Is this a good Laptop Configuration?

[THoff]

One nice thing about this enclosure (any most others) is that the RAID type is configurable -- you generally can't change it without building a new array, but at least you have the ability to switch between RAID 0 and RAID 1 if your needs change.

Storage requirements are something that you will have to estimate, I'm not sure how much space one of your current typical projects takes up. The EX-1 footage in its native form doesn't take up a great deal more space than DV (it's 35Mbps vs. 25Mbps), but you'll probably want to transcode to Canopus HQ for editing. Canopus HQ uses a variable bitrate and 100Mbps or more is fairly typical, so you'd need about four times as much space as with DV while editing.

With RAID 0, if you have two 500GB drives, you get 1TB of storage capacity, and the I/O is divided between the drives to provide fast access. With RAID 1, the same two 500GB drives would give you just 500GB of storage capacity because all the data is duplicated. Reads can come from either drive depending on which one can deliver the data faster, but writes must always be done to both drives.

RAID 0 has the disadvantage that each drive only holds half of the information, so if one of the drives fails, you essentially wind up with nothing at all -- you have twice the number of potential points of failure, so frequent backups of the array to a separate medium are crucial.

[DMS Video]

THoff

I am still shooting primarily in SD although I have had my EX-1 for a while. So with my current Canopus Storm systems I think I have ten to twelve external drives mostly being 250 - 320gb each. This is plenty of storage for one project in SD. I'm also slowly enterting the world of editing EX-1 footage. So in answer to your question about what size hard drives I'm looking for I would have to say that I need a couple of different kinds. The whole raid thing whether it's raid0 or some other number doesn't really make a lot of sense to me (yet), but I'm learning more each day. The integrator I'm working with is very "pro" raid0 as mentioned in the specs I listed earlier in this thread. You're not the first person to comment that you didn't particularly like raid0. The link you provided looks interesting (thanks). So if I'm editing in SD I won't need a raid. I would think given the prices of drives nowadays that I could use anywhere from a 320 to 500gb. For the HD footage I'm open for suggestions. The shoots we do are typically anywhere from 3-5 cameras in SD. At least two (hopefully 3 soon) in HD. Any specific suggestions?

Best,

David
DMS

[THoff]

PNY is a good brand and that's an excellent price, so I would go with the integrator's recommendation.

For drive enclosures, you could get this Athena Power USB 2.0 / eSATA enclosure. I'm not a big fan of RAID 0 unless you use it strictly for editing and archive your footage and project separately so you don't lose everything if one of the drives goes bad.

What size hard drives are you looking for?

[DMS Video]

THoff - Thanks for the info. Here's what the integrator suggested using...

http://www2.pny.com/ExpressCard-eSATA-II-2-Port-P2556C328.aspx

What do you think?

Do you have any specific recommendations for an enclosure and also harddrives (or a combo) that I can use (Raid0).

Thanks

David
DMS

[THoff]

USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 are able to handle 480Mbps and 400Mbps peak throughput, so 35Mbps footage from the EX1 should be a piece of cake. If you convert to Canopus HQ, the bitrate will obviously go up, but even two Canopus HQ streams are still doable if the disk isn't too fragmented.

Here is what I would do: get external hard drives that feature both eSATA and USB 2.0 or Firewire ports -- you can even get all three on one enclosure. Between USB 2.0 and Firewire, I would choose USB 2.0 for more universal connectivity over Firewire's better sustained throughput. Ingest your EX1 material through the ExpressCard slot to the external hard drive connected using USB 2.0 or Firewire, and when you get ready to edit, connect the drive using a eSATA connection to an ExpressCard eSATA controller for better performance.

[DMS Video]

Rusty,

I contacted the company who "may" build the laptop that has been the focus of this thread. I'm am particularly concerned with how I can use external hard drives as that will certainly be part of my workflow. I'm referring to HD footage (from my EX-1s). Here is the respose I received from the company.

"There are no e-sata ports. External hard drives would need to be hooked up via firewire or USB. For external hard drives the connectivity would be USB 2.0 or firewire. Generally Seagate, Maxtor or Lacie are pretty good choices. The system does have expresscard 34/54 slot. The Sony SxS card will plugs in for easy download of MXF files."

In reply to my questions you said, "USB and 1394a/b are good for backup, but barely adequate for editing HD." Can you explain what you mean in more detail. Do you mean that I really can't edit HD externally with the laptop I described? I'm trying to put together a workflow where I can edit using an external hard drive with the laptop then plug the same external hard drive into the desktop. Putting together the right laptop has become very complicated. Thanks for your reply.

David
DMS

[Operater]

Hea David,
My laptop batteries are really only good for quick setup, shutdown and get through a power failure.

USB and 1394a/b are good for backup, but barely adequate for editing HD.

You can power up your lap with your own batteries...

[Rusty]

Hea David,
My laptop batteries are really only good for quick setup, shutdown and get through a power failure.

USB and 1394a/b are good for backup, but barely adequate for editing HD.

[Operater]

Silly question, from a newbie...

What laptop can give us the perfect and correct image?
The correct white balance?
My opinion is that a laptop must be followed by a saperate monitor....
What's yours?

[Blast1]

I use eSATA external inclosures with a express card 54 raid controller, the external inclosures run off 12v and I have a auto adapter to power the laptop, so every thing will run off a car's cig lighter, problem with most new laptops is there usually only one express card slot, there are some older laptops that have both PCMCIA and express card 54 slots, the PCMCIA slot will accept a express card 34 adapter which can be used to off load a EX card to what ever is pluged into the express 54 card, can be used not to tie up another computer with data loading.

[DMS Video]

Thanks for the reply triciclo. The person who builds the laptop says I can expect between 1/2 hour to one hour on each battery. That's pretty much what I expected. He uses the same laptop and says he just plugs his in. That somewhat defeats the purpose of a laptop (I suppose) but I can live with it.

I received a reply that said, "for external hard drives the connectivity would be USB 2.0 or firewire." So my question is which connection would be best? I thought I read somewhere that you have to use a raid configuation to edit EX-1 footage. Is this true? If so, does that still allow you to edit EX-1 footage, with a laptop, connected to an external drive (raid)?

Thanks

David
DMS

[triciclo]

I would also consider an e-SATA plug for additional external array.
From the config. it seems this laptop?! has space for 3 HD, it must be hard to keep running on batteries for long.

[DMS Video]

Blast thanks for the input. Being that this is my first laptop I appreciate all the help I received on the forum. It's always been my plan to learn as much as I can before making an appropriate decision. There are so many technical specs involed with buying a laptop. In addition, I was also trying to determine if I should wait. Then I go back to the concept that you have to buy at some point. I would say almost all of my Videographer colleagues have switched to Macs. I spent some time with a few of them working on their brand new Mac Book Pros with Sony EX-1 footage. My (much) older Canopus Storm systems are still faster (granted EX-1 footage isn't SD). To me I can't justify what I see as going backwards so Edius seems like the perfect fit for me. I hope I'm right.

David
DMS

[Blast1]

In addition to inquring about the express card slot, I'd also ask if the DVI port was HDCP compliant.

[DMS Video]

Thanks Paul for the information. I'm going to send an e-mail to the company and see what they say. I'll have to wait until Monday to get a response.
Regards.

David
DMS