Choosing a laptop for Sony Vegas editing
The last two weeks, I’ve been spending way too much time researching the purchase of a new laptop. Way too much.
If you read much of my material, it becomes pretty obvious that I am a serious Mac fan. I use Windows computers daily, but when I can choose my platform, I always go for a Mac for multimedia production, web publishing, just about everything!
I have been in need of a new laptop to run Windows and Sony Vegas. A lot of my members at HowToVideoPRO.com are Vegas users. While I almost always use Final Cut, it was becoming obvious that I needed to better support my Windows-based members. So off to the Dell, HP, and Sony VAIO websites I went.
As I researched each computer solution, a theme emerged…Every one of the manufacturers and computer models I looked at had a significant number of end user reviews complaining about the build quality of the machines, the poor performance of VISTA, and the inability to get support for their machines from the manufacturers. Plenty of people gushed about their great little computers on the review sites as well, but those negative comments really got me worried. It just didn’t instill much confidence.
I even chose a Dell machine and went through the ordering process right up to the point of hitting the “ORDER” button before I chickened out.
So, back to Apple I went. My new Macbook that will be used as an almost dedicated Windows machine running Sony Vegas will be here later today. Even though I ordered it from the Apple Refurbished site, it still ran me a good $400.00 more than a similarly equipped Dell or HP would have. I just didn’t want the headaches of waiting on hold forever to find out that the company wouldn’t support the machine anyway. I will also get to load a copy of Windows XP on the machine rather than having to deal with VISTA.
It might have been money well spent. Then again, maybe not. I’ll keep you posted.
More to come…
i’m in the exact same position, if you dont mind sharing, what did you get in the mac to edit vegas, i never knew it was possible
thanks in advance for you support
Hi Glen,
The Macbook project was a success.
I purchased a copy of WindowsXP SP2 on Amazon for less than $100. I loaded it on a standard Macbook using Bootcamp with a 10G Windows partition. Bootcamp guides you through the installation and partitioning without any problem at all. The installation was a snap.
I bought a WD external Firewire drive specifically for use on this machine and created a Mac OS non-journaled 250G partition and a FAT32 partition so that I can use the same media drive to edit with either Vegas or Final Cut.
Loading Vegas was, again, no problem and it runs quite quickly on the Macbook.
The hardest thing has been getting used to the Vegas interface. I am constantly finding myself wondering why the Sony programmers made some of the decisions they did.
On the plus side for Vegas, the transitions and chromakey features are quite good.
Hope this helps,
Dave
http://www.HowToVideoPRO.com
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Goner.