Edius 5 & Field Laptop Capture...

[Bassman]

Hello,

Since Broadcast & Pro have merged in V5, I was wondering if firewire capture formats might be any different?

If I put Edius 5 on my laptop and feed it DVCPROHD over firewire, what are my highest capture quality options?

Can I capture to any specific codecs or just HQ?

Thanks

[GrassValley_BH]

You can capture directly to DVCPRO HD (Canopus HD codec) over Firewire. That would be your highest-quality capture as it's really just a data transfer versus a compression.

[Bassman]

Thanks.

I hope my laptop can keep up.

[STORMDAVE]

What's the specs? DVCPROHD is much easier to handle than HQ. It's a fixed bitrate (CBR) codec.

[Bassman]

Dell Inspiron 6400 - Pentium Dual-Core 1.6Ghz - 2 gig ram.

1 Internal drive, Windows XP.

I could capture to a USB drive or use an Expresscard to eSATA drive.

Thanks

[kwshaw1]

I could capture to a USB drive or use an Expresscard to eSATA drive.

An external eSATA drive will be your best bet; USB may not be reliable for a full 100 Mbps data stream.

[STORMDAVE]

Dell Inspiron 6400 - Pentium Dual-Core 1.6Ghz - 2 gig ram.

1 Internal drive, Windows XP.

I could capture to a USB drive or use an Expresscard to eSATA drive.

Thanks

You should be ok. I have a Core 2 Duo 1.5Ghz (a bit better than the older slower FSB dual cores) that I can even do HDV with which is heavier than DVCPROHD.

Also Kevin is right, use eSATA. USB should be ok but you might have problems if you want to do more than 1 stream. Scrubbing might be slow too.

If you are not satisfied with the speed, C2D 2.0Ghz laptops are about $600-700 nowadays.

[Bassman]

Thanks for your help.

The only thing the laptop would be used for is capturing live from the camera.

I will edit on my desktop system.

Does anybody have any experience with an expresscard adapter with eSATA ports?

This seems like the best way to hook up my external drives to the laptop.

Thanks

[Blast1]

Does anybody have any experience with an expresscard adapter with eSATA ports?

I have a HP laptop that has a built-in eSATA and also use a SIIG express 54 that has two independent eSATA ports, I have a Sans Digital eSATA raid box, and a bunch of Kingwin eSATA portable enclosures with eSATA II drives, I used to have a SIIG express 54 eSATA raid card, but sold it when I got the Sans Digital box, if you run speed tests you get basically the same performance as SATA II drive or raid in a desktop computer.

[Bassman]

Thanks.

Expresscard to SATA seems like my best option for dependable field capture.