Mike
The laptop I am currently using struggles when editing videos - and is almost impossible to edit HD videos with. I need something a bit more powerful.
So, what would be the minimum requirements + a bit more, just to be sure?
Answer
Began doing video production for my job at the end of last year. Like you, at the time, I was attempting to edit HD footage with an underpowered laptop, both at work and at home. When I was researching how to upgrade my system, I found this article, which was a really big help: http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+System+recommendations+for+Video+Editing/0x4aebb06ba071d2b6a2cd784ce243a6c6.aspx
For home, I bought a Dell Studio XPS 435T: 8GB RAM, i7-920 processor, ATI Radeon HD video card, 750GB storage, and a 24'' monitor. At work, the company got me a Dell business workstation with 12GB RAM and a Xeon processor, with two 22'' monitors. A significant upgrade, to say the least. That may seem superfluous to you, but if you really want to build an HD-capable system, you need to go as beefy as you can.
That's why my advice would be to steer you away from a laptop; with a desktop, you're going to get far more bang for your buck, not to mention a much bigger screen.
It used to take an hour and a half to render a four minute video, and while editing, I was forced to have the preview window at the lowest/smallest resolution, both because of the lack of power and lack of screen real estate--not much fun and horribly time-consuming. Now, it takes eight minutes and I get to have the preview window at the best and biggest resolution, along with a timeline that stretches across two monitors--a whole lot of fun and much more efficient.
Which type of high def camcorder and files are you working with? AVCHD or HDV? Here's a blog post I wrote about my own workflow: http://www.werdofbert.com/2009/08/best-workflow-avchd-convert-editing.html
Any further questions, you can leave a comment and I'll get back to you. Hope this helped your decision!
Began doing video production for my job at the end of last year. Like you, at the time, I was attempting to edit HD footage with an underpowered laptop, both at work and at home. When I was researching how to upgrade my system, I found this article, which was a really big help: http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+System+recommendations+for+Video+Editing/0x4aebb06ba071d2b6a2cd784ce243a6c6.aspx
For home, I bought a Dell Studio XPS 435T: 8GB RAM, i7-920 processor, ATI Radeon HD video card, 750GB storage, and a 24'' monitor. At work, the company got me a Dell business workstation with 12GB RAM and a Xeon processor, with two 22'' monitors. A significant upgrade, to say the least. That may seem superfluous to you, but if you really want to build an HD-capable system, you need to go as beefy as you can.
That's why my advice would be to steer you away from a laptop; with a desktop, you're going to get far more bang for your buck, not to mention a much bigger screen.
It used to take an hour and a half to render a four minute video, and while editing, I was forced to have the preview window at the lowest/smallest resolution, both because of the lack of power and lack of screen real estate--not much fun and horribly time-consuming. Now, it takes eight minutes and I get to have the preview window at the best and biggest resolution, along with a timeline that stretches across two monitors--a whole lot of fun and much more efficient.
Which type of high def camcorder and files are you working with? AVCHD or HDV? Here's a blog post I wrote about my own workflow: http://www.werdofbert.com/2009/08/best-workflow-avchd-convert-editing.html
Any further questions, you can leave a comment and I'll get back to you. Hope this helped your decision!
Best Laptop for Video Editing?
Becky
Hello! I edit videos with anime using programs like Sony Vegas and photoshop. But I am currently looking for a new laptop. But also stylish enough to use for school cus I don't edit 24/7 xD
Here are some preferred specs
64 bit windows 7 or 8
13 or 15 inch with 1920x1080p display (now I know a bigger screen is better for editing but I'm not really a big fan of that look and it's also a bit bulky)
8 gb RAM or higher, those programs take up alot of space!
At least 500 gb hard drive. Totally willing to sacrifice storage for speed.
i7 core processor
And I guess that's about it.
Some links to websites would be helpful! My budget is up to the $1000 range a litte bit over is no problem ;D
Answer
This HP can be customized to what you need. If you want better performance upgrade the APU to a A10 with dedicated graphics, 1080p screen and increase the ram to 8GB.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC A8-5550M APU HD 8000 Series Graphics 6GB DDR3 750GB 5400 rpm HD Starting at $530
This HP can be customized to. Upgrade the Graphics to NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M 2048MB of dedicated video memory and a 1080p screen.
http://shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/E4T17AV?HP-ENVY-15t-j000-Quad-Edition-Notebook-PC i7-4700MQ 8GB DDR3 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive Starting at $800
Brand buying advise
You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to be viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down. What cost you less today is going to cost you more tomorrow.
Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.
Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. Lenovo will not allow people to read instruction on how to access the BIOS menu or to get info on their puters on their web site unless you connect to them thru Facebook. They do this so they can spy on their users. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.
Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.
Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.
Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.
Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.
Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.
ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.
Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.
Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.
Never buy an All In One. They are far worst then laptops of any kind to service and they have a higher failure rate.
Choose wisely.
:)
This HP can be customized to what you need. If you want better performance upgrade the APU to a A10 with dedicated graphics, 1080p screen and increase the ram to 8GB.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC A8-5550M APU HD 8000 Series Graphics 6GB DDR3 750GB 5400 rpm HD Starting at $530
This HP can be customized to. Upgrade the Graphics to NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M 2048MB of dedicated video memory and a 1080p screen.
http://shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/E4T17AV?HP-ENVY-15t-j000-Quad-Edition-Notebook-PC i7-4700MQ 8GB DDR3 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive Starting at $800
Brand buying advise
You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to be viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down. What cost you less today is going to cost you more tomorrow.
Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.
Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. Lenovo will not allow people to read instruction on how to access the BIOS menu or to get info on their puters on their web site unless you connect to them thru Facebook. They do this so they can spy on their users. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.
Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.
Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.
Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.
Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.
Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.
ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.
Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.
Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.
Never buy an All In One. They are far worst then laptops of any kind to service and they have a higher failure rate.
Choose wisely.
:)
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