Laptop for Cineform
 

I'm trying to figure out is if there are PC laptop solutions out there that will produce good performance with AspectHD. The performance specs on the Cineform site are primarily for desktop PCs, and the laptops have quite different CPUs, hard drives and memory configurations.

While I assume the new mobile dual core solutions are the best option, I was wondering if there were particular models or hard drive solutions that were recommended... Even better would be a laptop with an analog HD input so I could build an uncompressed/ProspectHD system... with my FX1, but I bet that's pushing it and would cost more than I'm willing to spend.

-Steve

The new dual core laptops are excellent, and will out perform many single core desktop P4/Althons. Disk speed is a your primary issue, fortunately there are integrators that build laptops with RAIDs -- look of one of those if you want to do a lot of multi-stream editing with a laptop.

As for component input to a laptop, when one exist we can't wait to enable that feature. Please keep an eye out for that tech.

Ah... I suspected that disk speed would be the main problem. I haven't seen a laptop with a RAID drive (0 or otherwise)... any specific companies you can think of?

-Steve

1Beyond, BOXX, Alienware all had RAID 0 laptops for post-production.

How about to add Xena card for laptop with ExpressCard to PCI Expansion kit:
http://www.mobl.com/expansion/produc...ion/index.html

David, ExpressCard with HDSDI input exist?

Not that I know of, but we want one.

What min. dual core cpu need to ingest 720p24 8bit? Using Prospect HD i can
choose between 8 or 10 bit ?

Yes, Prospect HD is user controllable for 8 and 10bit captures.

Serge,

If you're using the multithreaded DirectShow encoder (ie ProspectHD, or your own DirectShow-based capture tool talking to CineForm Encoder-2), I reckon that even the lowliest 1.66GHz Core Duo should be able to handle 720p at 24fps.

I'm looking for a rock solid 720p/60 laptop capture platform, but I'm fairly sure I'll have to wait until the 2.3GHz Core Duo makes an appearance.

Yes this set-up looks intriguing, but Magma are not a very communicative company and I've had no information from them about this when this product might appear.

If the Xena HL works OK on a 32-bit/33MHz PCI slot, surely it would also work OK on the CardBus to PCI product which is available now? 720p/24 at 4:4:4 should be attainable assuming that CardBus has the same level of bandwidth as a normal PCI slot.

Richard, thank you very much for explaining.
Your information about CPU's benchmarks very useful.
This info was a Top Secret of Cineform:)
Now i wish less expensive than PHD a 8 bit only codec for ingesting video.
And i prefer Vegas+DeckLink and CPU Intel over PPro+Xena with AMD Opteron;)

Can your Decklink card work with VirtualDub? This page seems to indicate it would work as Decklink has what looks like a WDM driver.

If so, and if you are going to work at 720p/24, I'd seriously consider AspectHD's VFW codec as your 8-bit capture solution. The new 4.0 upgrade gives you access to the high quality setting within the VFW environment, and allows you to switch between interlaced and progressive encoding.

IMHO it's worth the $499 on its own, and I think it's the unsung hero of the Aspect 4.0 upgrade vs 3.4.

There's a strong chance that the top-end single core Pentium M would be fast enough to capture at 24fps too, which may be the preferable solution as the VFW codec is single-threaded so your dual core chip would only yield dividends in the editing environment.

HD Portable Laptop station
 

HD Portable Laptop station
http://www.kinor.ru/products/diskvtr/hdnb/

While we're back on the subject of laptops I've been using a Sony AR190 laptop for a few weeks.

It's configured as

T2600 CPU (2.16GHz Core Duo)
2GB RAM
200GB RAID 0 (dual 5400 rpm laptop drives)
WUXGA (1920 x 1200) display

This is the first time I've been able to comfortably edit two 1920 x 1080 streams plus a transition, title, and color correction on a laptop without dropping a frame. It's the combination of the T2600 for horsepower plus the RAID 0 drive config which allows feeding of the two streams simultaneously. Nice, very nice. For those that need an awesome editing laptop on the road the AR190 is awesome. (I think the AR170 is virtually the same).

The new Intel Merom processors around the corner turn up the clocks speed and memory performance another notch, so I think we'll begin to see a new class of laptops capable of this performance.

ESata
 

Steve/Everyone,

I now use an external eSata solution from Thecus:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/04/17...al_storage_uk/

I configured two 250Gig Sata disks in RAID 0 for 500Gigs (there is a small RAID0/RAID1 switch on the back -everything else is automatigically configured).

Here are the transfer speeds:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/04/17..._uk/page9.html

-plenty fast enough for HD.

-I use USB2 at present in my laptop while away and at home on the PC. When I upgrade to eSata PC motherboard I can plug it into that and double the speed...


Nick.

P.S. I don't work for Thecus I just think it's a great product!