Running vegas on a laptop

[Martin King]

I wanted to know if any of the sony laptop computer are able to run vegas smoothly. I was thinking of getting the core 2 dou 2Gh, but I think that won't have the power I was thinking of the core 2 dou 2.24Gh I believe it is. So is anybody runnning vegas on this systems and how are they. If not is anybody running vegas on a laptop and runing it smoothly. Most of my editing will be in hd for the long awaited HC7 Or HC5. Are any good points about buying the HC7 instead of the HC5 keeping in mind that I have no plans on buying a microphone.

[David Jimerson]

Vegas is pretty much processor-based, so if you want anything like real-time playback, especially after you've added effects, etc., you want as fast a processor as you can get. It is the very last thing you want to skimp on if you're trying to keep the budget low.

[Martin King]

Is not that I'm trying to save on money because I have a pretty good budget. I have around 3000 to spent on a good hd edting laptop, but if the a top of the line laptop won't cut it want options to I have with a desktop what are the best desktops that I can buy. On what should I focus my budget. And if anybody is running vegas on a laptop please reply. I basically want a laptop just cause of the space saver.

[Floris van Eck]

I am also shopping for a laptop for video editing. I think I will settle with a Core 2 DUO T7200 processor (2.0Ghz), 2GB PC5300RAM, a 160GB 5.400RPM harddisk (7.200RPM might be faster but 100GB is a bit close when editing HDV), also I plan to do the rendering etc. on my workstation. I want to use the laptop for doing the editing but not rendering. I also want it for looking at the dailies at the set. So I believe 5.400RPM will do. The laptop I have in mind is the Asus G2PC or the V1JP. Both look good. The 17" G2PC has a 1440x900 pixels screen resolution. The V1JP a 15,4" with a 1650x1050 resolution. But I am not sure if fonts will get too small then. So I have to think about this a little bit more before I make a decision.

[Martin King]

what is rendering??? and if you are not going to be "rendering" on this computer that must mean that you have another one right. So I'm realizing that there isn't a laptop out there to do everything that can do everything in vegas so what are my options in desktops. Dell,Hp,ect.

[Bennis Hahn]

i run vegas all day long on a dell inspiron Core duo 1.63 with a gig of ram and a 7200rpm drive. It is quick.

Bumping up to a 2gHz+ processor will be fine.

and a 15.4 screen running at 1680x1050 is very nice. The fonts are fine to read and it allows vegas to spread out nicely.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Martin King

I wanted to know if any of the sony laptop computer are able to run vegas smoothly. I was thinking of getting the core 2 dou 2Gh, but I think that won't have the power I was thinking of the core 2 dou 2.24Gh I believe it is. So is anybody runnning vegas on this systems and how are they. If not is anybody running vegas on a laptop and runing it smoothly. Most of my editing will be in hd for the long awaited HC7 Or HC5. Are any good points about buying the HC7 instead of the HC5 keeping in mind that I have no plans on buying a microphone.

I run Vegas 6 on an Alienware mj12-7700 which is a P4 HT @ 3GHz with 2.5GB RAM and a 160GB RAID0. This system does almost anything you want. I routinely have 4-8 video tracks (ususally only 1 or 2 are source video, the rest are text overlays) and ~10 audio tracks (only 2-4 active at a time). My edits have all been SD footage (16:9) with an AC3 5.1 mix. This system does just fine. Occasionally I'll have to bumb the preview window down to "preview" or "Draft" quality to get smooth viewing (usually only after hours of editing so that could just be a windows problem).

For HD which (and someone correct me if i am wrong) is more highly compressed than SD-DV footage, you will probably do well with a Core 2 duo system above 2GHz. Remember that a core 2 cuo is actually two processor cores so you are getting to true processing cores @ 2GHz each. my P4 Hyper Thread system only tries to mimic having two cores so it won't be near as good as a true dual core system.

To put that into perspective, I built a render server FIVE years ago using 2 AMD Athlon MP cpus at 1.5GHz each on a server motherboard with 512MB of ECC RAM and a 64bit PCI RAID 0 system. I rendered the same veg file in vegas from the source HD to the same HD and I timed each one. The brand new $3300 Alienware (now 1 year old) was only 3% faster than the 5 year old dual CPU Athlon system. That 3% is almost negligible. The only noticable difference is taht older system takes several minutes to open a complicated veg file (due to limited RAM) and it cannot preview at anything over draft (again due to RAM).

So hopefully this highlights the power of a true dual CPU system. The Core 2 Duo will be a great chip for rendering. Don't skimp on it. Everything in Vegas depend on that CPU to RAM bus.

Multiple HD streams being played at the same time (PiP) might stress the standard laptop hard disk. I recommend nothing but a 7200RPM HD and a RAID if at all possible. Raid 0 (stripe) or 1 (mirror) will work well. Mirror might be the best option for data redundancy. Each scene transition / crossfade using HD footage might also stress the 5400 or 4200 RPM had disks. Avoid those if possible.... besides.... Anyone considering a mobile render system has no intention of sitting this system on their lap (it'll burn you!) or needing long battery life (ie greater than 1hr while rendering). Just sit it on a table, prop it up for air flow, and plug it in.

jason
ask me about the raid levels and i can explain more

[Floris van Eck]

I have a 5.400RPM harddisk in the notebook I just ordered. The 7.200RPM laptops only go up to 100GB and with all programs installed, I am already at like 40GB so that leaves little room for the HDV files. Therefore, I have chosen for a 5.400RPM harddisk with a size of 160GB. Whenever possible, I will use my external firewire harddisk that I can use for scratch. Whenever possible, I will work on my workstation which has 10.000RPM raptors and more power.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Bennis Hahn

i run vegas all day long on a dell inspiron Core duo 1.63 with a gig of ram and a 7200rpm drive. It is quick.

Bumping up to a 2gHz+ processor will be fine.

and a 15.4 screen running at 1680x1050 is very nice. The fonts are fine to read and it allows vegas to spread out nicely.

I forgot to mention the display. If you are doing HD, then you would probably like to play the footage back at native resolution. I don't know if there are any systems that actually support 1920x1080 resolutions. the 720p footage shouldn't be a problem, but i don't know of any cameras that capture to that format (haven't looked into it at all). All the systems I see at the biggest resolutions only do 1680x1050. that is close, very close.

jason

[Floris van Eck]

Only Dell (and maybe Alienware) offer 1920x1200 screens in laptops. But I have only heard bad stories about them. Which is logical, because they are just cramming too much pixels on a 17" surface.

[Bill Ravens]

I have had an older Sony Vaio PCG-GRT390ZP with Vegas installed. It gave me a lot of troubles. I recently bought a Dell Inspiron Dual Core(not core 2 duo), 7200RPM HDD and 2Gb RAM. While it came absolutely choked with superfluous software, which I had to remove, it runs Vegas without a hiccup. The vaio has proprietary chipset drivers that seem to get funky with video processes. This is a common problem for vendors like Dell and Sony. They buy third party hardware with reduced capabilities from the free market hardware. You can't update the firmware or drivers from the third party vendor, updates come only from the end product vendor.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Martin King

what is rendering??? and if you are not going to be "rendering" on this computer that must mean that you have another one right. So I'm realizing that there isn't a laptop out there to do everything that can do everything in vegas so what are my options in desktops. Dell,Hp,ect.

There is a system that can do everything including rendering (which is turning your project file with cuts, etids, fades, effects, etc into a finished MPEG2 for DVD architect), but you will pay money for it. my alienware does it all, but it cost $3200 a year ago. Check out this one.

it runs:

Core 2 duo T7600 @ 2.33GHz
XP Pro (extra $100 over home)
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 (FULL HD RESOLUTION!) Extra $200 from the 17" 1440 x 900
512MB Ram (get ram at crucial.com for 1/2 the price as alienware this system has extra slot if not 3 extra slots)
160GB RAID 0 - 2x80GB ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM 8MB cache
8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW (extra $50)
256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7600
Intel Wireless 3945 a/b/g internal mini-card
gigabit network (must have gigabit for transfering 80GB of video) need gigabit switch and card on other system)
Respawn OS image DVD (MUST HAVE) extra $30 yes they charge for it, so does HP
DVI out for external monitor (don't know if graphics card can do additional display 1920x1080 but i suspect it can)
S-video for TV (vegas can use both external out as the entire preview device)

TOTAL 2,639

The best part of alienware systems is no extra crappy software preinstalled (like with HP, Dell, Gateway, etc). so they are clean out of the box and you don't have to spend ~3 hrs uninstalling the "ET-phone home" apps that the rest have.

NOTE: I don't work for alienware, i don't get commissions (wish i could). I just think their systems are worth it for high end video.

jason

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Floris van Eck

Only Dell (and maybe Alienware) offer 1920x1200 screens in laptops. But I have only heard bad stories about them. Which is logical, because they are just cramming too much pixels on a 17" surface.

sony also offers a 1900 x 1200 screen, no problems at all, other than the size. I don't carry it often.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

sony also offers a 1900 x 1200 screen, no problems at all, other than the size. I don't carry it often.

just checked the big Sony's and they clock in around same performance (minus RAID it is just two discs from what i read) same display, better price on RAM, and price is about same as alienware. BUT you get a HD Blue-Ray reader...... NOT burner, but reader.

odd... sony doesn't even package their vegas software with their premium video package, they sell Premiere.

jason

[Martin King]

Originally Posted by Jason Robinson

There is a system that can do everything including rendering (which is turning your project file with cuts, etids, fades, effects, etc into a finished MPEG2 for DVD architect), but you will pay money for it. my alienware does it all, but it cost $3200 a year ago. Check out this one.

it runs:

Core 2 duo T7600 @ 2.33GHz
XP Pro (extra $100 over home)
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 (FULL HD RESOLUTION!) Extra $200 from the 17" 1440 x 900
512MB Ram (get ram at crucial.com for 1/2 the price as alienware this system has extra slot if not 3 extra slots)
160GB RAID 0 - 2x80GB ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM 8MB cache
8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW (extra $50)
256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7600
Intel Wireless 3945 a/b/g internal mini-card
gigabit network (must have gigabit for transfering 80GB of video) need gigabit switch and card on other system)
Respawn OS image DVD (MUST HAVE) extra $30 yes they charge for it, so does HP
DVI out for external monitor (don't know if graphics card can do additional display 1920x1080 but i suspect it can)
S-video for TV (vegas can use both external out as the entire preview device)

TOTAL 2,639

The best part of alienware systems is no extra crappy software preinstalled (like with HP, Dell, Gateway, etc). so they are clean out of the box and you don't have to spend ~3 hrs uninstalling the "ET-phone home" apps that the rest have.

NOTE: I don't work for alienware, i don't get commissions (wish i could). I just think their systems are worth it for high end video.

jason

First of all I just want to say WOW I didn't know I could get all of this info in a forum, you guys are great is greatly appreciated.

Jason---that system that you have look incredible the only thing I'm concern is about the graphic card is the one that you have good enought for vegas.

I was also considering extended warraty, what do u guys think about those.

The only thing that sony is a little bit better is because of the HDMI output ont he Ar systems, but they don't have a 7,200 RPM 8MB cache which is a big concern when running high demand programs like vegas.

I was also planning on buying a 32 inch LCD samsung so the display on the computer is not a concern. Jason you said that I can output my display through DVI right and do all the editing on my 32 inch TV.

Another thing will vegas run windows media center, the reason that I want windows media center is because of the TV tuner. Should I wait for Vista since is right around the corner and will vegas run on vista home premium.