Need to buy a laptop for VJ ing!

[moco]

Hi All,

I am a experienced flash animator and I am thinking to get into VJing. I want to buy a laptop but I am having a REALLY hard time to decide which one to buy. I have several questions and if you guys can tip in some of your ideas that would be great:

1. I have a dual processor G4 mac (460Mhz) and I will mainly be using that to edit videos or create animations. How important is it for me to have top notch video cards(geForce etc) with the laptop? Those video cards affect play back time? What do they do?

2. I heard about displaying videos in multi screens. Is that something very important to be consider? Do you need any extra hardwares? What does it mean?

3. What would be the decent RAM size and MHz for the laptop to be used for VJing?

4. What are the things that I have to ask for when I buy a laptop? s-video, firewire, usb?

5. At last what do you guys recommend? What do you guys have?

Any comments or suggestions will be highly appreciated. Thanks!!

Moco

[sleepytom]

you'll want a mac as thats the platform your on allready and making content on a mac for playback on a pc is no fun (quicktime on a pc sucks for vjing)
so get the best ti powerbook you can afford

[LEVLHED]

yeah, thats good advice....but if you were looking into a winblows machine 2 come to mind:

Dell Inspirion 8200
Pro Star 8894
(there is also a Sager model that is a clone)

[eXhale]

murph wrote a review of the inspiron 8200 here.

[fluchtpunkt]

1: as long as you're visuals are baded on flash anmitions & movies or other prerendered material you don't need a graphic card with fancy 3D acceleration features (but consider that many 'vj-softs' use 3D features (openGL) - which will be unavailable). in a laptop for vj'ing the graphic card is the most important feature, so 3D or not, you need a good one.
2: multiscreens? you definately need a video output from your laptop.
3: RAM and a good video card is more important than a fast CPU (!). a big harddrive is not a must but very recommendable (or else :help: ).
4: s-video (or composite) out. firewire. audio in. usb. (are relevant to vj'ing)

[bigloose]

I'm using a tibook 500Mhz 768mb Ram and runnin os X.2.1 and it's working very well.
The slower processor for tibook is now 667Mhz (i think ) so it can only be better than mine ;-)
I would say take at least 512 Mb Ram but more is fne too
I hope this will help
b!gl00z3

[robotfunk]

I think I'm getting the ProStar. With the dual screen ati, capture card onboard and otherwise fat specs (and low price) it looks like the best PC lappy for vjing. I'll review it when I get it.

[Anyone]

it really depends what type of software you want to use...

some soft like vJo are only available on PC,
some like Final Cut Pro come only for Mac.

just make sure you can use your progs on the machine
you're going to buy:)

NE1

[murph]

I agree with sleepy, if you're on mac platform already, stick with that, for the least headaches. I'm an IT guy by trade and my PCs still frustrate me sometimes (well, not my new baby, yet...) and I can only imagine the horror of someone who's been mac based for a long time trying to figure out how PCs work, how to get all the funky things just right for VJing on a PC, and how to get their stuff from their mac to their PC, that's a lot to overcome. (though IMO well worth it if there's something you want to do but can only do on a PC)

It'll be spendy, but probably money well spent in the end for you. Get the best TiBook you can afford, and don't even think about looking at the current prices six months from now. =] (or do it with a bottle of vodka in one hand and your mouse in the other)

[fisheye]

I'm a mac addict myself but there is not enough good software for mac. There for i use my G4 at home for editing, dvd burning, conversion, after effect,... and bought a dell ispiron 8200 to take on the road. So i can use resolume, flow motion, ...

Fisheye

[Anyone]

that's what I do as well:

edit on mac, perform on PC :)

but got no money left for food...

[moco]

Thanks millions to all for great opinions.

The problem with Mac is that Flash plugin runs much slower in Mac and I would def. need to have PC to play back. I have been using Mac for a loooong time and I can imagine the kind of pain that I will have to go through, but I guess I have to..

Even though I am planning to create clips on desktop mac and only play back on laptop, rendering capability seems very important to VJing and I will probably have to go with Dell or ProStar as you guys recommended.

I am interested in using MotionDive for VJing. Does it require great video card to use? Sorry to ask you so many newby questions.

Thanks again,

Moco

[thomase]

Other idea:

Why don't you take your desktop with you?

marathon builds rack-mount utilities for macs and monitors...

it's www.marathoncomputers.com

[wellREDman]

also something else to bear in mind is that taking any computer, even a laptop into gigging environments is really hard on them,
and laptops are way harder to repair yourself
i have heard time and again that the dell aftercare/support scheme eclipses all others by lightyears. so it makes sense if you know theres a good chance your gonna break it to get one where you can just phone up some guy and hell be prompt in coming round and making it better


oh and i couldnt find a single rackmount in the marathon site

[fisheye]

http://www.marathoncomputer.com/

This is the correct URL

Bye the way , I had a desktop in rackmount server case who died as well. I left it alone for 5 minutes behind the backdrop on a festival and somebody did move it like a regular flightcase ...read: throwing instead of moving... after that the motherboard was damaged

fisheye

[GreenHippo]

Be careful with rackmount cases too. We use them but have just 'upsized' (?!) the Hippotizer to a substantial 3U case as we had problems with the 2U. Be aware that PRO video and audio kit is often taken on the road and is built to withstand it but computers are usually rackmounted in back offices and left so they are often cheap rackmount cases made out of recycled washing machines :p because they are not generally subject to vibrations and shocks.

We took 2 'old style' Hippotizers to Switzerland by plane when we did Energy2002 in Zurich. They were screwed firmly into high impact flight cases but one of them actually bent leaving it like a narrow angle V with a front door that wouldn't close. The way to help prevent this (we now know!) is to make sure the unit is supported above and below even if it's by redundant kit. We had a compressor/limiter below the Hippotizer in the second case and that survived but the other one needed a strip-down. Rest assured the new ones are much better so don't let this worry you.

Also we have experienced some case screws working loose when on the road. A loose screw rattling around in a PC is a deadly thing! If you can't stretch to an expensive case use some of that circuit board component fixing gel on all the screws so they are fixed but can still be removed if you need to service it.

We are going to offer a Hippotizer Touring model eventually. We have some cases which we use for our 16channel Mpg2 video servers for exhibitions. The have serious mounting hardware and a fixing bar for cards where you fit the PCI bits then screw down a holding arm meaning your cards can't work loose even on long trucking runs.

We are ex AV techs for conference and exhibition and we've seem some horrors in our time. Perhaps the best was a flight cased Sony RVP6010 (for those who've never seen one its a big projector and a mirror in a box which gives you something like a television but with a 60inch screen). A forklift driver missed and pushed the forks straight through the case and the unit on its way to the USA. Completely useless even in a pro floght case. And get insurance because the shipping folk won't confess thats for sure! You might only be transporting it up the road but if it don't work when you get there you look awful stupid :D

[LEVLHED]

Originally posted by *****
DO NOT BUY A LAPTOP TO VJ. buy only if you can justify the cost for other reasons.

like pure, unadultered gear lust.... :love2: :evil: :yep:

[Amukidi]

Do I dare even voice an opinion? (Sorry *****!)

As a "Flash" junkie myself I have to say that IMHO a PC has the edge over Mac - my movies run as smoth as silk on my Vaio 1Ghz, but judder a tad on my mate's G4 desktop. Also, "Flashmixer" and VLIGHT MXR are both freely availble and a hoot! I've just returned from 10 days "working" on the Greek island of Naxos, my Sony was switched on most of the time and has still NEVER crashed!!!!!!!! Althiugh the Dell has the edge on available graphics cards,it simply does not have the build quality of the Sony (if you do buy a Sony, check its one made in Japan). If you have a Digital Video camera, mixing flash clips with video has enormous scope, especialy if there's a good vision mixer in the loop. If you want to use your lappy for AVI as well, you would be wise to find a machine that has a beefier Video card, as I believe that you would find the Sony's on-board card a bit limiting. Best advice - take your time choosing and listen to ALL of the above advice - and keep an open mind about your development, there is a gold-mine of information on this forum which has certainly taught me a lot.

[syzygy]

Originally posted by fisheye
http://www.marathoncomputer.com/

This is the correct URL

Bye the way , I had a desktop in rackmount server case who died as well. I left it alone for 5 minutes behind the backdrop on a festival and somebody did move it like a regular flightcase ...read: throwing instead of moving... after that the motherboard was damaged

fisheye

Yeah - standard PCs are not really built for being thrown around :) The intermal components are often not secured well enough (especially on cheaper PCs)

If you want a PC that can be thrown around you will need to either buy a purpose built one (expensive) or strip one down and add extra internal reinforcement yourself.

I'd imagine macs are better engineered internaly than most cheap PCs though...

SyZyGy

P.S. one solution to the flightcase throwing problem - rack the PC up with monitors, players, VDAs, fridge (yes, you really can get rackmount fridges) until the case is to heavy to throw :) You'll need wheels on it though and you still need to expect it to be treated roughly ;)

[GreenHippo]

.......if you put in a fridge and it got thrown around remember, there's no point crying over split milk............. I'll get me coat :rolleyes:

[monsho]

hey,

I'm having one of these 'should I buy a lappy' debates at the minute, and I've come across this little fella.....

http://accelenation.com/?ac.id.164.1

I'm a bit put off laptops by the price and expense of fixing them when they invariably break so was wanting to use my desktop. I think I might buy one of these, combined with my little TFT screen and I've something quite portable and saving myself about a grand. Its the only mini tower I've found which you can add a good graphics card to and the benchmark testers seem to like it.

whadda yer reckon?

[elbows]

Ive got the SS40G AMD version of the Shuttle and its very very nice. Ive only had it a few days though. Im very out of date with Intel chips so I canot comment on the performance of you one you mention but its nice that its got an AGP slot (mine doesnt). I'll be looking with interest if/when they do a nForce2 chipset based AMD one with AGP slot.