Mobile Editing

[Felix K.]

Recently I gave a workshop on how to shoot videos with students/pupils in Canada. The participants in my course all brought their notebooks and I had Premiere Elements downloaded (as an easy way to get to know edition software). Unfortunately, most Laptops were unable to run the software fully. Many (expensive) notebooks had Nvidia NVS chips and the according driver update wasn't available from the notebook manufacturer. There were other problems also with Macbooks.

For the future I would like to understand what a notebook needs to manage small editing tasks. And therefore I would like to ask you what systems work for you and what software you use etc etc.
Thank you!
Felix

 

[Subhadip Sen]

I use Vegas Pro 10 64-bit for mobile editing. It can edit 4K R3D natively on today's $500 laptops. (with preview resolution turned down Small editing tasks with 1080p proxies will be a breeze. My preferred choice of hardware is the Lenovo X220. I have never used Premiere Pro on a laptop, but I suppose it would work just fine if you upgraded your RAM to 8GB. Nothing is as nimble and efficient as Vegas Pro on limited hardware though.

 

[Felix K.]

Thank you Subhadip! I will look into that!

 

[Bruce Allen]

Avid works beautifully on a notebook for me too. One license buys you both the Mac and PC versions. Educational price is only like $300 and you get 4 years' free upgrades after that (!).

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Marc Wielage]

For the future I would like to understand what a notebook needs to manage small editing tasks. And therefore I would like to ask you what systems work for you and what software you use etc etc.

If you're using Premiere Elements, then I'd say make sure the students' laptops can handle the System Requirements:

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/systemreqs/

I know of a ton of features where at least part of the work (picture and sound) have been done on very fast, current Apple MacBook Pros with tons of RAM. Driver issues can happen with any software. Maybe next time, make it a prequisite for the students that they have to have a working copy of Premiere Elements installed on their drives before coming into the class, or borrow some pre-configured machines that are ready to go.