New to laptops and need to edit video on the go, please help - Page 2

Not arguing, discussing what i think is bad advice. 4mb/sec would be firewire dv. I am not blindly oposing you. What i am editing right now is 3.5 mb/sec, pertty gooq quality firewire dv capture. Thinking that you might edit only Dv though is limiting. I capture at 16 mbps on my workstation (mjpeg with a matrox digisuite).
This is getting to be a funny back and forth but i still hold that the graphics card is important. Example: what i am editing right now. Short film about 18 minutes, 102 shots. If you are say using premiere, you can show the thumnbails on the layer strips in the timeline. Agreed, that is not an efficient workflow. So the next option is showing thumbnails for the in and out points of each clip. I am using such on option right now. Zoom out, in, pan and scroll in the timeline,..thats where the grafix card comes in. I have an old geforce mx400 64mb on this particular machine, and its not that fast, i wish i had a faster card.
Since the person asking advice (s2v) will most probably do some compositing too...thats more reason for a faster, more ram, card.

quoting : "If you are working on 3d models in your video work...",...You can not work on 3d models in your timeline. Those would be rendered frames or video from the 3d package, so the 3d capabilities of the gpu dont matter. But compression does. If you are rendering straight from the 3d package with a dv codec (which i have never sen done before) you would be fine in the timeline . If you are rendering 32 bit image sequences with alphas, which is more usually the case (and here comes the hard drive), you would need more gpu power to push those in the timeline. Add to all these the fact that s2v was asking about a card that would do primarily video, but also effects and 3d,..i dont understand your comments. Rendered animation from a 3d package (usually a series of 32 bit images) would kill a graphics card in the timeline and would defiinitely tax the hard drive. A 64 mb grafix card would do fine (although the more vram the better) and a 4200 hard drive wouldnt stand a chance.

-ergin

I wasn't giving advice to get a 4200RPM drive. Notice my signature? I was just letting OP know he could do it after being told he could not. You can edit video effortlessly on a 4200RPM HD. It is faster on a 7200 of course, but being told you cannot is simply wrong.


Hmm, I guess the 40-50 hours of video I created off this machine before upgrading my hard drive must have been my imagination. I don't know where you get your information, but it is incorrect. The 20MB/s you get from a 4200RPM is plenty enough for editing vdeo. Again, obviously a 7200RPM would be better (about 50% better from a throughput stance), but it CAN be done, and you don't NEED a 7200RPM drive. You NEED a 7200RPM drive to edit video about as much as you NEED an A64 4000+ instead of a 3000+. It is by no means a need, it is a performance enhancer.

ThunderPC, you are jumping all across the board talking in one post about the gpu, the hard drive on another, without giving explanations about your points of view. Just biased comments. 40-50hours worth of editing, is like saying i have experience running,..i have ran 2 miles.

But since you insist, a 4200 rpm harddrive, will not keep up 20 mb/sec. Do you know that a disk spins faster at the outer edge? physics. A 10 000 rpm hard drive can barely keep 15 mbps when it starts to get full.
Also, when i was saying "the 4200 rpm wouldnt stand a chance", I was talking about 32 bit image sequences rendered from a 3d package. One frame of PAL 32 bit targa is 1.2 mb. There are 25 of those in a second of footage (PAL,..worse if you are on NTSC).....so, draw your own conclusions.

quote: It is by no means a need, it is a performance enhancer.

I agree that you can do pretty much anything if you set your mind to it. I could still do FX on an sgi o2. But do i want to?

My comments are not biased, they are based on fact. But, since I am causing such an uproar clearing up the falacies such as you NEED a 7200RPM drive, I will gladly leave you "experts" to spreading such dillusions. Thank you for finally seeing the point that you do not need a 7200RPM drive though. And I am sorry that my 40-50 hours of editing on my 4200RPM drive before upgrading to a 7k60 wasn't enough for you.

My comment "biased", came from the fact that you are only mentioning NOT NEED, CAN DO, in capital leters without backing it up with facts and taking the lowest denominator as your middle ground. The only fact that has held in discussion until now has been your statement that "you dont need more then 4mbps for video", which i ageed for firewire, but not for anything else. Other then that i dont see any factual statements. I am not here to fight you or to turn this into a discussion on who is better or has more experience. The fact that you were suggesting low gpu and 4200 hardrive seems a bit shortsighted to me, keeping in mind what the original poster wanted. Not what you or i think is good for one particular segment of his work. He will do editing, compositing and 3d. You are discussing only firewire video.

quote: Thank you for finally seeing the point that you do not need a 7200RPM drive though.

I still dont see your point. You can do video and 3d on a 16 mb graphics card and a lame hard drive on a pentium 2, everybody in this line of work has done it when the machines where speced like that. I just dont see why you would want to do it anymore. Upgrade price from a 4200 harddrive to a 7200 one is about 100 usd. I dont see that as a good way to save money.

Sorry to bore everyone to death but i dont intend on letting this thread go away with a funny remark. Talk specific and back it up with facts or dont talk at all. Apologies if this has turned somewhat in a 2 person back and forth.

If at all possible and you are able to sacrifice battery runtime, go with the Pentium 4. It's currently unquestionably the best in Video editting. The Athlon 64 is just not there yet but the gap is not as big as before.

Ram is not the most important thing in video editting but I do recommend 1GB.

Get a screen with high resolutions as you are used to multimonitors.

Great choice.

I talked specific. You on the other hand started capitalizing that you NEED a 7200RPM drive. That is where all that started. http://notebookforums.com/showthread...076#post565076 That was the start of the bias. Facts are facts. You do not need a 7200RPM drive to edit video in any shape for or fashion. Your comments on that are dillusional and biased at best.
You start by saying you don't see my point, then you explain my point? That a 7200RPM drive is not needed, but definately nice to have Wow. I need some of what you are taking.

My apologies also to anyone this is annoying. Just trying to make sure no one reads the fallacies that you need a 7200RPM hard drive and takes them on fact.

i have edited video on an ibook with a 366mhz g3, 128mb of ram, 10gig 4200rpm hd and an 8mb ati rage(i think) card. it can be done.