Portable Editing Power

DV warrior on the Road or

editing using laptop.

Today's laptops have become the true workhorse of a road warrior. The evolution of these machines is happening at an ever increasing pace. The hi-end laptops often equal and sometimes even surpass the capabilities of the desktop. This article attempts to give an overview of today's technology , and what to look for when buying a laptop to do video editing.

Interface and storage

When editing video the first two things you will need are an interface port and disk space. lots of disk space.

The first comes in the form of either a Firewire port or a USB 2.0 port, the second in the form of hard disk space inside the machine. If the laptop does no feature a firewire or UB 2.0 port you can always add these provided you have a free PC-card slot ( sometime called PCMCIA )

Most of the laptops today come with a so called combo drive. A combination of CD recorder and DVD player. The first laptops with a DVD recorder, although very expensive, are available too.

Memory and cpu

Video card

Of course a well supported video card by editing tools is advisable. Most laptops have similar video card a found in desktops , but often come with one advantage : a composite video output that allows you to hook up =the laptop to a TV set. This is great to preview your work on the big screen.

Display

All laptops today have a resolution of 1024 by 768 , and some go as high as 1400 by 1050. Try getting a nice screen such a s a 14 inch or 15 inch. Especially programs such as s Adobe Premiere tend to eat up display real estate.

Network

Since you might want to read your mail , or send some snapshots while abroad a modem and network are great thins. Today almost all laptops have both. The network card is important to transfer files to and from your desktop computer.

A Laptop with built in wireless lan ( often called a WiFi connection) is also a great option. This avoids having to run cable , but keep in mind that 802.11b is only 11mbit per second under optimum condition.

You might want to go for 802.11a or 802.11g these go all the way up to 54 MBit/second. Of course you can always add these later in the form of a pcmcia card.

Memory reader

Battery and charger

When doing video editing , don't expect much from the battery. The computer will be running at top performance all the time and drain the batteries in no time flat.On the other hand long battery life when performing medium power things is a very important feature. Watching a DVD or listening to music , writing emails or text document while on an airplane is a great pastime. So a couple of hors of juice there can be advantageous. That is where the mobile processor comes into play. The so called mobile versions of the PIV have the capability to lower their clock and core voltage while doing low performance task. By doing this they greatly reduce the drain on the battery and thus extend the overall runtime on a battery charge.

The type of battery also plays a very important roe. NiMH or LiION A LiION battery is preferable since it packs more energy compared to a NiMH in the same space

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