Laptop for video editing

Monkey

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on what technical requirements a laptop for video editing should have. I'm not very knowledgeable on computer technicalities.

mycroft

What do you need it to do, what is your budget, and what kind of software are you familiar with

Monkey

Would be using premier to edit short films.

mycroft

By short films I assume you mean short scripted movies?

Okay my next question is "why a laptop" Screensize and resolution will make it difficult to do colour correction and actually watch the footage.

Comfort. You hunched over a desktop PC is infintely more preferably then hunched over a laptop. For comfort you'll end up making your laptop a desktop (proper desk) USB mouse, right chair, lighting

Speed, laptops are getting better, but you're pretty much limited to capturing via firewire (or USB s video adaptor) on a laptop and the major difference is not having a dedicated chunky graphics card will slow you down when we start rendering.

Not being difficult just trying to figure out "why a laptop"

Hugh_C

Monkey wrote:

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on what technical requirements a laptop for video editing should have. I'm not very knowledgeable on computer technicalities.

15" Apple Powerbook (Combo or Superdrive) and Final Cut Pro. Forget about Premier, it's not good. FCP is becoming an industry standard (as well as Avid) for editing.

hc

Goodshape

Is Final Cut Pro available for the windows?

And Monkey, they're right about the rendering time and all that. Unless mobility is key, get a desktop for video editing. Otherwise, for DV editing you need a firewire port, lots of hard-disc space, decent graphics and plenty of RAM.

mycroft

Goodshape wrote:

Is Final Cut Pro available for the windows?
QUOTE]

Nope sorry Apple only, designed for Mac by Mac.

Another fine reason to buy a mac.

daram

Just make sure whatever you get (desktop or laptop) make sure its got an apple on the front. They really blow the pants off pcs when it comes to video editing. Im buying a 12" powerbook. Gonna do some editing on it, but buying it mostly for smallness. And cause its purdy.

axer

if the laptop/desktop is only going 2 be used for video editing then prob an apple mac is best but if otherwise it may be best 2 get an intel processor with hypertreading (apparently speeds up video capturing by 30%+). 1gb ddr ram and a very big harddrive. at top quality my videos (uncompressed) take up about 1.75gb/min. so you can work out the size you need from that. Also everyone is correct in saying that a desktop is alot more preferable to a laptop, but if u are stuck...

gutta

axer wrote:

if the laptop/desktop is only going 2 be used for video editing then prob an apple mac is best but if otherwise it may be best 2 get an intel processor with hypertreading ...

Axer I don't understand your reasoning. Are you suggesting that Macs are only good for video editing?

mycroft

axer wrote:

if the laptop/desktop is only going 2 be used for video editing then prob an apple mac is best but if otherwise it may be best 2 get an intel processor with hypertreading (apparently speeds up video capturing by 30%+). 1gb ddr ram and a very big harddrive. at top quality my videos (uncompressed) take up about 1.75gb/min. so you can work out the size you need from that. Also everyone is correct in saying that a desktop is alot more preferable to a laptop, but if u are stuck...

Axer I just checked on the intel site here theres no reference to speeding up capture time.

Capturing has to be done real time (as in you shoot 1 hour, it'll take an hour to load) in order for the software to create unique frames.

axer

gutta -> would you not agree that macs are generally used more for media orientated work? - i.e. sound editing, publishing and video editing. And if you do agree with this then why is it that they are used more often for media related work? This is because they are more reliable but at the same time are more restricted due to the fact that less software is available and less hardware venders and hardware to choose from. I never once said that thats all they are good for so please do not twist my words to imply this. BTW I am not denoucing macs in any way but take a look at this http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm

Mycroft -> A processor with Hyperthreading can deal with more frames per second than one without, that is off course if the software supports hyperthreading (which premiere does). Maybe you mistook what i was saying about the 30% faster. I did not say that it speeds up capturing time as you put it in any sense as obviously you must capture in realtime but what it does mean is that you can get faster capturing rates and reduced dropped frames.

As this user will be using premiere it would make sense to utilise hyperthreading to improve performance which premiere supports and takes full advantage of.
I think you should look at intels site again
http://www.intel.com/personal/do_more/video/

but i think you just mistook what i said as reducing capture time even though i never mentioned time.