Using a Laptop to Capture Footage AND as a monitor with On Location
 

I am just wetting my feet with HDV edits in Premiere Pro CS3 and I need to monitor images I'm capturing (the GY HD-101's view-finder is shocking).
Monitoring and capturing solutions are pretty expensive in Africa and I've been trying to find a cost effective way to do both...

I haven't yet tried On Location and am looking for a hard drive solution as well as a confidence monitor solution.

I'm wondering if I could use On Location to capture the HDV footage onto a laptop via firewire while using the laptop as a monitor...
I've been looking into a Sony Vaio (they're on special and seem to have the specs to handle it (firewire in, HD screen resolution, 4GB RAM...).

Is this possible to do?

I have recently recorded via a 4.5mt Firewire cable to my laptop from a HD201 which was my B camera at a stage show which ran for 1hr 20mins. As you know the 201 is only capable of capturing 1hr on tape. For some reason On Location captured in a series of very short (2 -20 second) clips so I used CS2 Premiere capture window. I could monitor live image up to the start of recording but no image was available whilst capturing. It took a long time to conform the capture file when I stopped but It did record the full 1hr 20 mins. which I was able to transfer to my edit system.
I don't think that my laptop is spec'd enough for On Location but the one you mentioned seems as though it would be okay.
Mine is an old HP 2GHz AMD Turion with 1GB ram.

Yes, that's what OnLocation was designed to do. I've used it on a four year old laptop (Intel dual-core 2.0 GHz with 2GB RAM) with success. The field monitor operated at about 10fps with a bit of a lag, but the captured HD video was flawless.

Now that I've upgraded to a laptop with an i7 and 6GB RAM, the field monitor works in real time.

[QUOTE=Sean Gardiner;1555929
I'm wondering if I could use On Location to capture the HDV footage onto a laptop via firewire while using the laptop as a monitor...
I've been looking into a Sony Vaio (they're on special and seem to have the specs to handle it (firewire in, HD screen resolution, 4GB RAM...).

Is this possible to do?[/QUOTE]

Your Vaio should handle it easily. It's not necessary, but if you can afford it, get Cineform as well. It works seamlessly with OnLocation and Firewire. Either way you should be fine except for one thing:

If you have to move your camera around a lot, you'll start hating your laptop arrangement. If you're in a static and slow shoot, then it's fine. Don't forget to calibrate your lcd monitor (on location will help you with it).