frd1963
I plan to purchase a new laptop now that VDJ 2.1 is out and apparently needs much faster and more sophisticated hardware to be able to mix videos with acceptable quality.
I am considering the HP ZD8000 series, but am looking for input from the community on whether this laptop (pimped out with the following specs) would do the trick:
3.2Ghz P4
800Mhz FSB
1GB 533Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Mobility Radeon X600 with 256MB dedicated
17.0" WSXGA+ BrightView Wide Viewing (1680x1050)
60 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive or 100 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
XP home or XP Media Center
(if Media Center, then it comes with TV tuner, dual video inputs, etc... probably useless to VDJ.)
I plan to make this purchase within the next 2 days, so any advice, recommendations, or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated. If you know of a better laptop to get (US$2000 price range) then let me know.
Thanks in advance,
-Frd
P.S. Anyone interested in buying my current HP nr3600? Great laptop for stability, ruggedness, VDJ 2.0, but not quite upto the task of video mixing.
I am considering the HP ZD8000 series, but am looking for input from the community on whether this laptop (pimped out with the following specs) would do the trick:
3.2Ghz P4
800Mhz FSB
1GB 533Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Mobility Radeon X600 with 256MB dedicated
17.0" WSXGA+ BrightView Wide Viewing (1680x1050)
60 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive or 100 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
XP home or XP Media Center
(if Media Center, then it comes with TV tuner, dual video inputs, etc... probably useless to VDJ.)
I plan to make this purchase within the next 2 days, so any advice, recommendations, or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated. If you know of a better laptop to get (US$2000 price range) then let me know.
Thanks in advance,
-Frd
P.S. Anyone interested in buying my current HP nr3600? Great laptop for stability, ruggedness, VDJ 2.0, but not quite upto the task of video mixing.
Posted Wed 18 May 05 @ 12:44 am
lopez453
Just a recomendation:
download vdj demo, burn it together with some videos on a cd, take a quiality headphones with you
and ask to test it. If it runs smoothly (transitions ...) take it
I did a mistake and did not test the sound qaility of integrated soundcard (for the case I don't want to carry hercules ....) I hear data bus signals, even when everything exept wave & master is muted
but nevermind....
And if i will look for a new notebook/pc I will look not only for the background noise in sound, but in the possibility to switch microphone and line in to outputs and have 6channel out :-)
just my 2 cents
download vdj demo, burn it together with some videos on a cd, take a quiality headphones with you
and ask to test it. If it runs smoothly (transitions ...) take it
I did a mistake and did not test the sound qaility of integrated soundcard (for the case I don't want to carry hercules ....) I hear data bus signals, even when everything exept wave & master is muted
but nevermind....
And if i will look for a new notebook/pc I will look not only for the background noise in sound, but in the possibility to switch microphone and line in to outputs and have 6channel out :-)
just my 2 cents
Posted Wed 18 May 05 @ 12:05 pm
shaggypoet
Frd,
Check out the following sites:
http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/
http://www.abspc.com
http://www.voodoopc.com
If you are planning to spend crazy money on a laptop, these are the three places to check out. Voodoo builds the best gaming laptops on the market but it will run you some serious money. ABS and Xtreme can give you a Voodoo or Alienware level machine at a fraction of the cost with all the works. All three of these machines get high bench marks for sound and especially graphics. They are gaming rigs built to throw what ever you throw at them.
Advice: Don't get Norton Antivirus for these machines. Download the much safer and less bloatware program Nod32 from ESET. Nod32 will make your machine run much faster also make sure you have a good program like Webroot Spyweeper to keep all the nasty spyware out that can slow you down when you run Virtual DJ.
Make sure your sound card is decent, something by Creative Soundblaster would be great. In my experience, stay away from HP, Dell, and Gateways. Though they are cheap you get what you pay for. At least with the more expensive or gaming systems like Voodoo, you can always upgrade your video card.
Hope this helps.
Check out the following sites:
http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/
http://www.abspc.com
http://www.voodoopc.com
If you are planning to spend crazy money on a laptop, these are the three places to check out. Voodoo builds the best gaming laptops on the market but it will run you some serious money. ABS and Xtreme can give you a Voodoo or Alienware level machine at a fraction of the cost with all the works. All three of these machines get high bench marks for sound and especially graphics. They are gaming rigs built to throw what ever you throw at them.
Advice: Don't get Norton Antivirus for these machines. Download the much safer and less bloatware program Nod32 from ESET. Nod32 will make your machine run much faster also make sure you have a good program like Webroot Spyweeper to keep all the nasty spyware out that can slow you down when you run Virtual DJ.
Make sure your sound card is decent, something by Creative Soundblaster would be great. In my experience, stay away from HP, Dell, and Gateways. Though they are cheap you get what you pay for. At least with the more expensive or gaming systems like Voodoo, you can always upgrade your video card.
Hope this helps.
Posted Tue 31 May 05 @ 5:33 am
DJ Cyder
one piece of advice, if you are going to buy a laptop buy 2. I personally would never fully trust a laptop to do anything music realated. Bad past experinces, everything from screen shutting off to keys falling off the keyboard you name it happend to me. Never again... for 2000 bucks you could build a monster rackmount with a terabyte of storage on a sata-150 or 300 drive, a video card that will totally stomp any laptop And....endless upgrades...
Posted Tue 31 May 05 @ 6:35 am
djkizzle
those site have amazing prices compared to name brand pc's. but i wonder, are we paying big bucks to dell and alienware just for a name, or is there a difference in quality or tech suport? does anyone on this site have any esxperience with these "off-brand" distributors?
Cyder: i know what you mean about the pc crushing the laptop, and in my mobile gigs on weekends, rackmounted pc is the way to go. but over here in NYC, rolling into a nightclub with a rack is unheard of, not to mention impractical. we are left with no option but to spend double on a laptop, that juuust might perform as well as a pc. ces la vi!
Cyder: i know what you mean about the pc crushing the laptop, and in my mobile gigs on weekends, rackmounted pc is the way to go. but over here in NYC, rolling into a nightclub with a rack is unheard of, not to mention impractical. we are left with no option but to spend double on a laptop, that juuust might perform as well as a pc. ces la vi!
Posted Sat 21 Oct 06 @ 9:15 am