How low can I go with VV?

Kurt8 wrote on 11/19/2003, 2:40 AM

I run VV on a fairly fast computer at home. I spend a lot of time on trains here in Europe and am considering purchasing a laptop for working on the road. I am not one of those people who needs the absolute newest and fastest technology and I don't want to spend a lot of money on this. Does anyone have any thoughts on the lowest possible laptop specs for running VV? I was thinking somewhere along the lines of a PIII 800MHz. Or could I go even lower?

Thanks!

Kurt

Comments

farss wrote on 11/19/2003, 4:13 AM

Can you still buy anything lower?

Apart from potential problems with capture and PTT you could probably run VV on a 486. Render times are proportional to CPU speed so be prepared for a long wait though.

Also low spec machines usually don't have 1394 ports so you'll have to add one if you can. Also they have VERY small disks which means you'll need to add more storage. You need 1 GB for every 5 mins of source footage plus the same when you render out. If you are on a train the last thing you want are extra boxes hanging off the laptop and then you've got to think about how to power them.

Personally the last thing I'd be trying to do on a train is edit video.

TorS wrote on 11/19/2003, 4:24 AM

I have run Vegas on a PIII 800 (not laptop) for two years and have had no problems with that. I only upgraded because my other PC broke down and then I transfered Vegas to the newest. You would be able to do your captures and renders at home, so you should be all right. I don't know how low you could go. Vegas will work on very slow machines. But I guess somewhere there is a point where you'd be wasting your time (even on a train) even if it works.
Tor

Kurt8 wrote on 11/19/2003, 4:40 AM

Have you ever been on a German ICE train? They are very comfortable with little tables and everything!

But seriously, thanks for your response. I would be doing all the capturing etc. on my home computer so it's just a machine for editing. I have a good feeling about a PIII 800 and the price would be right. I guess the final render could be done on my home computer too since the files will be there anyway - or does anyone see any complications with copying the project file back to the home computer and finishing there?

Thanks!

Kurt

TorS wrote on 11/19/2003, 5:01 AM

Make sure you have the same path to your files on both computers, then all you need to move is the veggie.
Tor

MNJ wrote on 11/19/2003, 9:52 AM

My desktop is a PIII 700 with 256 of Ram and vegas 4.0d runs fine, although rendering takes a long time (1 minute of time line may take 10 minutes to render, depending on format). I'm spec'ing a new P4 now.

RichMacDonald wrote on 11/19/2003, 10:19 AM

I got you all beat :-) I run a PII 350MHz 256MB RAM. You need a 2nd HD. I can do capture without dropped frames. I cannot do print to tape - I get dropouts at least every 30 secs. I don't do many tracks or effects or fancy transitions; basically I take my raw video, trim it up, do color correction and broadcast color. Sure my computer cannot keep up at a reasonable preview pace - its rare I can get 29.97 fps, 14 is more like it and I can drop to 3 sometimes and "never" at other times - but I can do a RAM preview for important transitions and pre-generate to avi when needed. (Note about pre-generate to AVI: Make sure you set the quality to match the quality of your preview window. I set my preview quality to "preview-auto", and if I pre-generate the avi at "good" - which is the default taken from my project settings - then its worse than no pre-generation at all.)

Bottom line is that some of my workflow is constrained and I often work much slower than I would be able to with a powerful computer. But I can still get it done and have fun doing it.

Oh yeah, my best mpg render speed is 1 min render -> 1 sec video, i.e., 60:1, and its often 120:1. So don't make that laptop your main render engine.

kameronj wrote on 11/19/2003, 11:33 AM

Rich, Rich, Rich.....never state such a blanket statement. I have everyone beat!!! :-)

PII 266mhz - 128 MB Ram. 1 HD (5 Gig).

Of course, I only render for fun using this laptop - and, I only really ever use it to edit if my power desktop P4 blah blah blah is busy rendering and I need to do something.

I can capture, but with a 5 gig drive - I don't capture too much. I really use that one to capture with my external Dazzle. Only drawback is the Dazzle I have only does MPEG1. But for projects that are going to go straight to VCD, MPEG1 is fine with me.

:-) It's good to be the king (of slow PCs that is!!)

aspenv wrote on 11/19/2003, 1:02 PM

How do you guys run Vegas in a laptop? I thought it needed an internet connection in order to run.

johnmeyer wrote on 11/19/2003, 1:26 PM

No Internet connection required, except during registration.

I run Vegas 4.0d on a 750 MHz Compaq Presario, running Windows ME, using an el-cheapo 1394 PCMCIA card to interface to the camera. No dropped frames, and the UI during editing is lightning fast. Rendering, of course, is sluggish compared to my 2.8 GHz desktop. However, for cuts-only, it is great.

When this laptop's hard disk (12 GByte) died this summer, I replaced it with a 40 GByte purhcased on eBay (the laptop, PCMCIA card also were purchased used on eBay, for very little money. The whole goal on this laptop was to have something that cost so little that I wouldn't worry too much about it when knocking around in the field). The 40 GByte drive made a BIG difference, both because of the additional capture capability, and because it was 5400 instead of 4200 RPM and has a bigger cache.

My recommendation to you is to make sure the laptop you get has the biggest hard drive you can get, and that it is 5400 with a big cache, rather than 4200. You can capture without dropped frames on the slower drive, but all operations that rely on the disk go much faster with the bigger cache. The O/S doesn't matter much (mine has ME), and the processor speed only matters when doing complex renders. If you do cuts-only and then print to tape from the timeline, even a 750 MHz laptop can be VERY quick. (I still run VideoFactory on a 450 MHz Pentium, and it is also quite fast for cuts-only).

One final note: It is really neat to capture directly to the laptop, if you're in a situation where the camera is locked down. It saves that extra step of capturing the tape. Also, if you use SCLive for capture, you can do elegant time lapse.