What laptop configuration for 3K editing?

[Franck De Togni]

I was wondering what do people think about editing 3K shooting on a laptop.

I often go on location to make company videos. I shoot in the morning (for example) and edit the video on a laptop somewhere in an office. (when it's a 2 to 5 minutes film).


So do you think an I7 with max of ram could handle this? Or maybe wait till next cpu gen?
I don't really realize 'cause working in HDV, DVCproHD or AVCHD is not equal to RAW 3K or 5K.

[scott william]

i have a i7 3.2 GHZ with 12 gig ram and it does very well with r3d footage in CS5.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

For R3D files... you need a good video card that supports Mercury.

The GPU is probably more important than the CPU and RAM at the moment.

[Tim Hole]

Working with high resolution raw files is very intensive for the computers but also don't underestimate how intensive AVCHD is for a system. IMO opinion AVCHD is completely mis-sold to the consumers. It is used as a format on consumer level cameras but is horribly intensive.

Like Scott, I use a i7 with 12GB of RAM at home and it is very RED friendly - Well pretty much as good as its gonna get without a REDROCKET. I still have a GTX 285 and its works perfectly well (as well as being rated for MPE)

[Sven Seynaeve]

have a much better experience with the r3d's on my quadcore with 4gig and nvidia 9600m , then I have using the avchd's from different cams

[Jeff Kilgroe]

For R3D files... you need a good video card that supports Mercury.

The GPU is probably more important than the CPU and RAM at the moment.

Actually both CPU and GPU are important. Mecury engine is still predominantly CPU based -- all debayer operations are done on the CPU. Mercury uses the GPU for application of LUTs, transformations and FX.

CS5 is probably the way to go for most notebook configurations. Also Vegas Pro 10 is a good solution too, but Windows only. FCS struggles compared to those two when cutting demanding formats like R3D, H.264, etc..

I would recommend an i7 CPU with a minimum of 4GB RAM. But you can definitely get away with less. I just cut a 10 minute corporate piece, all shot on RED MX 4KHD RC36 23.98. And did it all on my 17" Core2 Duo Macbook Pro -- 3.06GHz, 8GB RAM, done with Adobe CS5. I worked off an eSATA RAID -- 2x1TB 7200rpm in a RAID-0. All worked very well. Did it all on the Macbook since I was predominantly doing it at the client's location with people looking over my shoulder.

CS5 mercury engine plows through REDCODE just as fast, or better, than most flavors of H.264 when on a desktop system and it's not to bad on a laptop either. And the new i7 systems are a good bit more powerful than my C2D laptop I'm using. Mine is only a year old, I bought about 6 months before the i5 and i7 mobile units hit.

[Franck De Togni]

@ Scott: Thanks Scott That's what I hoped that could work well.
@ Alexander: Yes, thanks. I know gpu is important. But I also need to get a smooth fast interface for hard quick work, so plenty of ram...
@ Tim: Yes Tim, you're right. The compression makes avchd really heavy. It's just impossible to edit my hmc151's files on my wife's computer. Du you think R3d would be harder to edit?
@Sven: Thanks Sven, it's good to know
@ Jeff: Thanks Jeff, that really helps. I am definitely decided not to use Mac again so I7 should be the right choice for me. Première and Vegas are just perfect for me. But then my question is what gpu preferred? I don't know about the ATI 5*50 like... are they trustworthy?

Thanks again to all of you !

[Jeff Kilgroe]

@ Jeff: Thanks Jeff, that really helps. I am definitely decided not to use Mac again so I7 should be the right choice for me. Première and Vegas are just perfect for me. But then my question is what gpu preferred? I don't know about the ATI 5*50 like... are they trustworthy

You will want an nVidia GPU. Premiere's GPU support is all CUDA-based, which means you must use nVidia GPUs.

In addition to my Macbook Pro, I have an HP 8740w 17" notebook that has an i7 CPU and ATI GPU. The ATI hamstrings it for certain things. While it has better connectivity and a more powerful CPU, I find I don't use it as much as my Macs. Primarily that's just a workflow issue or decision... I also have found the build quality of the HP laptops to be hit or miss over the years and this series is definitely a "miss". ...Should've bought the Dell notebook with nVidia GPU for the same money, but I went HP for the DreamColor screen... And HP wanted way too much extra to upgrade to one of the nVidia options. For mobile gaming or photoshop work, the 8740w is really cool though. Sony Vegas would run well on it. I do have Vegas, but just run it on one of my desktop systems. ...Have not checked out Vegas 10 yet.

[AnthonyFlores]

Hey Jeff,

I also have the 2009 3.06 Core Duo. Do you think the i7 at 2.8gz is noticeably
faster than the one we have?

Also, I'm curious ... how much of a factor do SSD's play in the editing/post
process? As you know, it's possible to get an SSD is your primary drive
but also to remove the superdrive and add another. I can't imagine that
a laptop with nearly 1TB of good SSD's would be faster at almost
everything.

Thoughts?

Anthony

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The i7 is faster, but not apparently so unless you have the two systems sitting side by side. Where you will see it most is on renders or computationally expensive tasks that take a significant amount of time. For many tasks the storage, memory, etc.. are going to be a bottleneck regardless of which CPU you have in there. My 3.06 C2D MBP works just fine, I haven't been compelled to upgrade. And it is just a year old, I'd like to get at least another year out of it if I can. I'm looking forward to quad-core or better up to 16GB RAM, USB3 and/or LightPeak, etc.. before I upgrade.

For more thoughts on this and SSDs, take a look at this thread:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51065