Wanting to get a laptop

[NoodleMaps]

Our company recently starting getting jobs which require us to edit on site. The final products need to be burned to DVD. I was wondering if anyone had a suggestion for a Laptop in which I can bring in MiniDV via a firewire port and also be capable of burning. We would also need storage for at least 4 hours of video on the drive. I'm assuming this can only be done through an external drive, but I could be wrong. I would like to continue to use Premiere Pro for my editing whcih souldn't create any problems. The Price range the boss is looking at is $1500 - $3000. I feel this is a decent range, but I'm sure I'm forgetting something else has to be needed. Please let me know what you suggestions are for a mobil editing suite for DV.

Thanks

[virtual133]

I would recommend getting a laptop with at LEAST a 60 GB HD. Make sure it is Pentium 4 or athlon 64 and around 2.8 GHz. Also, try and get it with AT LEAST 512 MB of RAM. The graphics card has to be pretty good too.

MY RECOMMENDATIONS--

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=1069302293944&skuId=6252226

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=1077626575333&skuId=6418682

--only has a +RW drive (not DVD-R)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=1072286882791&skuId=6282131

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=1072286882968&skuId=6282355

---has HT Technology

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=product&id=1072286488971&skuId=6279779

[DVO]

Don't forget Premiere Pro is only supposed to work on Pentium 4.

[deckard8]

If you are capturing to DV codec you are gonna need a bigger hard disk than 60gb for 4 hours of footage. Get one as fast and as big as you can. Most internal laptop hard disks spin too slow (5200 rpm) for reliable capture (dropped frames). You'll have to get an external usb2 or firewire hard disk and at least 160gb capacity with a spin speed of 7200 rpm, although if money is no object you should really get an external scsi hard drive and interface card. (This is fastest you can get but much more expensive.)

[deckard8]

Correction - Most laptop hard drives spin even slower than 5200rpm - more like 4000rpm - Not good enough for real-time capture.

[tmaxwell2435]

You should start seeing laptops with 100G drives any day now if not already. They still have slower RPM ratings as mentioned.

[tmaxwell2435]

100G Drives

4,200 RPM.

[gitreel]

why get an expensive athlon 64, when there are chearper processors that will do 32 bit processing. There is not any 64 bit programs yet, much less a 64 bit windows os.

[glockjs]

for your price range and the basic stuff your looking to do pretty much any new laptop would work 8)



side note, i like toshiba laptops

[mikesbytes]

The Hard drive is going to be the greatest challenge. You can get a 7200 laptop drive, has anyone used one? Alternative solution has suggested above is to use an external drive.

It might also be worth checking out some sort of hardware converter the takes in the DV and outputs MPEG2. The output stream would be smaller and therefor less likely to be impacted by the hard drive. Also you will get a quicker result as you won't have to wait for the software encoder to do its work (how much an hour is the customer paying?). The down side is that you have less control of the creation of the file so be careful of quality if picking an external MPEG2 encoder.

[NoodleMaps]

I would just just to thank you all for your great input. I appreciate the time you have taken to reply. You've all saved me hours of research.

Thanks

[MpegEncoder]

Just because you have to "edit on site" doesn't mean you have to have a laptop. Get a minitower machine with a flat panel display and lug it around.

[sitlet]

another big thing to consider is battery life. unless you are going to be plugging it in, battery life is very important. especially if you are going to be editing video, which takes up a lot of processor power, which means less battery life.

on the hard drive note, i have a laptop that i frequently use for editing on the road. i have a 4200 rpm 40gb hard drive, and have NEVER had any problems with capturing. your results should be the same. just make sure you defragment often. as for a 7200 rpm drive in a laptop, ive never seen one, mainly because they generate much more heat, which is why laptops have slower drives in the first place. i would suggest an 80 or 100gb drive if you can afford it. if not, get one with a 40gb hard drive, and buy a small external enclosure for a bigger drive. i would go this way of you could. its a lot cheaper, a 160 gb drive will only run you 100 bucks or so. and you can get a small enclosure for about 50. heres on on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-146-010&depa=1

[mikesbytes]

I agree that you are better to get an external hard drive, however if you don't want to do that then the 7200 hard drives do exist, for example

http://www.cworld.com.au/info.php?ID=115088

As per Stilet's comment on battery life, you might has well forget encoding using batteries which isn't such a problem as you can simply plug it into the wall. The battery is still convenient as it allows you to move the laptop around without having to shut it down

If you do decide to capture directly to the laptop, then try a DV capture program that has buffering such as WinDV

[NoodleMaps]

Thanks again for the suggestions. As for a Mini Tower, this just isn't going to work for our needs. We need to get the most from very little. A Laptop within an easy to carry case, (ie. carry on luggage.) . Battery Power is not an issue, I'd be locked away in the hotel room cutting away so I will have AC to plug into. Thanks for all the information, you have all been a wonderful help.

[gkidd3187]

Correction to the poster who said Adobe Premiere Pro is only for P4. I'm running a VAIO Laptop with Intel P3 1.13 Ghz 256 MB RAM and a 30 GB HDD, and I've been running Adobe Premiere Pro for some time now flawlessly. Sure the rendering could be faster, but for now thats fine. As for the Main Poster, in my opinion the best buy for editing is Ailenware PC. The website is very informative and you can customize your own laptop. Visit the site it's http://www.ailenware.com