Is the notebook capable? at DVinfo.net

Luke Gates · April 30th, 2003, 05:47 AM

Just recently many people on here helped me in my final decision on a 3 chipper....the GL1. Now that I have a decent cam and Vegas 4, I was wondering if my computer is up to par to make quality movies. Unfortunately I have a laptop. Are these specs good enough to make high quality video?
here they are:

Pentium 4 1.7gig 400MHz bus speed XP professional

1 gig pc2100 DDR ram

40 gig internal........100 gig external firewire at 7200 rpm
with 8MB buffer

Nvidia Geforce 440 Go 32MB at 222MHz DDR

Vegas 4, adobe photoshop, adobe after effects

Alex Gingell · April 30th, 2003, 09:33 AM

It sounds fine to me!

I guess it depends on exactly what you plan on making.

I have an Athlon 550mhz, 256mb ram (pc100 oh yeah), geforce1, and only a 25gb hard drive!

Pretty low spec I'm sure you'll agree. I was editing shorts up to about 10 mins, including doing visual effects in after fx, 3dsmax and combustion.

Of course I wasn't working uncompressed which is one of the reasons I need to upgrade (other than it was just getting painful!).

If you are planning on 1.5hr movie making and heavy rendering I might suggest an upgrade. Especially the graphics card and perhaps more harddrive space.

I'm sure more professional people will be able to comment better than I.

Alex Gingell

Zac Stein · April 30th, 2003, 10:07 AM

Upgrading the graphics card would make absolutely no difference to editing, very little grunt is needed for 2d video, his card is by far good enough.

Zac

Rick Spilman · April 30th, 2003, 11:26 AM

I just picked up an HP laptop when my old laptop died. It has similar specs and runs Vegas just fine. My laptop has a slightly faster cpu (2.0) but less RAM (512). You will want to add an external Firewire drive. 40 gig fills fast.

I love editing on a laptop. On a family vacation recently I went out to the hotel lobby and started editing footage that I had just shot that afternoon. Sure beats getting stuck in the hotel room watching cartoons with the kids.

Rob Lohman · May 1st, 2003, 12:46 PM

High Quality has almost nothing to do with your PC (or Mac). You
can even do HDTV editing on a very old computer. The thing that
changes is speed and ease of use. So yes, you can do editing
on your laptop/notebook (I do it on my 1 ghz dell laptop) and I
also think it should be speedy enough!

Alex Knappenberger · May 1st, 2003, 01:14 PM

Yeah, that laptop is fine...

My computer is only a 1GHz Athlon with 256MB PC133 SDram and only 40GB + 13.6GB HDD's, which are only 5400rpm. It doesn't drop any frames or anything like that, and for now its fine for me, but it's well over due for a upgrade. :D

April 30th, 2003, 05:47 AM	#1
Luke Gates Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: new jersey Posts: 151	Is the notebook capable? Just recently many people on here helped me in my final decision on a 3 chipper....the GL1. Now that I have a decent cam and Vegas 4, I was wondering if my computer is up to par to make quality movies. Unfortunately I have a laptop. Are these specs good enough to make high quality video? here they are: Pentium 4 1.7gig 400MHz bus speed XP professional 1 gig pc2100 DDR ram 40 gig internal........100 gig external firewire at 7200 rpm with 8MB buffer Nvidia Geforce 440 Go 32MB at 222MHz DDR Vegas 4, adobe photoshop, adobe after effects

April 30th, 2003, 09:33 AM	#2
Alex Gingell Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Northampton, UK Posts: 31	It sounds fine to me! I guess it depends on exactly what you plan on making. I have an Athlon 550mhz, 256mb ram (pc100 oh yeah), geforce1, and only a 25gb hard drive! Pretty low spec I'm sure you'll agree. I was editing shorts up to about 10 mins, including doing visual effects in after fx, 3dsmax and combustion. Of course I wasn't working uncompressed which is one of the reasons I need to upgrade (other than it was just getting painful!). If you are planning on 1.5hr movie making and heavy rendering I might suggest an upgrade. Especially the graphics card and perhaps more harddrive space. I'm sure more professional people will be able to comment better than I. Alex Gingell __________________ Alex

May 1st, 2003, 12:46 PM	#5
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	High Quality has almost nothing to do with your PC (or Mac). You can even do HDTV editing on a very old computer. The thing that changes is speed and ease of use. So yes, you can do editing on your laptop/notebook (I do it on my 1 ghz dell laptop) and I also think it should be speedy enough! __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

April 30th, 2003, 10:07 AM	#3
Zac Stein Major Player Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 730	Upgrading the graphics card would make absolutely no difference to editing, very little grunt is needed for 2d video, his card is by far good enough. Zac

April 30th, 2003, 11:26 AM	#4
Rick Spilman Major Player Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Jersey City, NJ Posts: 366	I just picked up an HP laptop when my old laptop died. It has similar specs and runs Vegas just fine. My laptop has a slightly faster cpu (2.0) but less RAM (512). You will want to add an external Firewire drive. 40 gig fills fast. I love editing on a laptop. On a family vacation recently I went out to the hotel lobby and started editing footage that I had just shot that afternoon. Sure beats getting stuck in the hotel room watching cartoons with the kids.

May 1st, 2003, 01:14 PM	#6
Alex Knappenberger High School Student Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Canton, Ohio, USA Posts: 609	Yeah, that laptop is fine... My computer is only a 1GHz Athlon with 256MB PC133 SDram and only 40GB + 13.6GB HDD's, which are only 5400rpm. It doesn't drop any frames or anything like that, and for now its fine for me, but it's well over due for a upgrade. :D