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SI-2K Mini laptop choice


Andronico Gonzalez

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A few weeks ago I rent my SI-2K cameras for the new wolverine videogame commercial.

The DoP selected 5 cameras to work, one 416, two Eyemo's and my cameras. The Director refuse to work all the SI-2K planned shots because I have the full camera and not only the Mini with a laptop in a backpack like in Slumdog Millionaire. I prepare a backpack with the camera inside and put the Mini sensor in various rigs:

A motorcycle Helmets, a skateboard helmet, a vest with two shoulder mounts, a vest with a chest multi position arm, and a 10 feet pole.

With these rigs the camera movements were really impressive, all the hardware worked almost perfect, but at last the Director refuses to use them, he wanted a light laptop.

 

I start this topic because I want to buy a laptop that can be my second weapon of choice. I want to know the experiences of other SI-2K Mini users with different brands and models of laptops.

 

My only laptop experience was with a Macbook Pro with bootcamp, it was powerful enough to work but the temperature sometimes corrupts the data, some files had frames with bad pixels. And someone told me that the new models had changed the Gigabit Ethernet card.

 

All suggestions accepted.

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A few weeks ago I rent my SI-2K cameras for the new wolverine videogame commercial.

The DoP selected 5 cameras to work, one 416, two Eyemo's and my cameras. The Director refuse to work all the SI-2K planned shots because I have the full camera and not only the Mini with a laptop in a backpack like in Slumdog Millionaire. I prepare a backpack with the camera inside and put the Mini sensor in various rigs:

A motorcycle Helmets, a skateboard helmet, a vest with two shoulder mounts, a vest with a chest multi position arm, and a 10 feet pole.

With these rigs the camera movements were really impressive, all the hardware worked almost perfect, but at last the Director refuses to use them, he wanted a light laptop.

 

I start this topic because I want to buy a laptop that can be my second weapon of choice. I want to know the experiences of other SI-2K Mini users with different brands and models of laptops.

 

My only laptop experience was with a Macbook Pro with bootcamp, it was powerful enough to work but the temperature sometimes corrupts the data, some files had frames with bad pixels. And someone told me that the new models had changed the Gigabit Ethernet card.

 

All suggestions accepted.

Macbook pros with SSD drives would certainly help...

 

I have no idea if it would work, but what about a netbook?

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I have no idea if it would work, but what about a netbook?

 

I don't think any netbook has the recommended especifications since are designed to be portable and run internet, not to process 2K uncompressed data. It's like te Macbook Air that it's CPU hasn't enough power or even a Gigabit Ethernet card.

 

I know what to look for in a laptop, what I was really looking was someone that can tell his/her experience with a certain brand and model.

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  • 1 month later...

Laptop:

Toshiba Protege m750 12" touchscreen laptop with SSD (solid state drive).

 

Issues:

Billinear mode incompatibilty. will freeze the DVR application.

Cannot use edge detect unless you set your monitor to 800x600 resolution. Anything higher will freeze the application.

If you connect a 2 drive raid 0 via esata you can capture 12bit uncompressed resolution NO PROBLEM. buffer only went up to 4% at the highest.

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  • 7 months later...
Laptop:

Toshiba Protege m750 12" touchscreen laptop with SSD (solid state drive).

 

Issues:

Billinear mode incompatibilty. will freeze the DVR application. ******** see note below**********

Cannot use edge detect unless you set your monitor to 800x600 resolution. Anything higher will freeze the application.

If you connect a 2 drive raid 0 via esata you can capture 12bit uncompressed resolution NO PROBLEM. buffer only went up to 4% at the highest.

 

 

NEW UPDATE!

 

I have removed windows VISTA and tried WINDOWS7 - (compatibility issues with the ebus ethernet driver not being compatible with windows 7 on my laptop at the moment).

So, I have reinstalled WINDOWS XP PRO. All my issues have been resolved!

Billinear (high quality mode for preview and record) work great!

 

Hard to find - but if you can get the Ultra Slim Bay II adapter from Toshiba (SOLD in USA not canada) then you can remove your dvd drive and replace it with a second SSD via esata for recording.

 

Also I have been warned against using the OCZ VERTEX drives, INTEL SSD has been highly recommended by 3dCC in toronto. They have had far better success with them especially for uncompressed.

 

all the best!

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