Quad core Mobile laptops

[Ken Hodson]

(sorry lost the link, looking) Just notice that HP is about to release a first of a quad core mobile laptop line-up. Some with Nvidia workstation cards for $1700 (Wow!) and some lesser costing models with regular mobile class GPU's that would suit non pro 3-D work are said to be available as well. An added plus is an apparent advanced colour display that jumps the current 256k'ish to 16mill+. Sounds great for this crowd. Just hope they don't loose all integrity like most all Laptop Co.'s and put in 5200rpm drives in them!
Considering this level of PC location computing ability, what is the expected level of real-time capture capability using ProspectHD? I believe the quad mobiles run about 2.5ghz in these laptops. How that compares to a current Intel quad desktop part, I do not know. I wouldn't guess any less then a desktop quad 2.0ghz. Is this enough mussel to capture capture 1080-24p into ProspectHD through HDMi with no drop outs?

[David Newman]

We expect 2Ghz mobile quad core system to capture 1080p24 with any issues. We are looking forward to these system as well.

[Alex Raskin]

What capture card will be used to acquire HDMI video with these laptops?

[Ken Hodson]

The same cards that any other laptop uses. They are just quad core laptops with nice screens, not a new type of PC.

[Alex Raskin]

Last time I checked, people used an external PCI-to-Express Magma (?) adapter to host BM Intensity card that accepted HDMI signal from camera, when connected to a laptop.

Did this situation change? Are there cards now that allow to do this directly on the laptop?

[Jeff Koenig]

I need to do some more research on capturing directly to laptops, I've never done it before. Been a desktop guy for sooo long I wouldn't even know how to add an I/O card to a laptop. That in mind:

Would it be possible to create a workflow with these that involved somehow adding an HD-SDI input to them, capturing directly from the HD-SDI port of an EX3 and dumping the some form of 4.2.2 colorspace files onto an external HDD for transport back to the office for editing in FCP?

Basically, can you use a laptop to create a bigger, more cumbersome, non-solid state, and most likely more expensive version of the Convergent Designs Flash XDR?

It's mostly an academic question for me. I've never once hooked a laptop to a camera while shooting, and I'm curious what workflows are possible. While the Flash XDR is a great way to circumvent the 35mbps 4.2.0 limitations of the EX, you can't preview the footage like you can with a Wafian (and I can't see myself paying $17k for one of those).

Guess I'm curious if you can use a laptop solution as a (less mobile) intermediate between the XDR and the Wafian. Plus with a laptop I can use cineform's wavelet intra instead of the XDR's long GOP MPEG-2. For the record, I'm not concerned with editing on the laptop, just viewing footage and storing files on an HDD for transport to the NLE.

Decisions, decisions... luckily we're not shooting a lot of roaming handheld. Gonna end up with a ridiculous video village at this point.

On a related note, anyone know the practical distance limits (in feet) for sending a reliable signal over HD-SDI? Theoretically, if I'm capturing from HD-SDI, how much leash can I give the camera?

[Richard Leadbetter]

Originally Posted by Alex Raskin

Did this situation change? Are there cards now that allow to do this directly on the laptop?

No, there aren't. I have had some success connecting PCI Express cards to the WiFi slot on several notebooks (and Mac Mini) using a custom interface but it requires external power. I don't think ExpressCard offers enough juice to power an HD capture card. I think that solutions like CineForm Solid will supercede notebook HD capture any way.

[Alex Raskin]

I'd LOVE to have Cineform recorder with HD-SDI input.

But is it even on the horizon? I sure wish it was actually manufactured...

[David Taylor]

Our mobile recorder is absolutely still planned. Unfortunately as a reasonably small organization we have been pulled into some other priorities that has forced a delay on the mobile recorder. Thanks for the continued enthusiasm for the product - we'll get it done.

[Richard Leadbetter]

Originally Posted by Ken Hodson

(sorry lost the link, looking) Just notice that HP is about to release a first of a quad core mobile laptop line-up. Some with Nvidia workstation cards for $1700 (Wow!) and some lesser costing models with regular mobile class GPU's that would suit non pro 3-D work are said to be available as well. An added plus is an apparent advanced colour display that jumps the current 256k'ish to 16mill+. Sounds great for this crowd. Just hope they don't loose all integrity like most all Laptop Co.'s and put in 5200rpm drives in them!

Drive speed is as important as density of data on disk. In fact, data density is probably more important vs speed. My 5,400rpm Samsung 500GB notebook HDD outperforms just about every 7,200 RPM drive and even compares favourably with some SSDs. The size of the disk is the same, the amount of data packed onto it is massively increased. Therefore, although it's spinning at a slower speed, it's reading more data.

Imagine playing back an old 33 LP at 45 single speed on a turntable!

Originally Posted by Ken Hodson

Considering this level of PC location computing ability, what is the expected level of real-time capture capability using ProspectHD? I believe the quad mobiles run about 2.5ghz in these laptops. How that compares to a current Intel quad desktop part, I do not know. I wouldn't guess any less then a desktop quad 2.0ghz. Is this enough mussel to capture capture 1080-24p into ProspectHD through HDMi with no drop outs?

If you're talking about the Intel QX9300 mobile quad core CPU, that's 2.53GHz, 12mb L2 cache and a 1066MHz front side bus. Therefore it should outperform the Q6600 CPU relatively comfortably. But there's no real need to go quad. I've had a T9500 2.6GHz dual core CPU capture 720p60 and 1080i30 with some pretty demanding material. I'd imagine that a 2.8GHz Montevina CPU with 1066MHz FSB should comfortably meet your needs and it'll also save you a big pile of cash.

I've found that the weakness of notebook capture is all down to the graphics card. Discrete graphics are required for a realtime preview window, and the implementation of the 2D hardware overlay is all over the place in the lower end GPUs.

[Ken Hodson]

Originally Posted by Richard Leadbetter

Drive speed is as important as density of data on disk. In fact, data density is probably more important vs speed. My 5,400rpm Samsung 500GB notebook HDD outperforms just about every 7,200 RPM drive and even compares favourably with some SSDs.

Very interesting. Any links to back this up? Seems odd that 7200 drives wouldn't sport the same density tech with better rpm speed. Anyways, educate me!

[Richard Leadbetter]

Go here and then look at the Samsung Spinpoint M6 500GB HM500LI. Aside from a handful of 7200rpm drives with much lower capacities, it runs at pretty incredible speeds.

I'm not saying that they couldn't make a 7200rpm version of it in the future, what I am saying is that the higher capacity drives pretty much always launch at 5400rpm but that isn't necessarily a bad thing for the reason I stated and certainly nothing to do with 'losing integrity'...!

[Ken Hodson]

It does have good sustained read/write speed, but its random access time is horrible sitting at the bottom of the pile. Seems like a great second drive for storing media files, but not the best for an OS drive.