vegas 6 and notebook
 

i am thinking of buying an asus notebook, a6km with these specs:
AMD Turion64 MT30 , NVidia GeForce 7300 256MB TurboCache, 512MB (512x1) DDR SDRAM, 60GB HDD, DVD-RW : Dual Double Layer Supermulti,1xIEEE 1394

i ve been given a second solution too, asus A3AC with these specs:
15” XGA TFT LCD, Intel Pentium M 740 (1,73GHz, 2MB L2 cache), 512MB(512x1) DDR2, 60GB HDD, DVD-RW : Dual Double Layer, INTEL chipset 915GM Express, Intel Extreme Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (64MB), 1394

Has any one used one of these with vegas;
will i be able to use vegas 6 for editing;
what do you suggest;

thanks in advance

Hello,

This is a sort of 'how long is a piece of string question'!

Will Vegas work with either of these notebooks: Yes!

Will Vegas work WELL with either of these notebooks: No!

Non-linear Editors (or NLE's) need speed to do what they need to do WELL.

Neither of these notebooks have fast processors. They will run Windows and other business applications at a mean speed but Vegas (and any other NLE will not perform).

You do not say if you have any experience with Vegas or video editing or what it is you intend to produce.

Put it this way - if you are happy to NOT be able to preview your work in real time and are prepared to WAIT hours and hours (and more hours) for your final product to render out then, yes, they will work for you.

If the above is acceptable to you I would suggest that you get at least a bigger hard disk drive and more RAM but I can tell you that at the end of the day you will not use Vegas or any other NLE for very long on these notebooks before you either forget about your (new) hobby or go out and buy a desktop!

Also in my experience for half the price of a notebook you get about double the power in a desktop. That is a hell of a price to pay for portability.

The only notebooks that I have looked at that may be able to do a half decent job of running Vegas are the new range of Sony VAIO notebooks but let me tell you that for the price of these notebooks I could build a desktop for editing that would make headlines!

Sorry - I did not mean to spoil your day - but take it from someone who has long since gone through the pain of upgrade after upgrade after upgrade to eventually arrive at a workable solution.

To quote from a member of one of the Mercedes Benz Clubs:

'Speed is just a question of money. How fast would you like to go?'

Regards,

Dale.

I've done a little video editing on my work laptop (and just a little). It seems that editing isn't that tough a task for a laptop (DV anyway, HDV is a whole other thing), but when it comes time to Render, my laptop seemed woefully inadequate.

I may be wrong, but the laptop seems to control the speed of its chip based on whether external power is applied (always use external power for max speed) and the chip temp or internal temp. It seemed like I was humming along pretty quickly at the beginning of the render and then after a short while, the cpu throttled back and the remainder took sooooo looonnngggg. Again I'm assuming, I don't know for sure, but it seemed like the laptop was not built for continuous high chip temps and just throttled it back when that happened.

thank you very much for your answers, i am already thinking of finally building a desktop system,
its my new hobby firts of all!!!

Hello again,

Maybe me telling you what I am doing will make you feel better about things:

I too was going to buy a notebook but only to take to events, hook it up to a mixer, and just record the event sounds etc. etc.

But after careful consideration I have decided to build another desktop for this purpose:

You can easily get a mini tower case with a handle on it to make it portable.

LCD screens are also much slimmer nowadays and not as heavy as their CRT cousins so I am just going to make a nice canvas or leather bag with handles big enough to put the screen in and there you go.

Put it this way - have you ever seen those bags that a drummer stores their cymbals in when going to a gig? Something like that.

Also I will take a UPS with in case of power issues.

This might sound like a hell of a lot to carry around but it takes care of quite a few issues:

Cost for one! Just compare the price of a 100GB hard disk drive for a Compaq notebook with a 400GB IDE or SATA hard disk drive for a desktop and you will get the picture quite clearly!

Also with desktops you are not beholden to the manufacturer for proprietry items of hardware or upgrades (again at a price).

In addition to the above most external connectors on a notebook are an integral part of the motherboard so if your IEEE1394 (Firewire) port blows for example this usually results in the replacement of the entire motherboard which, if out of warranty, will cost. If one of my Firewire ports blows I have 5 left and if the entire card blows I can replace just the card for a fraction of the cost and in an emergency would probably be able to source one from any computer store!

Anyway - I could also go on and on about this - I think you get the idea.

Hope everything works out for you.

Regards,

Dale.

There are those of us that travel for more or less a living. There are those of us that prefer to work in other areas besides the shoebox of an editing room, there are those who simply don't want a desktop.
I've had 16 laptops over the past 7 years, with a new one on the way. I've edited pieces for ABC Nightline, GMA, National Geo, History, CBS Sports, CMT, and other major networks, as well as work for my family, friends, and local merchants.
That said, many laptops beat hell on desktops. You pay a bit more for portability, but at least I can pick up my editing laptop and go whereever I want, from the beaches of Hawaii to the mountains behind my home.
http://www.m-audio.com/artists/en_us...ttedEagle.html

Takis, do not in any way be concerned about using a laptop. I have a great, older Sony VAIO (to be replaced soon) I know Edward (other moderator) uses a somewhat custom built monster machine with dual hard drives, frankly....everyone I know that edits for fun or for clients owns a laptop. Just read the forums, learn what you need to do if you don't have a custom job built. You'll want to kill any background apps that may be running, especially antivirus. this is true for desktops, too.
Have fun, and welcome to the community!

i keep searching but i will have the chance to borrow a laptop (one of the latest models) from a friend of mine for a few days so i will be able to see what i can do with it and vegas, one is for sure i may change my computer-laptop but not vegas, it is becoming a must for me.

thank you all for your answers

DSE,
Your experience compared to mine probably points out the difference between a laptop acquired with the intent to edit video (yours) and a laptop acquired for mundane office tasks and pressed into service to perform video editing (mine).

I will concur though that it may very well be the right job for the task if portability is a higher priority than other factors such as upgradeability and cost.

As usual, I created a wrong impression by providing only half of the story and you've rounded out the discussion.

Just to add one more thing: I've been very happy editing on a laptop. It's nice to be portable and be able to edit anywhere. I did spec mine a little higher in that I got TWO hard drives and both of them are 7200rpm. Otherwise, it's a fairly standard laptop (P4 3.4GHz, 1 Gig RAM, 800MHz FSB, etc...)

Truthfully, my current laptop is an off-the-shelf Sony VAIO K37 (discontinued last year)
I've owned one custom built laptop and it gave me more headache than it was worth. I buy off the shelf laptops, wipe the drives, and reinstall a straight installation of Windows without all the garbage. Then I install the "garbage" that I want such as Office, FP, Photoshop, etc. No antivirus.

Takis,
Both of those systems will do a good job. Remember, these are mobile processors and 1.7ghz = ~ 3.0ghz Pentium 4. If you bump up the RAM to around a gig, you should be fine.

Dale,
These are mobile processors. You have be confusing the numbers with a P4 processor. I currently use a Pentium M 2.0ghz processor and it is more powerful than my 3.4ghz w/HT desktop.

I am primarily a laptop editor, since I travel A LOT and my system (the discountinued Dell 9300) is quite capable of editing DV and HDV with no problems at all (however, I use Premiere Pro and not Vegas).

I wrote this article a while ago and maybe useful (but, it may be a bit outdated): http://asvideoproductions.com/video/...es/laptops.pdf

Good Morning!

OK - well - I am prepared to bow down to those of you who actually use notebooks for editing but now I am also confused.

You are right about me confusing the numbers with P4 processors but then I would like to know what makes a mobile processor, running 1Gig slower than a P4, faster?

If this is true then maybe I should review my own plans.

If this is true then I am sorry for confusing Takis - maybe a notebook is the way to go.

Regards,

Dale.

Well, the Pentium M chips have a 2MB cahce, as opposed to a 1MB chache on the P4s. This increases the speed substantially.

This may help:
http://www.directron.com/pentiummvsp4.html

finally i think the best solution is to try before we buy
Maybe from a friend who owns a notebook or desktop.

Takis,

I've heard good things about Asus laptops, good components and good screens.

Take a look at dual core centrino processors - they are called core duo. Both Sony and Acer have come out with models with that kind of processors at affordable prices. SATA drives find their way to laptops as well. I'll second the 1 GB RAM advice too. Upgrading laptops is far more expensive than getting the components at first buy.

Of course if you do not really need the portability you can have a great editing desktop workstation for the price of a just OK laptop. And I would never rely on a single laptop for my computing needs. One component goes out and you are computerless.

But sometimes editing watching a beatiful sunset away from home, or even in your living room, balcony or verandah, can be a real pleasure.