VIdeo editing w/GT130M

[vb_question]

I'm looking at a laptop as a 3rd computer, but I want to make sure it will handle basic video editing (e.g., home videos). I'm considering an HP w/a 1GB GT130M, 4GB DDR2 and a T6600 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo processor. Thoughts?

 

[r_manic]

Technically any mid-level computer will allow you to edit videos. The advantages of a dedicated workstation is of course speed, in terms of being able to render edits and the final product relatively quickly. Aside from CPU power, RAM availability, you also need to take hard disk read/write speeds into consideration.

I used to edit SD videos on a laptop with specs even lower than what you've listed, so I can tell you that you can get the job done, but you'll have to do significantly more waiting. If you're using HD quality footage, you'll need a LOT of space as well, and trying to stream content through USB is simply too slow for a responsive editing experience.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

It's fine, even for those apps that take advantage of OpenGL preview acceleration would be fine with a basic GT130M, which is a pretty powerful chip (upper-mid range 9650 equivalent on laptop), and would do a better job than a desktop GF6800 or even GF7800.

Even for transcoding you'd be fine from a GPU perspective, the only thing for all of it that I would say is lacking is the CPU, which is slightly castrated versus something like a P8xxx or P9xxx series CPU, but it's not terrible in that it's a reasonably clocked lower cache chip, although I'd prefer it to be a T8xxx series chip too.

For gaming this is an equal balance, for video editing, I'd say it's CPU light and GPU heavier. R_m's laptop has a better editing balance with that T8300 and 8400GS (although would prefer 8600GS or greater too which would better match my upgrade).

AS for storage if you plan on going external at all, then it's worth buying a dual channel eSATA ExpressCard if it doesn't already have eSATA.