What do you think of the Sony Vaio Laptop VGN-A117S laptop (or Sony Laptops/Vaio laptops in general) for video editing? Any bad experiences?
1.6Ghz Centrino/Pentium M. I know you can pay a premium for Sony but I won't put price over capability - I want something that will do the job.
The X black high contrast, very high resolution UWXGA screen on this machine is excellent. It also seems like a laptop built with video editing in mind, since Adobe Premiere is included as standard.

It has a 5400rpm hard drive so, on Marc Peters advise, I thought there may be frame loss with DV capture. So I took my DV camera into the shop and played out a few minutes of video - Adobe Premiere captured it with zero i.e. 0 i.e. no frame loss, no dropped frames. The salesmen explained that I may have to capture in stages i.e. pause-save clip then restart recording for really long captures, since the risk of frame drops may be higher with such long captures. Is this true. However, this might be acceptable for me because it gives me a feeling that I can do something myself to avoid frame loss.
Apparently doubling the RAM from 512Mb to 1024 would greatly reduce the risk.

Well it looks like a good result for a 5400rpm drive.
But I can't understand why Sony include a 5400rpm drive when Adobe's minimum spec for a hard drive is 7200rpm? - See http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs.html

Sony would have liaised with Adobe to supply the software included so surely Adobe would have refused if the Sony wasn't up for the job?
It would be a bit silly for either party to simply throw the software and laptop together and hope for the best, silly because either or both would be put into disrepute. Don't you think?

I believe I can myself replace the harddrive. Is this really possible? 5) Any bad experiences? I would replace this with a 2.5" standard size 60Gb 7200rpm Hitachi Laptop/Notebook harddrive See
http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/sit...a0466460e4f0a0

I would rather do this than add an external drive at the moment. I prefer less fiddly and bitty bits to carry around - I like it all in one box so to speak. But as my needs grow I could buy an external - for backup etc. But I like to know that the basic laptop can do a reasonable job first of all, on its own.

I'm not interested in Pentium 4 laptops - noise due to fans, low battery life, more bulky, also possible greater heat problems (especially if I want to fit a faster notebook harddrive) not am I interested in a desktop machine - I don't want to be tied to a room.

Without knowing the particular box nor havign played wiht it a little as you have, this paragraph alone would be all the reason I would need not to buy that laptop.

If it doesn't meet documented minimum specs then leave it in the store amd look elsewhere.

Just me 2p

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

why then do they bundle premiere?
and can u suggest an alternative?

They do? I guess it must probably be ok then. Although I suspect the bundling is done by Sony rather than Adobe. Seems odd though that it doesn't fit the published min spec.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Yes they do bundle it. there must be an agreement with adobe to do this. after all if u were a software house, how would you feel if a pc maker was bundling your software to run on a substandard pc (in this case it is hopefully not substandard). i dont think u'd be very happy at all as people might attribute faults to your software not the pc.

i *will* ask adobe why it is bundled when their spec is higher

but another thing i mentioned in my original posting is that i think its possible to swap the hdd for a hitachi 7200rpm anyway

ur going to have to talk to sony about the swappability, but most laptops allow u to switch out hdd's.

What country do you live in? There are plenty of companies that are not as widely known as Sony that will give you more performance for the cost with better quality parts, etc.

EDIT: http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031031/index.html

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2.6b at 3.3
1 gig of OCZ Platinum Limited Edition PC3200(2-2-2)
Abit IC7
Seagate 80gb sata
Aspire X-Alien
460W Enermax
9800 Pro
SP-94 with Tornado
Panasonic GS200 on its way with:
3 DV Tapes, Tripod, Bag, Telephoto Lens, Lens Cleaning Kit

p4ocer - thanks for the link - the statistics for the Hitachi EK60 7200 notebook harddrive look good - faster and better throughput than lower rpm drives - all the more reason put it in the laptop!

p4ocer I live in uk so please tell me who you think could supply a laptop with a display as crisp, high resolution (1920x1200 UWXGA) and bright as the sony?

The other alternative is the new qosimo widescreen www.qosmio.co.uk which appears to be able to take 2 hard drives -great for an audio/video creative as this is preferred but not essential as my findings in my original post might indicate - with the Sony test in the shop. The harddrives are 5400rpm but again, I will swap for the Hitachi 7200). The qosmio has a great display - very crisp and bright but I'm not sure if the resolution is as high as the Sony's and they dont put it in the spec on their site.

Why don't you go for a Small Form Factor PC and TFT screen? You'll get more bang for your back for near laptop portability.

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I made it clear I did not want a desktop PC, in my original posting. I definitely want a laptop for portability, not near portability.

I'm not hung up about paying more for portability because that is what I want and I accept that this costs more than a desktop machine.

Also, Marc, what do you say to my findings that the Sony VAIO VGN-A117S 5400RPM DID NOT DROP FRAMES. Your general advice on avoiding 5400rpm does NOT ALWAYS APPLY then?

Also, why do Adobe recommend 7200rpm as a minimum on their website and then let Sony bundle Premiere with their 5400rpm drive? Adobe and Sony WILL have talked about the bundle deal and I'm sure neither party wants their product to look bad because of poor performance. What do you reckon?

Anyway I am prudent and will swap the 5400rpm drive for the notebook 7200rpm drive by Hitachi.

i think thats a very stupid idea...think about it...buy a brand new laptop then void the warranty...prolly not the best idea...sure a 5400 rpm drive may not drop frams at first, but as the drive becomes fragmented/full of data its gonna run slower. So, u may very well not experience dropped frams, but u will definately see a performance boost with a 7200 rpm drive...If it were me, i would go to a company that would allow me to completely customize the system

__________________
2.6b at 3.3
1 gig of OCZ Platinum Limited Edition PC3200(2-2-2)
Abit IC7
Seagate 80gb sata
Aspire X-Alien
460W Enermax
9800 Pro
SP-94 with Tornado
Panasonic GS200 on its way with:
3 DV Tapes, Tripod, Bag, Telephoto Lens, Lens Cleaning Kit