Laptop for HDV/Cineform/VV6

dhill wrote on 6/20/2006, 4:11 PM
I want to buy a new laptop in the next couple of months. I was looking at the Sony VGN-AR170 and saw that they offer Adobe Premier bundled with it but no Vegas. What the &*%#? Very strange. Any way, the only reason I even looked at it is 'cause it has 1920x1200 display option. It says bluray support but I don't see that it has a bluray optical drive option. I wonder what "support" means?

Any way, I want to be able to edit Cineform files (from my hdv cams) with VV6D, lots of 7200rpm drive space, 1920x1200 display, etc. Any thoughts on another laptop? Say the Alienware SLI m9700? I also NEEEED to play John Madden football when I'm traveling, so, big bad vid card would be nice too.

I'm wondering if say the AMD Turion 64 Mobile ML44 2.4Ghz or the Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16 Ghz) processors would be fast enough for HDV/Cineform Intermediate vid files or if I need to go to one of the expensive custom pcs companies (voodoo, falcon nw, etc.) and get a laptop with a desktop processor in it such as the AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 Dual Core. I guess I really don't care about battery life since I'm usually sleeping on planes.

I can wait a few months if there's something coming out soon that I don't know about processor wise.

Thanks as always for you time. Derek

Comments

mbryant wrote on 6/21/2006, 8:10 AM
To give you a “lower bound”: I have a plain old Dell D610 laptop; Pentium M 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB memory.

With a single video track, I get full frame preview with Cineform on “preview” quality – but not on good or best. And in terms of editing it is very responsive.

Mark
dhill wrote on 6/22/2006, 12:16 PM
Hey Mark! Thanks for the reply. I'm looking for something that will be good for another 3-4 years and will handle a few tracks of cineform intermediates and won't choke when I use things like magic bullet, or stacking up a few filters/effects etc.

For those interested, I found that Boxx tech is almost a thousand bucks cheaper than other well known boutique pc co's when it comes to sticking high end desk top parts in a laptop (AMD, 7200rpm raid 0, etc. We all know they make great stuff too. I'm leaning towards them right now. I configured a few online last night with the different companies and was surprised at the price difference. Derek
GlennChan wrote on 6/22/2006, 12:52 PM
You might want to look at Sager laptops... you may find that a lot of the high end laptops are actually the same thing except re-badged (i.e. Alienware sells the same things, but with a different look).
see pctorque.com

I believe they're cheaper than BOXX.
dhill wrote on 6/22/2006, 1:32 PM
Wow thanks Glennchan...right you are. Sager was a bout $700 cheaper than almost the same Boxx notebook. I'll add them to my list of maybes. Anyone here have a Sager notebook that cares to share their experience with support, repairs, etc.? Thanks again. Derek