Laptop suggestions for DV Editing

Maybe the Mayhem

Hello,

I reviewed the Mayhem G1 for Tom's Hardware.

I do video editing with Vegas 4 and chromakeying with Ultrakey. Thwaree Mayhem did fairly well, better than any other laptop I've played with.

Bear in mind that I haven't played with the Powerbooks, or Alienware.

humphrey@tomshardware.com

if you're going to be buying a sager check out pctorque.com they usually have some pretty good prices instead of sagernotebooks.com

You may also want to consider getting an external firewire drive for additional storage. I will use a notebook to edit my videos, save them to the external drive and then render them when I can on my home pc which has a Canopus card for this purpose.

My two cents....

OK, what type of DV editing are you going to do? Just some little clips of family birthdays, holidays, etc.? Or professional work? Either way I would still say hands down would be a Powerbook, or even an iBook G4, with Final Cut.

My brother is a Senior Editor with a major E!ntertainment network, and they run Macs, originally with Avid, now with Final Cut Pro, and these guys can get anything they want basically, but they choose FCPro and Macs.

Now while PC's will be faster in rendering, depending on the set-up, 90% of editing is software. And for software its hands down FCPro, the TV show "Scrubs" is done only on PowerBooks running FCPro, and a lot more of Hollywood is going to FCPro.

As boomer719 said, external firewire drive is a must, those files get pretty big real quick.

AFAIK, for pure video editing Mac + Final Cut Pro is the best choice. For general laptop use with DV editing in the mix, a PC laptop is good (I have one). For general use, I would take HP nc8000/nw8000 with an external hardrive and a secondary monitor (used through dual monitor / hydravision). It's no use to capture DVs on small internal hard drives. $2000 might not be enough, but getting a laptop with a top graphics card isn't cheap.

Well, if you will only do editing, then a powerbook would be great. As far as the comments "Final Cut or nothing", i think they are a bit exagerated. I have worked with Final Cut, and it is great. On the PC side though you can have Avid Xpress on your laptop that would a quite as good (better in my opinion) choice.

I have edited proffesionaly for around 6 years. If I was editing only (and the extra 1000 bucks wasnt a problem), i would get a powerbook (maybe wait for G5) and a good fast external firewire hd. I will do 3d on my laptop too so i will go pc : Fujitsu N5010

I do quiet a bit of DV editing at home. Things that are important are that you get the fastest processor you can afford. Intel with HT technology does render faster than any other type of home user processor. I use an AMD 64 at home, but I also have a Canopus card that uses hardware to render and encode my videos in realtime, so the processor type in this instance is not as critical. 512mb of RAM is fine, you will notice a slight improvement if you go to one gig, but don't get the upgraded RAM at the expense of getting a slower processor. As far as video cards are concerned, they will only affect how you see the video after production and have little to do with the speed your system has regarding the nuts and bolts of DV editing which is rendering, editing, encoding and special effects. You may want to balance the video card to the higher end of the spectrum if the pc will be used for gaming or other graphic intensive issues, but once again....processor speed is the key. An external harddrive is a must because 1 hour of DV video is approximately 13gigs of hardrive space. So if you shoot lots of video and then have to edit and compile into different clips, not to mention the rendered and finished files, you can see how you can quickly use up internal storage on todays laptops.

Hope this helps

As for what kind of laptop to buy, the first question is why do you need it? Is it for travel? Is it just as a desktop replacement? I battery life important? Is it for professional use? Do you have a preference for Mac over PC?

First things first - Mac vs. PC. Both are good strong machines that will work very solidly for you. The unfortunate thing on the Mac side is the lack of editing software outside FCP and Avid Xpress. Apple has singlehandedly killed off every other piece of software based eding for the platform (there may be one or two I've forgottten about, but essentially the above is true). The PC has over half a dozen editing programs that provide at least excellent to professional results (Avid Xpress, Pinnacle Liquid, Adobe Premiere, Vegas, Media 100, and Blade). Either way, use the platform you like. If you love Mac, buy a Mac. If you don't care either way, a PC may be the better solution for a cost/performance issue.

Second - Software. On the Mac it's FCP vs. Avid. FCP is making great strides here in Hollywood, but at the end of the day, it's still a very distant second to Avid. But There are people who will tell you that FCP is the best thing out there. Don't believe the hype. The same with Avid. Get a demo for each and play with the interface. Whichever one you like, buy it. On the PC side, Avid is the high watermark, although I really like Pinnacle's Liquid as well. Again, play with the interfaces and see what you like.

Third - Cost. No way about it, these things cost $$$$$. If it's an issue, there are lower cost software and hardware available. On the Mac, you need a powerbook. No way around it. ANd to spec one out for editing is big bucks. On the PC, you can go with a p4 3.0Ghz, a Centrino based system, or an AMD system. Prices will vary, but there are a hell of a lot more options on the PC side of the fence.

Also, never use the internal drives for your editing media. Get an inexpensive, self-powered firewire drive.

That's it. If you need any help, feel free to ask.

Mark Santora

I use my Fujitsu N5010 almost daily for video editing, mostly using Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.5. This week I completed another project more than an hour long, and burned it onto DVD. the 5010 works flawlessly. I did, however, have an 80 gig 5400rpm HDD installed instead of the slower 4200 hdd that comes standard, and I've never had a lag or lost a frame. I also have Premere Pro and it works just as well. I'd buy the Fujitsu in a heartbeat.

Nice system. It will do everything you need it to do. Premier Pro is a good program, may also want to look at Avid Xpress Pro or if you'd like, Ulead Media Studio Pro also has a nice DVD authoring program.

Don't lament about the Apple. I have used them before and the performance gap between Apple and IBM is not worth considering when you look at the software available for the IBM format.

Uh, wouldn't Avid be a bit too expensive / complicated for non-professionals?

For DVD authoring, Mediachance DVD-Lab is a good low-cost solution.