
barneygumble742

[Áedán]

If you're using a digital camcorder, I presume you're going to be using the firewire to transfer (in both directions?) the video between the camcorder and the laptop. If that's the case, you don't need an external capture device, as you can already get the video in digital form.

Obviously, I don't know the capabilities of your digital camcorder, so I could be making assumptions here that just aren't true.

Most capture devices won't do any rendering assist, being purely just capture/playback devices. This means that the processor in the machine will be used to do the rendering.

[BMan]

yea, i dont know... i mean i bought a computer from prostar... i think the actual computer was 2500, has a pentium 4 2.4 ghz, ati 9600 mobile... 80gb 5200 rpm, dvdrw, 1024 ram, works great for me.. but i get about 1 hour when i play games on battery.... runs bf 1942 great on it. but when i run it on the cord it runs lot better.

[SteveI]

AFAIK, dazzle has mpeg2 codec built in... but I'm no expert. As Aedan pointed out, notebooks aren't the best choice for video editing. Memory Bandwidth, CPU power, battery life, and HDD speeds will impact the performance and quality of video tinkering. Unlike most apps, the whole concept of overclocking comes in quite handy for games and video editing. In other words, video editing requires lots of CPU horses, memory size and bandwidth, and lots of HDD performance and size to do well. In a pinch, a high end notebook would work well, as long as it is not on battery.

FYI... for many, video editing was the killer app that was to push high end HW sales... never quite panned out for the industry, but anyone who has worked with digital video will tell you, the more power the better.

[SteveI]

Originally Posted by BMan

...but i get about 1 hour when i play games on battery.... runs bf 1942 great on it. but when i run it on the cord it runs lot better.

Modern notebooks have SW control of battery life.. You can adjust the settings for performance on battery to extend the life of the battery, or go all out and suck the battery dry quickly. If while on battery, you feel the performance in general is more than adequate, you can slow it down some and probably increase battery life significantly. Often this is trial and error.

[BigRed]

Originally Posted by SteveI

Modern notebooks have SW control of battery life.. You can adjust the settings for performance on battery to extend the life of the battery, or go all out and suck the battery dry quickly. If while on battery, you feel the performance in general is more than adequate, you can slow it down some and probably increase battery life significantly. Often this is trial and error.

Not all notebooks. If its a desktop replacement notebook there is very very little power saving options. You cant clock back the cpu or anything like that.
However if it uses the P4mobile or the centrino cpu there are lots of options for clocking back the cpu and such.

Like my lapop his is a desktop replacement one. He has about the same battery life as me, although mine has dual batteries, and I own 4 (2 main, 2 modular) so I have lots of mobile game time