Is digital video editing feasible on a laptop....

[Chuck Antinoro]

... and, if so, what type of laptop is recommended (Pentium M, Pentium 4, etc.) I realize a desktop is probably a better solution. But I'm strongly considering getting a laptop for various reasons (covenience, portability, wireless) and would like to do some eventual digital video editing. Nothing major, just the occassional vacation video, etc.. Just wondering if anyone is doing this or if I should abandon hope? Any recommendations???
Thanks in advance

[yoda313]

Hello,

You can do it but you'd need a "desktop replacement". Those can weigh up to 10 lbs and aren't really "portable". They can have full size processors in them.

Also - Don't know how many capture cards you can get for a laptop but they'd be PRICEY

Anything's possible - it's just how much you're willing to spend to do it

Kevin

[Chuck Antinoro]

Actually, I wouldn't be looking for a capture card, but rather would be using firewire, which I've seen on a lot of laptops.

[Karate Media]

Faster is always better, but don't let anyone deter you: When I first started producing local commercials, I was working on a laptop with a 750 Mhtz Pentium 3 and 256 MB RAM, running Windows ME. It was slow, but I ran Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop on there, editing as well as creating some motion graphics and other effects with no problem (again, other than long waits for AE renders, etc). There were definitely limitations (file size issues in the FAT32 file system, etc), but I still got paid.

I was happy to move on to a better and faster desktop system (which itself is now a low-end P4, time to upgrade...) and having a faster machine means that I can be more creative with motion graphics and such, but the fact is that video editing can be done on a laptop that some people would simply give away nowadays.

[Capmaster]

I did about two thousand DVD capturing, authoring and burning jobs on a Compaq P3M-1.133 laptop. I had my DVD burner in an external firewire enclosure and used a USB external hardware MPEG2 capture box. It worked fine.

Encoding took a little while because of the slow HD, but I never had issues from CPU speed or any dropped frames.

I think a "desktop replacement" laptop would be overkill, and would require you to lug around a 9 or 10 pound laptop for no good reason. It would defeat part of the reason for buying a laptop - namely convenient portability

Get a reasonably fast laptop with FW and USB, a decent sized HD, and you should be just fine

[edDV]

A laptop should work for DV editing on any P4 class machine. I have a 750MHz Sony Vaio that works for limited hotel room type cuts and fixes.

Limitations of laptop for video editing
(assuming it has IEEE-1394 i/o and you have a companion DV camcorder for analog i/o)
1. Limited HD Disk space. You will need to suppliment with an extrenal HD.
2. Marginal LCD quality and small screen for workspace. LCD is bad for making color or levels adjustment. Use a TV off the camcorder for monitoring. A camcorder to RF modulator is often needed to use a hotel TV.
3. Slower CPU performance while rendering and the laptop heat while CPU runs 100% for hours. I carry a small aux fan.

I think a desktop usually works better but a laptop makes a nice remote alternative.

[seinman]

Make sure your drive is 5400 RPM, some of the cheaper drives are 4800 or something like that and may drop frames during capture. Other than that, I see no reason why you couldn't use a laptop for editing.

[canadateck]

Make sure your drive is 5400 RPM, some of the cheaper drives are 4800 or something like that and may drop frames during capture. Other than that, I see no reason why you couldn't use a laptop for editing.

I would get a 7200 RPM drive.

[Chuck Antinoro]

Oops, created a new post before checking for other responses on this. Does a low HD RPM (4200 in most laptops I see) an issue even with firewire transfer. I guess I was hoping that RPM was only an issue with analog video.

Thanks for the replies.

[BJ_M]

a LOT of video editing is done on laptops -- in fact vegas , final cut pro and avid dv pro are highly optimised to run on laptops ... vegas and FCP run really good this way ..

even films are cut all the time on laptops ..

[BJ_M]

and these are fairly normal laptops -- you dont need anything over the top .. but should be decent ..

[canadateck]

5200 RPM can do the job,But faster is always better, and the cost difference is not so much, and you will have it, if and when you need it..

[edDV]

I only have experience with 5200RPM notebook HD's and those have worked for DV capture. The DV stream is 25Mb/s.

It would be best to partition the drive to keep windows and video captures+buffers separate. Also with laptops you want to limit background tasks while capturing.

[hootie29]

I use a Toshiba 1955-S807 for capturing and editing and haven't had any problems. It is a 2.8 ghz. with 512mb ram it is heavy, weighing in at a little over 9lbs. It has a CD/DVD-R burner and I use an external 250gb HD. I use Vegas Video for editing.

hootie29

[jimmalenko]

A few good points IMO raised so far, such as limited HD space, and availability of firewire and/or USB for external capture devices or extra hard drives. You can encode with any CPU and RAM, time taken is going to fluctuate depending on what you get. There's nothing that says you can't use a laptop, provided you get the right features/hardware.

[BJ_M]

you also might not have any kids using one ...

[Soopafresh]

Notebooks and XP benefit greatly with the addition of RAM. The difference is even more pronounced than on desktop systems.

Also, BOXX makes laptops well suited for A/V. A coworker uses one, and it is pretty impressive. It does RAID 0, the screen looks huge (for a laptop), and it weighs a ton. It is thicker than most systems. I like it.

http://www.boxxtech.com/asp/cf_step2.asp?ModelInstanceID=411

[edDV]

One last piece of advice.

Use DV and IEEE-1394 whenever possible.
It works great, uses lower data rates than direct captures and is a complete working environment.

USB2 devices for video transfer are not ready for primetime.

The only exception would be for low bandwidth streaming and maybe for connecting an external HDD.