Editing on a laptop

T

tom1590

Crazy, I could have sworn that I posted a thread the other day, but now I can't seem to find it O_O

Anyways my question was among the lines of was it plausible to edit on a laptop? I'm in the market for a new PC and I was wondering if anyone actually used a laptop for editing? I'd only be using it for short skits/series, but preferably they'd be shot in HD. My budget is ~$1.5k, I've been looking at the ASUS Republic of Gamer series. Is it the processor speed that is the main determining factor on how quickly data x-fers?

Thanks,
 
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Hey editing on a laptop is nothing i recommend because i did it for some years, it dispense on what you will edit on the laptop. Is it sound and audio editing its okay. If it is movie and 3d animation its a big no no. Sound and audio maybe some graphics it okay.

Best regards Kalle "loox"
 
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Really? I did some small things on my POS Dell laptop and I couldn't stand it. It took a while to upload... but while I'm sitting here I'm starting to realize it may have been b/c it was from a dvd disc which may not be as fast as uploading a memory card?

Do any of you guys use a laptop on set? just so you can data dump if you're using a DSLR? Or do you just have tons of memory cards?
 
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tom1590 said:
Anyways my question was among the lines of was it plausible to edit on a laptop?
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I’ve done a lot of editing on a laptop. Music videos, promos, concerts
and feature films. Older laptop, too. But you couldn’t stand it, so you
shouldn't edit on a laptop regardless of my (or knightly’s) experience.
tom1590 said:
Do any of you guys use a laptop on set? just so you can data dump if you're using a DSLR? Or do you just have tons of memory cards?
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I do. I don’t use DSLR buy my camera records to SDHC cards and we
use a laptop to download the footage to a dedicated external hard drive.
DRthunderMD said:
Huh, thought somebody would have mentioned a mac book pro in here...
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Maybe that's because tom specifically mentioned he is in the market for
a new PC and mentioning a Mac leads to a Mac vs. PC debate with is
counterproductive.
 
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Yep, I do all my editing on a macbook pro. Fairly recent quad core etc, maybe a year old. Before that I did all my editing on a 17" macbook pro from 2009. As far as video is concerned the biggest difference is in compression - whether I'm converting footage to prores or compressing h.264 for the web the newer one is significantly faster. For actual editing there's little difference between the two. Performance-wise I would expect just about any recent pc laptop would easily be faster than my old one, but I don't know how the editing software performance compares on the pc side.
 
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I tried to edit native avhcd (80mbit hacked gh2) on my laptop with prepiere pro CS5.5, I did not like the performance. I think if the laptop had had a better vid card, it might have not been so bad. Also, I should have tried converting to cineform first, that might have been better too.
 
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tom1590 said:
Do you lose any time dumping files? What size cards do you use? Does that require an extra person on set? Or is it fairly easy to do so yourself?
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I don't really edit on a laptop, but it is possible. If I am directing or producing, it is too much time away from my job to do the date transfers myself.

I do primarily have a data wrangler whose sole job is to copy files off of cards to hard drive(s), as in I always want a redundant copy made no matter what of all footage. Going tapeless means creating redundancies to protect the date. In the P2 world, I used a hard drive and DVD-R of every single P2 card. Now I'm thinking about BD-R since it is more reliable than hard disks.
 
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editing on laptop - Dell M6600

I travel full-time so, I bought a Dell "mobile workstation" specifically for editing - both Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

CS5.5 will use all the RAM you can give it so, I set 32gb as my target, which eliminated most laptops.

For 1080p h.264 DSLR video, this setup is perfect. My previous 64-bit laptop couldn't even scrub thru 1080p clips.

BTW, I'd have to go back to look at all my research for the 'why' - but the gaming computers were not recommended for video editing

here's the specs if anyone cares
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-PRECIS...10130553?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item519c082579

Another thing I really like about this Dell is that it's made for professionals. I upgraded the memory myself with the instructions on Dell's website. Some laptops won't even allow you to upgrade the video card.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/wsm6600/en/SM/index.html

Good luck
 
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I have a Windows Desktop I built for video gaming like 3 years ago. I've had a 13" mac book pro for like a month and I prefer editing on the mac. I just plug the 24" screen to be more confortable and that's it.

I'm considering selling the desktop and buying an SSD + 16 Gb of RAM for the MBP. I think it will be plenty.

And I like the fact I can bring it on set. It allows me to check focus right after shooting a scene when I'm not sure and empty the card.
 
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I think editing on laptop is surely possible thanks to the i7s and dual gpu cards of this world..
However, I would never recommend a laptop over desktop for editing or anything, where the quality (and in turn data size) is increasing evry second..

With a desktop, especially if you choose to build your own system, you can achieve a level of customization and affordability you cannot even imagine going any other way..
So a desktop will outlive a laptop for a long time provided you keep making small affordable upgrades once a yr maybe..
 
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