Laptop for video editing...under $1000

[RT Wolf]

I've to buy a laptop for video editing AVCHD for work. Catch is it needs to be under a thousand dollars before taxes (items over a $1000 would have to be purchased in May), though I can easily buy upgrades like ram and harddrives and install them myself. I've been looking at the Dell ones but it looks like the ones I would need just over a $1000.

Based on the research I've done I need a minimum of these specs: Intel Quad or Hexa core, 6 GB RAM (Ideally I would like to be able to upgrade the ram to like 8-16 gigs), nVidia minimum 1GB video card to take advantage of CUDA features in Premiere. I'll likely swap whatever harddrive out for an SSD so harddrive doesn't matter. Screen size should be a minimum of 15 but I'd prefer 17. If possible, I'd eSata and/or thunderbolt but will settle for USB3.

Does anyone have any experience editing AVCHD or H264 at those minimum specs? Is it doable or is it too sluggish?

I can't find any barebones laptops on ncix anymore, do they still sell them?

I can wait a few months for a sale if need be to get somin good under a $1000.

This is somin I found and looks intriguing: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=73015&vpn=20994CU&manufacture=Lenovo&promoid=1207

Thanks in advance!

[RedFoxComp]

Buy a 2GB 7200rpm ESATA (your laptop will need an ESATA port) external drive and use that for media storage. An ESATA port is going to be critical for you because you're going to be moving a lot of data around. It's a stretch for 1K, but try to get a blu-ray burner. Get the best Nvidia chipset video card you can for the money. You will need to trick Premiere into using consumer level cards. (http://blog.krama.tv/hacking-adobe-premiere-cs5-to-enable-more-nvidia-cuda-cards/) Remember to reapply when you do a premiere update.

I was going to recommend going with a 256GB SSD, but it's out of your price range. Go I7 for video editing.

That Y580 looks pretty nice! I would find editing at 1366 x 768 a little painful though. But for under 1K it's not bad.

[RT Wolf]

Buy a 2GB 7200rpm ESATA (your laptop will need an ESATA port) external drive and use that for media storage. An ESATA port is going to be critical for you because you're going to be moving a lot of data around. It's a stretch for 1K, but try to get a blu-ray burner. Get the best Nvidia chipset video card you can for the money. You will need to trick Premiere into using consumer level cards. (http://blog.krama.tv/hacking-adobe-premiere-cs5-to-enable-more-nvidia-cuda-cards/) Remember to reapply when you do a premiere update.

My thoughts pretty much exactly. The catch is finding a laptop for under a grand that has esata. blue ray burner I could swap out later, I'm assuming. I'm really looking forward to teh speed boost cause of cuda.



I was going to recommend going with a 256GB SSD, but it's out of your price range. Go I7 for video editing.
I can spend more than a grand, but no single item can be over $1000 cause of stupid bureaucratic policies. I was thinking of a 256GB ssd actually. What is a good "bang for your buck" brand right now? Coupla years ago it was the OCZ vertex but seems things have changed.


That Y580 looks pretty nice! I would find editing at 1366 x 768 a little painful though. But for under 1K it's not bad.
Agreed, that's rough. I'll keep looking, though hooking it up to a better display is a possibility.

Guess I wanted a sanity check that what I want may be possible, if a bit of a stretch.

[RT Wolf]

these clearance laptops may be the right ones for me: http://www.dell.com/ca/p/xps-l702x/pd?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

$1000: esata port, 1gb nvidia, can be upgraded to 12 gb,

[Techgeek32]

Yes, this dell is great for video editing.

[gnuman]

The base i7s are not quad core systems they are dual core. $1000 for what you want is going to be tough since if you want 1920x1080 screen its already starting at $900 if you use the Lenovo EPP site.

[evergreen2]

Great

[RT Wolf]

Yea, I did a bit more research and I'm pretty much decided on this thing: http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-17r-se-7720/pd.aspx?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn
The base model is a $100 over a grand, so I'm sure there's some sort of coupon or deal or student thing or somin to help with that. Anyone know?

The esata port isn't worth a slower processor and losing 1 gig of RAM in the previous laptop I posted. based on the research I did, a mechanical harddrive can't saturate a usb3 connection so usb3 should be fine.

At some point, I'll just have to get it and test it out by installing premiere trial on it to see how it flies.

Thanks for your help everyone!

[gnuman]

Seems like a good spec'd machine. Seems like there's a save $100 when I browse on your link so you're down to $999.

[RT Wolf]

Update in case anyone's curious: that particular laptop wasn't on sale and Dell wouldn't budge on the price so instead I bought the Lenovo Y580. It took about a month to deliver, of which a week was get stuck in customs from China. I believe Dell builds its computers in Canada so I'd order from Dell next time.

For the laptop I ordered 16GB of RAM to replace the 8 it came with and ordered and the Crucial 128 GB mSata harddrive which took windows boot time from 81 seconds to 20. Gonna install CS6 tomorrow and see if it works well enough for AVCHD editing.

[george__]

Why did you get a laptop for video editing? The heat the laptop produces is going to kill the poor thing within 2 years or earlier... ><

One of your posts mentioned bureaucratic policies?? I'm guessing this laptop might have important data?
How paranoid are they?
You should get a Intel 320 or 520 SSD which has FDE built in and setup a password... This way, if someone steals the laptop, cracking the password will take forever :)

[RT Wolf]

Just tested out the laptop with CS6 after enabling CUDA for the nvidia video card. It seems to decode AVCHD fast enough for real time editing. So this laptop's a win. Now just need to find a case for it...

[RT Wolf]

George: the laptop dying in 2 years isn't a problem. It'll prolly be obsolete by then anyway.

The reason we got a laptop is this: We rent filmmaking gear to our members which are mostly uoft students (www.hhfilmboard.com). We've got two big mac pros which are getting thousand-dollar upgrades but members have to come in to use them and they're just not doing it. To make it easier for members to complete projects, we decided to get laptops so members could work on projects at home. I tested this by adding an editing laptop to the booking sheets and we got a lot of bookings for them. Compared to the mac pros which run about 6 grand every 4-5 years, a grand every 2 years for a laptop, for more completed projects is a no brainer.

[WildWolf]

Why did you get a laptop for video editing? The heat the laptop produces is going to kill the poor thing within 2 years or earlier... ><

One of your posts mentioned bureaucratic policies?? I'm guessing this laptop might have important data?
How paranoid are they?
You should get a Intel 320 or 520 SSD which has FDE built in and setup a password... This way, if someone steals the laptop, cracking the password will take forever :)

How do you come to this conclusion ?

[george__]

How do you come to this conclusion ?

Well HEAT isn't any computer's best friend and if it's doing video rendering which can take hours, the thing will be super hot for hours on end. Imagine the work the fans will be doing.... Might be on wits end by the 2nd year / need replacing.

[WildWolf]

Dell is crap. HP is crap.

[george__]

Dell is crap. HP is crap.

HP Elitebook and Business line aren't crap.
Dell business line are also not crap...

But their consumer level stuff is pretty crappy

[RT Wolf]

BTW, the bureaucratic idiocy was simply that the laptop had to be under a thousand dollars exactly otherwise it takes at least a year to get it approved as a capital purchase rather than a regular budget buy.

[george__]

@RT_Wolf

I totally understand why you would go laptop vs desktop in your case.

[WildWolf]

HP Elitebook and Business line aren't crap.
Dell business line are also not crap...

But their consumer level stuff is pretty crappy

Whatever it's still crap. You can't convince me.

[george__]

Whatever it's still crap. You can't convince me.

:)

[loserga]

Whatever it's still crap. You can't convince me.

Elitebooks are pretty nice. Very solid build, decent ergonomics, nice screen, and pretty fast. They're pretty expensive though, nearly the price of a new Macbook. Have you used an Elitebook, by any chance? It changed the way that I viewed laptop brands. I have a feeling that these aren't OEM'd by Quanta like the rest of their consumer line...

And yeah, what that guy said. Business laptops are built up to industry standards, otherwise they won't sell. In elementary school we had a cart loaded with HP business laptops. Solid as a rock, and would give the Thinkpad a run for its money. Heck, they looked like Thinkpads. A friend who worked at Aecon's IT division has praised the Dell Toughbook equivalents for their reliability in harsh conditions.

[xeoreg]

The lenovo y580 is nice but there is no esata port, only usb 3.0

Just a heads up.

[RT Wolf]

The lenovo y580 is nice but there is no esata port, only usb 3.0

Just a heads up.

I ended up buying one of these. pretty good speeds: http://www.newertech.com/products/esatatousb3.php

Worked out well too cause I've a coupla old lacie quadras that have firewire, usb2, esata and now I can use them with the other non-mac computers we have that have no esata or firewire.

Cheers!