Laptop suggestion for HDV work

[triciclo]

Looking for laptop suggestions, that are able to handle HDV editing.

Canopus lists the following for their turnkey laptop:

* Workstation: HP Compaq 8710w Mobile Workstation
* CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 2.2GHz
* Memory: 2GB
* Storage:
o 120GB of storage (shared with OS, approx. six hours of DV/HDV compressed footage)*
o DVD±RW dual layer drive
* Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro FX1600M
* Connectivity: 6 x USB 2.0, 1 x FireWire (IEEE 1394a)

I am looking for some extras on top of that: BluRay burner, dual eSATA drive to avoid having to carry an external drive, and SxS disk reader. Thanks for all suggestions.

[mattmatt]

I just got the HP dv6700 and it has all that (minus the bluray). It is awesome for HDV :)

[STORMDAVE]

I don't recommend Compaq, though it's owned by HP....

I will recommend HP though, I also have a DV6000 series and it's nice.

[PaulTV]

I know there's a lot of anti Vaio about, but, the new AR series is cheap, has Blu-ray dual layer burner ( watch out, a lot of laptops say bluray, but reader only) dual 160gb sata drives, mine has 4Gb ram, Express34/54 slot core duo 2ghz, nvidia 512mb graphics card and so on. It's a bit big, as it is 17" but, if you get yout wallet out, there is the top end version with full 1920x1080 screen - very nice too.

Mine runs Vista, but I've shaved it, and beaten it into submission, now looks and behaves like XP -

Paul

[mattmatt]

hahaha...yeah, you would think mine is running XP too . . . Its only the login screen that gives it away.

[planetweckesser]

I know there's a lot of anti Vaio about, but, the new AR series is cheap, has Blu-ray dual layer burner ( watch out, a lot of laptops say bluray, but reader only) dual 160gb sata drives, mine has 4Gb ram, Express34/54 slot core duo 2ghz, nvidia 512mb graphics card and so on. It's a bit big, as it is 17" but, if you get yout wallet out, there is the top end version with full 1920x1080 screen - very nice too.

Mine runs Vista, but I've shaved it, and beaten it into submission, now looks and behaves like XP -

Paul

I have been looking at the top of the line Vaio AR as a nice traveling companion to the Sony PMW-EX1 - archiving video files with blu-ray discs etc.

[Mark Von Lanken]

I am using a Dell Inspiron 9400. It's a Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, 2 GB ram, 17 inch screen, 80 GB 7200 RPM hard drive running on Windows XP. I have had it for almost a year and it cost about $1700.

If budget is an issue, Dell has a Vostro 1700 that is faster than mine with Windows XP and 2 hard drives for less than I paid for mine. Check out the Dell Small and Medium Business and you will get American support.

If you don't want to edit from one of the internal drives, the Vostro 1700 has two internal drives, you will want to get an Express card to eSATA adapter, but they are only about $50 and it is so much better than editing from an external USB drive.

[STORMDAVE]

I also wouldn't rule out a MacBook Pro, the new one can go upto 320GB for the internal drive. The 15" is perfect for portability and the screen is high res. 17" might be too big for people to lug around.

However there are no Blu-ray drives avaiable from Apple yet.

[Mark Von Lanken]

I also wouldn't rule out a MacBook Pro, the new one can go upto 320GB for the internal drive. The 15" is perfect for portability and the screen is high res. 17" might be too big for people to lug around.

However there are no Blu-ray drives avaiable from Apple yet.

Hi STORMDAVE,

You bring up a good point about the choice between a 15 or 17 inch screen. I have edited with a tower on dual 20s and a single 32, so going to a 15 inch laptop would be a major adjustment. The two extra inches of a 17 seemed to make a difference. Sure the 17 uses more battery power and is heavier to lug around, but we have been using 17 inch laptops for the last four years and greatly prefer them over our 15 inch laptop.

I don't know if you can get dual hard drives on a 15, but dual hard drives with a 17 sure sounds like a good idea.

We also do Same Day Edits on our laptops, and the extra screen space seems to diminish the level of stress, but that could be just a mental thing.

We have hauled our 17 inch laptops from LA to New York. I don't know what it would feel like to only have a 15 inch laptop in the bag. I guess the walks through the airport would not feel as long with a 15.