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1. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
Basilio Alferow Jul 9, 2010 4:49 AM (in response to rowby)Main requirement is the inclusion of a Firewire port ;>), be it built-in or provided py a pc card.
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2. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
rowby Jul 9, 2010 6:43 AM (in response to Basilio Alferow)Hi Basilio
What about processor speed -- or disk speed 7200 rpm? Where are the files stored, for example in your case?
Can an external drive be attached for real time storage?
Thanks for any updates on this. I have a powerful desktop machine for my adobe premiere worek -- but I want to be able to take advantage of OnLocation when shooting, and want to make sure the laptop I select can handle both storage and capturing.
I have a tape based camera, not a tapeless, so all content would need to be stored onto the laptop drive or more likely (I would think) an external drive.
Any good brands or models to recommend under the above circumstances?
Thanks
Rowby
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3. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
Basilio Alferow Jul 9, 2010 7:05 AM (in response to rowby)I've been using OL for several years now, on two Toshiba laptops (I think the latest was some $600-700 a couple of years ago), since the CS3 version (but not yet CS5) .I've used it with both 7200 and 5400rpm drives, also with external USB drives. My latest laptop (I think) is a 2.4 GHz core2 duo with 3GB ram running 32 bit Win7 Home Premium . The previous laptop was a 1.86GHz single core unit with 2 GB ram running 32 bit Vista Home Basic. No real problems with speed or disk writing on either as long as the destination drive is defragged. I actually record two cameras simultaneously on the latest laptop, one using OL, the other using ScenalyzerLive. I've had varying degrees of sucess trying to record 3 cameras (check my earlier postings on this subject). Caveat, all the foregoing is based on SD recordings, no HD has been attempted to date.
Doing some 50 3-camera shoots each year and OL has been a life saver in more ways than I can count.
Hope this helps.
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4. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
Jon-M-Spear Jul 20, 2010 10:48 AM (in response to Basilio Alferow)OL CS5 has more demanding requirements from those of CS4.
I was successfully capturing HDV (Sony Z1) on a Dell Studio 15 (i5 dual core/ 4GB, 7,200 internal drive laptop running W7 64 bit) with OL CS4.
After upgrading to OL CS5, I frequently suffered from hard drive bottlenecks - hence dropped frames. I phoned Adobe TS and was told that the internal 7,200 drive was the root cause of the problem and that ieee1394 may be a future issue, even with faster drives. USB is apparently a non-starter.
I invested in a Lacie Big 2 1TB raid drive and set it to RAID0 and ran it through the external eSata port.
Now it's relaibility cannot be faulted. I recently had it recording the output from a 4 camera PPU at a 2-day live event. Over the 12-14 hours recording there was not one dropped frame.
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5. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
jdmack01 Aug 3, 2010 6:40 AM (in response to rowby)I'm using this off-the-shelf Sony laptop with OnLocation CS4, and it has worked fine so far.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-VAIO-NW-VGN-NW230G-Widescreen/dp/B002QE3G6I
J. D.
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6. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
Jon-M-Spear Aug 3, 2010 6:46 AM (in response to jdmack01)The OP is enquiring about CS5. As I said in my post, CS5 has a far greater demand on the hardware than CS4.
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7. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
Floman_P Aug 13, 2010 11:04 AM (in response to Jon-M-Spear)I am a little late to doing these things. How did you set up your rig to record 4 cameras at once?
Any issues or things to watch out for?
Thanks
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8. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
Pompey (formerly J-MS) Aug 14, 2010 4:25 AM (in response to Floman_P)4 cameras (or as many as required) are fed into a Portable Production Unit. The mixed (TX) output is sent ss a component signal to a Sony DSR deck. From the DSR, a firewire connection goes to the laptop and Onlocation.
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9. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
Basilio Alferow Aug 14, 2010 7:55 AM (in response to Floman_P)There are two ways to achieve multiple camera recording. One is to create a line cut at the time using software such as http://www.avtake.com/index.asp (additional hardware is required, as well as an external audio mix) and feed the output to a laptop (or desktop) running OnLocation. My needs were more modest, I was looking to just record video and audio from a 3 camera interview configuration in order to capture 3 complete video streams with audio for subsequent multi-cam editing. Meaning that, due to crew limitations, I wouldn't need a director doing a live line cut, with its accompanying dangers (mistakes are near impossible to correct in post) and could just leave the task to the editing suite where I could take my time and truly fine tune the final video.
What I found out:.
1. There seems to be no way to run multiple instances of OL, so OL then is limited to use for setup (of all cameras) and recording one of the cameras.
2.Using ScenalyzerLive, which does allow for multiple instances but lacks all the great OL features for setup, to record the video and audio streams from the additional cameras. There appears to be no problem with Scenalyzer co-existing with OL on the same machine.
Here's where things get interesting.
3. YOU NEED SEPARATE FIREWIRE PORTS FOR EACH CAMERA
With a desktop used for capture that's a no-brainer, just install as many FW cards as you need and have empty motherboard slots for.
With a laptop, things aren't that simple.
You need to have a laptop with a built-in FW port (for reasons that will become aparent) AND an Express card slot (for modern laptops). Also a FirWire Express card with INDEPENDENT FW ports (apparently not all FW Express cards are created equal). Using a FW hub external to the laptop DOESN'T WORK to provide expansion of FW inputs. So with a 2 port Express card and the built-in FW port youu have 3 FW inputs. One feeding OL and the others feeding 2 instances of ScenalyzerLive.
Caveats: all the preceding is based on my work with SD video and its ca. 25Mbps bandwith requirements. No problem with recording the 3 streams to the laptop's internal 7200RPM SATA drive. If your needs are HD then expect to have to do a lot of experimenting.
Good luck!
While I previously referred you to my earlier postings i have drawn a complete blank in searching for them. There seems to be something lacking in the search engine for this site as even searching on my name only returned one hit (and i've been posting here for several years).
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10. Re: Laptop requirements for OnLocation
miltko Nov 19, 2010 6:52 PM (in response to rowby)I succesfully used OnLocation CS3 with my Toshiba Pentium 4 laptop with a max screen resolution of 1024x768. Based on DV Rack, the tool layout was sloppy, requiring me at this resolution to scroll down the screen for panels below the current screen. I eagerly moved on to OnLocation CS5 with its neat Adobe CS layout style. It booted up fine but the panels were squashed and I couldn't get any panel response. Bad news. Searching for a reason, I found a website that stated a requirement for a 1280x900 screen resolution (actually the complaint was from a guy with only 1280x800 resolution). Not good news. My quad desktop and monitor ran OL CS5 in fine style.
Well, I said, I'll just switch back to OL CS3 which worked before on this laptop. On startup, the app repeatedly crashed on initial panel loading. The only thing different with the setup was that I upgraded from WinXP to Win7, normally an excellent decision. I tried to use the compatibility wizard to allow Win7 to operate as a WinXP machine. No good. Microsoft has no fix for this problem. So in addition to the problems previously noted, pay attention to OS compatibility.


