the more RAM the better, and make absolutely sure that the hard drive operates at 7200 rpm or you are likely to have serious problems with the data retrieval rates necessary for video processing.

Actually I'm running Vegas 5 on a Toshiba P25 series laptop. it's a 3.0ghz, but only has 512mgs of ram, and an 80gig 4200rpm! hardrive. Performs flawlessly. Regardless, soon after my purchase I invested in a 200gig 7200rpm external drive. I don't think many people are going to rely on the internal drives in laptops...just not enough space for large/multiple projects.

GmElliot,

I won't dispute your personal experience with slow hd speed being okay for video apps; however, my own experience is that my 2 GigHz HP laptop with 2x512 of RAM and a 4200 hard drive has difficulties with frame-dropping during capture to and playback from the hard disk. My Dell desk-top is similar in most respects to the laptop--with the exception that it runs a 7200 rpm hd--and its performance with several video and audio apps is excellent.

It would be good if others might weigh in with more information on the question of hard drive speed vs performance using video applications.

Best regards,

Lee

I work everyday on a Toshiba 2450 and it is really perfect for the task.
In my experience, the stock 4200 HD is absolutly correct for capture and general task. Sure, a couple of external USB2 fast drives for more intensive editing is preferable but the laptop in itself is a perfectly workable solution (60 Gig HD is a minimum).

> the more RAM the better,
True. BTW, i have a couple of stock DDR Toshiba 256 Mo modules to sell for cheap, if anyone is interested . They will fit on about any modern Toshiba Satellite and many Protege or Tecra (is this a "non-ethical" post for this forum ? Just tell me if there is a problem with this...).

logiquem,

maybe that's part of the problem with my HP laptop--only a 40 Gig hard drive. but actually i don't quite understand why that should cause any problems...

a full hours worth of .avi file may take up only 12 Gigs of space and i haven't even approached that type of .avi file size on the laptop. even capture and retrieval of quite small files--i.e., small relative to the "available" 25-30 gigabytes of hd storage space--are prone to frame-dropping on my HP laptop.

Best regards,

Lee

Hum, i suspect your problem is elsewhere, really. Maybe the capture utility?

I made hours and hours of capture on the internal 4200 HD of my laptop and never experienced drop frames at all (i use Scenalyser for capture).

Requirements for DV cap are really low (about 20 to 25% of the actual laptop HD writing capability when i run the Scenalyser HD test) .

> It would be good if others might weigh in with more information
> on the question of hard drive speed vs performance using video
> applications.

My experience is with a desktop system - we had a summer student last year who couldn't capture anything because of all the dropped frames he was getting. When I finally dug deep enough, I discovered that it was capturing to a 5400 rpm drive. As soon as I redirected it to the other HD in the same system, which happened to be 7200 rpm, all dropped frames disappeared and all captures went smoothly.

It could be that the 5400 drive was connected as a slave to something slow, while the 7200 drive was connected as a master - we were so happy to have solved the problem that we didn't dig any deeper - but it sure taught me the value of using a fast hard drive for capturing!

- Frank

I bought a Dell Inspiron 8100 with an extra drive bay. So I have a 40 GB disk for my programs and stuff, and an 80 GB disk for video. Both of these drives are 5400 rpm. I always capture to the non-system disk (the 80GB one) and never had a dropped frame.

I just purchased the new Acer Aspire 1710mi notebook. pretty groovy. 17" monitor, 1 gig ram, 120 gig 7200 rpm hard drive and a DVD-RW/RW drive. Couldn't ask for more. It's kinda big but easy to carry around and the performance of a desktop. I droped about $1900.00 on it at Microcenter. Hope this helps.


L.T.

I run vegas 5 on both my Sony Vaio PGC GRV 550 (my beas...11 poundst) and my Dell Inspiron 600m.
The Vaio is a 2.6 ghz and the Dell is a P4 1.6

Both only have 512 ram and I do all my capturing on the Vaio. Its only got a 4200 drive and I have only had one problem with dropped frames. Rebooted and captured again and had no problems.
The Vaio stays at home and is the main work horse (other than the other house systems that now do network rendering) and the Dell is my take around town system.

I have just bought a laptop 2.4 gig cpu 60 gig 7,200 rpm drive and 512 ram. I also have an external 120 gig firewire drive, no problems with anything and I use sc-live to capture my footage and no drop outs at all.


Flack .

Lawrence S:
Do a quick search on this board for "laptop"--you'll probably find a lot of useful reading.

In my own case, I have a cheapo Dell Inspiron 2650 bought March '03, with a 1.6 Celeron, 20GB drive (4200rpm), built-in DVD/CD player/burner, and 256MB of ram. It cost all of $700, and runs Vegas fine.

My point is that ANY laptop will handle Vegas well. Here's what you will get with:

--More processor: faster rendering speeds (not particularly important unless you have tight deadlines)

--More RAM: better performance with complex veg files, longer RAM prerenders

--More disk: Critical for larger projects. I use a Pyro external box and can swap 200GB drives easily.

I use a 750 MHz Compaq Presario 1800T with a $10 IBM 1394 PCMCIA card, running Windows ME. I got it on eBay for a song. Capture fine, and edits fine. I used to have a 4200 rpm drive, but I upgraded to a larger 5400 rpm drive.

Dropped frames are almost always a problem with:

1. DMA not being enabled.
2. Background programs (like anti-virus software)
3. Old drivers (motherboard chipset -- especially VIA chipset, video drivers, and 1394 drivers).

Some people claim that defrag makes a difference.

I also used to capture and edit on my 450 MHz desktop system. I never had a single dropped frame on that system.

thanks for useful suggestions, johnmeyer, i'm going to check DMA setting on my laptop tonight. will post again to give result.

best regards,

Lee

Okay, checked into john's suggestion about DMA (direct memory access). This function was already enabled on my laptop so that was not the problem.

However, while looking around for system information re: john's suggestions I also noted that the laptop had been fully configured for "best appearance" rather than "best performance". Doh!

This laptop was a refurbished demo machine purchased through e-cost. god nows where they got it from, but it looks like it was configured for salespersons to show off a nice look rather than a nice performance. I reconfigured for optimum performance and danged if doesn't work better with video already! Haven't yet had time to fully check out the level of improvement but I am optimistic at least.

Thanks to all for discussion/correction of my earlier attitude re: slow hard drive--I had all but given up hope that my HP laptop would ever edit video.

best regards,

Lee

I have the HP Pavilion zd7180us Notebook PC - It is the ultimate portable digital entertainment and photography studio.

This techno baby features:

- Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2004
- Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor @ 3.2 GHz with Hyperthreading Technology,
- 1024MB DDR SDRAM memory
- DVD+R/RW / CD-RW Combo drive
- An incredible 17.0" WXGA+ wide viewing angle display
- Integrated Wireless 54g 802.11b/g LAN connection
- NVIDIA® GeForce FX Go5600
- A 5-in-1 integrated digital media card reader
- Port Connections include:
4 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0
1 Parallel SPP/ECP (25-pin)
1 Video - VGA (15-pin)
1 Video - TV-Out (S-Video)
1 RJ-11 (modem)
1 RJ-45 Ethernet (LAN)
1 Port replicator / connector
1 IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
1 FIR (Fast Infrared)
On USB TV/PVR:
1 TV antenna-in
1 TV-in (S-Video)
1 RCA Video-in
2 RCA Audio-in (1L+1R)
On USB IR rec/blstr:
2 Infrared blaster-out

Additional hardware
- 40 GB Pocketec External Hard Drive (Portable-Backup of current project)
- 200 GB Seagate External Hard Drive (At home - BackUP of completed projects)
- Sony DVD+-RW/+-R External Drive

I run Vegas+DVD 5.0 (just upgraded from the 4.0) with Sound Forge 7.0 plus an array of other multimedia suites from Macromedia, Adobe, Maya, 3D Studio Max, etc..etc.. So far, I've had zero issues with performance of the hardware or softwares I operate. (as long as I keep my system clean from virus, worms, adware, and spyware)

Only drawbacks: Battery time is only 1.5 hours, and it nearly 9 lbs. So it NOT something you take to the airport and operate on an airplane on a "regular basis" to do work while in flight. I did pull it out to watch a dvd once.

But this notebook is designed as a "desktop replacement" media system and it's used at my desk between homes in Southern and Northern California. So its plugged in most of the time when I do my work...so battery time is not a factor for me.

I enjoy the 17 widescreen, which gives you so much "viewing space" when you work on vegas's video and audio tracks...or to open multiple applications and split up your screen to view at the same time.

If price is no option for you, I'd say check it out!

It use to be featuered on the HP website 7000 Notebook series...but the zd7180us was sold out at there company store. I was lucky enough to get one when it was offered thr HP.

But you can see the Comp USA has it on their line up:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=311352&pfp=BROWSE

Hi...

Here in Brazil, a friend who sells notebooks ofered me 2 options:

Toshiba Satelite P25-S609

Pentium IV 3.0GHz HT, 512K L2 Cache, Bus 800MHz, 1024Mb DDR SDRAM, HDD 80Gb (5400 rpm), 17.0" Wide XGA 1440x900, 64Mb DDR VRAM NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX Go5200, DVD-Multi removable, Realtek ALC202 Sound Syst. harman/kardon® Stereo Sound, V.92/56K FM, Built in 10/100 Ethernet, Wi-Fi (802.11a/g), TouchPad, full function remote control, PCMCIA lll CardBus, RGB, LPT, 4xUSB 2.0, TV-Out, 2xFIR, i.Link (IEEE1394), SD® card slot)


HP Pavilion ZD 7020

Pentium 4 - 2.8 GHz / FSB: 533 MHz / L2 Cache: 512 kB / 512 MB (RAM DDR) / / HD: 80.0 GB / IDE Bus: Ultra ATA / DVDRW/CDRW Combo / Video Card: nVidia GeForce FX Go5600 / Video: 64 MB / Wireless LAN: WLAN 802.11g / LAN: Ethernet 10/100 / Modem: 56K V.92 Modem / Soundcard: 16 Bit; SoundBlaster Pro compatible / Firewire Ports: 1 / USB Ports: 4 x Typ 2.0 / PCMCIA Slots: 1 x Type I/II/III / TV Out: 1 / IO Ports: 1


Both are great computers. So, what I'd like to know is if you are using one of them and your impressions.


Thanks,

Lawrence_S

You might want to compare the Toshiba Satelite P25-S609 with the HP zd7180us instead...

The 7020 is low end model of the zd7000 series.

It would be much fair to compare that top of the line Toshiba with the top of the line HP (the zd7180).

Only because the "specs" are much more similar and very comparitive. Check it out on my previous post on this thread, I detailed that laptop becuase that's what I operate.

With that in mind, its only a question of comparing the two prices of what you get for the buck for the those top of the line models.

So if your friend selling the laptops...if the HP 7020 is the same price of the Toshiba...then go for the Toshiba since its specs are superior then that of the 7020.

If you want to save money...go for the HP 7020...it has a decent capability.

If money is no object, ask your friend about the 7180 and compare it to the Toshiba he is offering...and ask him what he thinks.

Good luck in your purchase, and happy computing!

I can confirm I haven't yet had a dropped frame on my Toshbia P25 with a 4200 rpm 80 gig drive. The 17" hi-res screen is great for working with video. It can slow down though with multiple video streams.