Comments

Rednroll wrote on 1/20/2004, 7:08 AM
What exactly do you mean by to make Dvd videos? What exactly do you want to do? Stephen Spielberg makes DVD movies, but I highly doubt he's doing the same type of work as me. Many duplication houses make DVD movies, and they aint no Stephen Spielberg either.

Also, you're asking for a portable PC recommendation, so are you plaining to do some portable mixing? How do you carry the 5.1 monitoring setup to listen to your mix in surround?
Tor wrote on 1/20/2004, 1:24 PM

First: I want to make short movies, and also full length mastered DVD music videos... like a music cd with the music video :)

Second: When mixing, I will be in my studio. The reason for portable pc is to be able to reccord other places and maybe perform surround sound mixes elsewhere.

Tor
Rednroll wrote on 1/21/2004, 9:06 AM
Well, there's 2 things you need in addition to the laptop, which will make it optimal for doing what you are trying to achieve. The first thing is you will need an external Sound Card, which connects via firewire, with at least 6 outputs to do the surround mixing. I would recommend the Echo Layla. The next thing you should consider is an external hard drive. Laptops, usually only come with a 5400 rpm hard drive, and if you're doing video and audio, this will mostly not be fast enough. I would look into getting an external firewire harddrive with at least a 7200rpm. As far as the laptop itself, I've had success with my IBM Thinkpad, but anything with a fast processor and a lot of RAM should do. Just make sure it has firewire ports for the above reasons listed.

There's also some good advice in this months EQ magazine on laptop recommendations.
zemlin wrote on 1/21/2004, 7:02 PM
I tote a desktop for on-site recording. I screwed a handle to the top of my PC case - I have a handle on the top of a cheapo (but perfectly fine) 17" monitor too. Yeah, it's a little heavy and bulky, but I don't need to compromise on performance, HD throughput, or anything else. I use a PCI-based sound card. I have all the power, all the flexibility, all the upgradeability, and the economy of a desktop. So I have to tote a box - big deal.
RickZ wrote on 1/22/2004, 3:30 AM
For either notebook or desktop, check out www.rme-audio.com for their Multiface. I use a Multiface/Cardbus on a Sony notebook for on-site 4 channel recording with Vegas 4, CPU load about 8 %. I also use an external FireWire drive, as Red recommended. Don't know if you need to run on battery, but the Multiface/Cardbus is powered from a 12V SLA, and I also run the external FW drive on 12V SLA. This lessens the load on the notebook battery, and I get 3 hrs run time, enough for the concert recordings I do.
Hope this helps,
Rick Z
ramallo wrote on 1/27/2004, 4:22 AM
Hello,

I'm working well with a Dell Inspiron 8200 + RME HDSP

Cheers