Laptop for Photo and Video Editing
Looking at getting a laptop over Xmas for video/photo editing. What is currently the business? I assume this will all change by the time I get around to buying, but at least it gives me some brands/features to look out for.
Not too sure what’s in at the moment, haven’t looked into laptops in quite a while, but id go for something with an i7 CPU, and a 1gb grfx card, and atleast 4gb ddr3 ram
I’m currently using my Toshiba L500 that’s about 4/5 years old.. To edit photos, videos and play a few games.. it struggles to run newer stuff like bf3, but plays css hl2dm, tf2 and Diablo 3 pretty smoothly.. and has no trouble with videos or photos..
Look for something with good processing power, Mainly for the video editing, (even a gaming laptop will work well.. But might be more than you need to spend?)
In my experience, Toshiba, Acer and LG have been pretty decent.
Hope that helps a bit!
mac book pro
mac book pro
Ok so why would someone spend twice or three times as much as they needed to on a laptop? An I7 equipped windows 7 or 8 machine with 6gb Ram and 2gb graphic memory, 1TB HDD can be had for $700. Seems Apple is losing it’s lustre in the phone world due to high prices too, smartphone market share results for the just finished 3rd quarter 2012 show Samsung at 31% vs Apple 15%. To come out with a three word answer to a question like this just reeks of apple fanboism, explain why it’s the best value for money in your opinion.
If someone asked what is the best snowboard for riding park would you just say YES or Libtech without an explanation? This doesn’t apply to you Mizu, if the same thing was asked about bindings everyone knows you would provide a one word answer!
Do you know which video editing software you are going to use? This plays a large factor as many programs can now use the GPU acceleration for rendering which makes a big difference. Certain programs work best with certain GPUs though. In general though as other have mentioned cpu/GPU/ram are your main factors and people often overlook the value of a high quality screen with accurate colour reproduction. I’m not a big fan of macs but do admit their strong point is video/photo editing. If you want to use final cut pro you will need to look into them as an option as it isn’t available on PCs you are looking at big $$$ though so you would want to be taking it pretty seriously.
Core i7 is a good CPU choice for video editing as it supports hyperthreading, whereas the i5 does not. Drc13 is right about the monitor, especially in laptops as they are often pretty poor in terms of resolution and colour reproduction. If you can afford it, you may want to consider a SSD as that can make an astonishing difference in performance, especially for stuff that will be hitting the disk pretty hard.
I have an SSD in my work laptop, absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately my work IT policy means its locked down hard and I can’t get admin rights to load software onto it to get a feel for how it would run pic and film software.
I have a pc that runs my plasma and could run that kind of software but I think my girlfriend might lose her mind if she had to sit there watching me edit stuff of a night time. Because of this I have been keeping an interested eye on the laptop market.
Ok so why would someone spend twice or three times as much as they needed to on a laptop? An I7 equipped windows 7 or 8 machine with 6gb Ram and 2gb graphic memory, 1TB HDD can be had for $700. Seems Apple is losing it’s lustre in the phone world due to high prices too, smartphone market share results for the just finished 3rd quarter 2012 show Samsung at 31% vs Apple 15%. To come out with a three word answer to a question like this just reeks of apple fanboism, explain why it’s the best value for money in your opinion.
If someone asked what is the best snowboard for riding park would you just say YES or Libtech without an explanation? This doesn’t apply to you Mizu, if the same thing was asked about bindings everyone knows you would provide a one word answer!
Nbg.. I think I love you! Haha only thing apple I loved was my iPod nano, that clips in to the watch band for when I snowboard.. But they have changed back from the square design with the screen to the usb like stick drive now.. which is just silly imo!
I’ve never brought and apple pc, I used them at tafe.. But I prefer the option to upgrade components myself, instead of buy a new machine everytime..
And like you said, they are so over priced for what you get..
TBH this is a toned down response to what I used to post in regards to Apple stuff, many on here like them and much like religious zealotry, fanboism cannot be overcome with reason so I don’t bother, I will however post alternatives to Apple products that will do the same thing for less hard earned coin.
Almost any new laptop that will play 1080YouTube smooth. Just avoid notebooks.
If your serious - look to spend in excess of $10K (hardware/software).
If you just wanna throw stuff together for social sites buy an iPhone, get iMovie and those snap-on lenses (see what K2snatchscrewsader has been up to and uploading).
The most handy info to answer your question is to know what hardware you own - of most importance what video camera?? What do you want to achieve! How portable do you want it ie: are you gonna edit and upload “on the road”???
Even if your wanting to edit HeadCam footage so much will change in the “popular” machines.
If you go Mac - iMovie or FCPX and MacBook Pro.
If you go PC - build or have it built and use at least Sony Vegas for video.
On both platforms you will want Photoshop (with mac Aperture is a great pre PS software that will avoid most PS use) PhotoshopElements is all that’s needed.
The more serious will use; Adobe CS?(PC), FCS7+Aperture+PSE(mac).
At the end of the day what you ask is a foolhardy question that will incite brand wars within replied posts (given the lack of detail). If you can be more specific maybe the answer your after will be achieved.
Almost any new laptop that will play 1080YouTube smooth. Just avoid notebooks.
If your serious - look to spend in excess of $10K (hardware/software).
If you just wanna throw stuff together for social sites buy an iPhone, get iMovie and those snap-on lenses (see what K2snatchscrewsader has been up to and uploading).The most handy info to answer your question is to know what hardware you own - of most importance what video camera?? What do you want to achieve! How portable do you want it ie: are you gonna edit and upload “on the road”???
Even if your wanting to edit HeadCam footage so much will change in the “popular” machines.
If you go Mac - iMovie or FCPX and MacBook Pro.
If you go PC - build or have it built and use at least Sony Vegas for video.
On both platforms you will want Photoshop (with mac Aperture is a great pre PS software that will avoid most PS use) PhotoshopElements is all that’s needed.The more serious will use; Adobe CS?(PC), FCS7+Aperture+PSE(mac).
At the end of the day what you ask is a foolhardy question that will incite brand wars within replied posts (given the lack of detail). If you can be more specific maybe the answer your after will be achieved.
Likely a 7D will be the video camera, I’m still deciding if I want a pure video camera or not. I’m used to shooting with a 1D and to me that feels the most comfortable, especially if I am boarding at the same time. Obviously helmet cams will also be used for filming as well. Unless I can convince the bosses to give me access to the RED cameras we have (won’t ever happen).
Screen wise, at the moment I have a variety of screens depending on location. I am happy with my Dell’s though.
Portability, well, I won’t pull the laptop out in the middle of the fields. Only back at the hotel/home/wherever. So weight isn’t important, nor is battery life.
I currently use Photoshop and Lightroom.
This will be my first move in to moving pictures, so what I want out of it will progress as I get more comfortable with the work.
Generally speaking, I have yet to seen any case where an Apple product has been worth the inflated price tag. I have heard final cut is the standard for video editing, but again, not sure if it actually fits that tag or if it is just a good marketing strategy.
Sounds like you are leaning towards a PC. In that case look into Sony Vegas Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro. Both are available on PC and are very powerful tools. They also both support GPU acceleration so be sure to look into GPU requirements when researching a potential laptop purchase.
You probably need to think of a budget as well otherwise it’s hard to advise other than saying get the best cpu/ram/gpu that you can.
I agree with Mud, SSD hard drives are one of the best performance increases you can get. They are only fairly small when it comes to storage space though so you will probably need a mechanical drive of some sorts (external usb3, laptop with dual hdd bays, network storage etc) if you are working with large files.
SOunds like you’re going for something a little above the average, never used Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere although I have been told that the Adobe product works pretty well. I use Cyberlink Power Director for movies and my meagre skills haven’t really been limited by that software. I have Adobe Premiere Elements as well but haven’t really used that as yet. If you’re going to be running an SSD as mentioned above you’ll need a USB drive but make sure it’s running USB3 or it’ll take forever to transfer the size files you will be working with.
I love sony vegas.
Video edit programs can be broken up into categories; basic, simple & pro.
Pro ($thousands); Final Cut Studio(FCP7) & Adobe CS(Adobe Premier Pro).
These are both pretty similar. You can easily switch between Premier & Final Cut7 without learning anything new (video editing). I believe Premier was around before Final Cut Pro.
They give infinite control over every aspect of editing, BUT most functions are overkill (unless you intend to spend weeks-months-years learning how to use Pro programs). You can “create” pretty much anything from scratch. Adobe CS is a good example of how much you can do (Premier Pro is included in the CS family).
These programs are for geeks and creating special effects.
Simple ($hundreds); Final Cut X, iMovie, Vegas, Director… etc
Have plenty of control and features to knock out high quality professional edits and are easy to learn without overwhelming the user.
Basic (free); Mpegstreamclip
Hit and miss for anything free.
These programs are more converters and video management tools. Their only real use is to create the correct file for your computer and edit program - more importantly (and often overlooked) is the ability to reduce file sizes by trimming. Using a program like Mpegstreamclip for “rush editing” and “compressing” to the correct file type can save hours rendering, editing and file maintenance/back up.
As mentioned it’s hard not to use SSD and external mechanical drives for laptop video editing.
I like to use a HD housing that doubles as a hub and have minimal cables running into my laptop. I connect using Firewire and USB, lappy-xHD.
This allows your laptop to dedicate it’s HD space and memory to the task/s at hand.
Especially since you will be connected to power, you may as well connect to an External Drive.
It works especially well on big edit jobs since you can use additional drives for each new job saving files to each jobs drive as you go, saving time (and data) or having to move files/delete files/delete caches etc. as it’s mostly on an external drive that can be physically filed away when the job is complete.