Editing on the move...

[Generic Skinhead]

Anyone use laptops for editing? I need a portable solution and was wondering if anyone on heres got a good one?

[belovedmonster]

i would imagine a portable mac would be the thing to get...

[miker]

As a DV to DV and DVD solution, you won't find me complaining about my 12" PowerBook and external 200GB firewire hardrive.

Might not be the fasted thing out there but with the memory upped to 640MB (I just cannot see myself affording a 1GB SoDIMM any time soon) and a Panther upgrade it's snappy enough. Not sure I'd want to do high end effects and compositing work on it though.

Very portable that's for sure.

And the funny thing is, I used to be a Windows user, lol.

[Generic Skinhead]

Yeah I was looking at a powerbook. The price is quite a steep for such a small screen though. How do find it miker?

I've also heard that its got some overheating issues...how well does it run FCP?

[miker]

Sure, it runs hot, I think the aluminium case acts as a heatsink :-)
But it doesn't bother me. It bothers some Apple purists though. I say it saves on the heating bill, keeps you cosy editing into the long winter night.

The screen is small, but 1024x768 is okay, and FCP4 has a couple of preset views that fit well. You can always plug in an external monitor and expand the desktop - but on the 12" it's analogue output so things can look a bit 'fuzzy' compared to the inbuilt LCD.

FCP4 itself runs okay, the realtime preview is usable on most effects but more than one layer and it'll drop frames like crazy. I certainly don't have any major complaints.

Today portability is always going to be a compromise on system spec, for me this PB offered best value, even when compared against Dell laptops. If you want a bigger screen (and bigger laptop) then a Dell would possibly be better value.

[GREATwarEAGLE]

whoops. I made a mistake. Wrong thread.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 19, 2003 09:19 PM: Message edited by: GREATwarEAGLE ]</font>

[windowslaws]

powerbooks are lovely things


and panther is the sexiest of all the big cats

[Generic Skinhead]

I found a decent deal on a 12" Powerbook, but I'd have to go with with the standard 40GB hardrive and upgrade the ram myself, which I'm not wild about.

How much did you pay for your external drive? And did you buy it from the apple website?

[miker]

yup, definitely upgrade the RAM yourself, although it's a shame to see the factory shipped 128MB go to waste :-(

can't remember where I got my external drive from, on-line somewhere, cost ?200, probably cheaper now.

Crucial for memory

Some firewire external drive action

HTH