CS5 on a laptop. Would this work?

[Bob Kiger]

Hi Kurt–
By the way you phrase you post “I’m getting a new laptop” it is not clear whether you have already committed to purchase or not. If you have not than I would say STOP!

Than drop down 10 threads on this forum an read the specs that I have posted under “Quad Core Notebooks and CS5”. Your specifications will not work IMO. Most notably the use of 5400rpm drives is not supported by Adobe Premiere Pro when you call for tech support. They specify 7200rpm. There are many other reasons but let’s start with a reality check and look at what we’ve compiled after nearly a year in pursuit off your goal.

And by the way I believe that CS5 will be widely deployed on very powerful laptop/notebooks in the year ahead.

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Kurt Schuette]

Hi Bob. Thanks for the post. I actually haven’t made a purchase yet. I am in the process of weighing my options. I took a look at the thread you referenced. It looks like the system specs you listed would work great with CS5. I actually have an i7 desktop with a Raid setup, and high end graphics that I use for 95% of my production work. I guess what I am looking for is the minimum laptop that can still run CS5. All I need to do is to be able to do some basic cutting, titling and burn to DVD. Since this would be used for volunteer work a couple weekends a year, I can’t warrant the expense of a high end laptop. That having been said, I don’t want to commit to a purchase only to find that CS5 isn’t compatable.

[Bob Kiger]

Hi Kurt–

Believe it or not we were addressing this very same issue back in 2005 at the beta for CS2 Production Suite. I argued that Adobe should take a graduated approach to their entire set of “collections”.

That they should consider notebook/laptop users as a market for every one of their programs, and create a light version of the entire collection for that purpose. They systematically blocked this effort. At one point I even asked Adobe president [at the time], Bruce Chizen, to donate the old Premiere 6.5 engine to open source 🙂 That went nowhere!

I still believe there is plenty of room for a light version of the Master Collection. The concept was that an inner ring of “lite” programs would be installed. When a user pattern shows that they spend most of their time on say “Photoshop” than enhancements would come in as downloads. At the same time if they showed no use of say Flash development, than those apps would remain a basic shell. So the circle of programs that comprised the collection were customized and scalable dependent on use and resources on the laptop/notebook.

In the early days of video editing [circa 1970] remarkable special effects and any kind of program editing were attainable using simple A/B rolls. I am of the belief that all modern editing programs have gotten too carried away with deep [often redundant or downright silly] features that make their applications “intimidating” to the youngsters who just want to cut a video for their friends or their school or their cause . . . whatever!

I tried Microsoft Movie Maker on my Quad Core and it easily handles 1080p but Microsoft is clueless about how to edit video IMO. I tried simple Quicktime Pro. Both these programs neglected basic editing features and added really dumb ones. I won’t get specific because this is an Adobe Premiere forum and Adobe ain’t dumb when it comes to editing. They are misguided 🙂 So when you say: “All I need to do is to be able to do some basic cutting, titling and burn to DVD.” it is a very fair question? The only complication is to add that many now want to do their “basic cutting, titling and burn” in HD and burn to Blu-Ray!!!

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Brian Louis]

[Kurt Schuette] “I wanted to check if Production Premium CS5 would be compatible with the specs.”
What type of video and other files would you be working with? this link has the minimum requirements for PPCS5
https://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/systemreqs/
One problem is intergrated graphics, second you need more memory if you are going to run PPCS5, max memory that particular laptop can use is 4gigs, you need at least 6gigs, 8gigs would be recommended, also the laptop doesn’t have a eSATA port, or a 2nd internal harddrive, even if you were going to edit DV you would get into trouble sooner or later with a single harddrive particularly a 5400rpm

[Bo Skelmose]

Check out Toshiba X500 i7 quad core with 2 harddisks and 6 gB ram….

[Kurt Schuette]

Here’s another set of specs for a laptop I was considering. I have bumped the hard drive to 7200rpm, bumped the memory to 4GB, and there is now a dedicated video card.

Studio 15 Studio 15 Laptop
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Processor NEW 2010 Intel® Core™ i3-350M 2.26GHz (3M cache)
Memory 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
LCD Panel 15.6” High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera
Video Card ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4570, 512MB
Hard Drive 500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
CD ROM/DVD ROM 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)

[Hhv_pro]

IF you want to get Dell then consider precision work station where you have option to upgrade memory/Quadro FX video card/etc…
However it will be more expensive…check out HP laptops also.

Do not buy PC/Laptop without meeting minimum requirements as you will not see performance gain without N Vidia card with CUDA engine.
You may also wants to see nvidia site to verify if the card you are considering has CUDA engine…(Adobe calls Mercury engine which makes specific api calls to CUDA)

[Jon Barrie]

There appears to be a lot of chatter about cuda and mercury on the cow ATM. Please be aware that cuda cards are not necessarily mercury cards. Mercury is different to cuda and not te same thing. Mercury engine only works on a limited amount if cards right now.

GeForce GTX 285 (Windows and Mac OS)
Quadro FX 3800 (Windows)
Quadro FX 4800 (Windows and Mac OS)
Quadro FX 5800 (Windows)
Quadro CX

these are the only cards that are mercury supported. There are other cuda cards outside this list. All Cuda cards will see some benefits in cs5 and cs4. But for mercury engine in cs5 you must have one of the listed cards.

Respectfully, JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
http://www.suiteskills.com

[Bob Kiger]

JB wrote: “All Cuda cards will see some benefits in cs5 and cs4. But for mercury engine in cs5 you must have one of the listed cards.”

The Mercury engine that drives CS5 is optimized for the CUDA cards you listed but your assertion that in CS5 you must have one of the listed cards is not correct. You can run many high powered cards with CS5 CUDA and other types, but to get optimal performance across the cores and balanced memory usage the cards that have been qualified THUSFAR have been as you said.

GeForce GTX 285 (Windows and Mac OS)
Quadro FX 3800 (Windows)
Quadro FX 4800 (Windows and Mac OS)
Quadro FX 5800 (Windows)
Quadro CX

We’re confident that Adobe will be continuously expanding the cards that are optimized. What you MUST have to run CS5 is a 64-bit OS.

Cheers,

Bob Kiger seminal author of “videography” [OCT1972-AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER]
http://www.videographyblog.com

[Jon Barrie]

Thanks for further clarifying my message.

I wasn’t trying to suggest that other cards won’t work with cs5. I was concerned that the cuda message may confuse some people into expecting mercury support with any cuda card.

ATi cards are supported to run cs5 but thy don’t and probably won’t have mercury support because the architecture thus far is nvidia cuda based. Who knows about cs(next) there may be ati support too.

Cs5 does not require a cuda or nvidia card to run. Nvidia cards do seem to have less driver issues than Ati cards with adobe products.

For the record:
ati cards will run cs5 products. Nvidia cards with and without cuda will run cs5. Both have listed minimum specs and models on the adobe production premium website. Check to see a card you are using or want to purchase is on the list.
if you want mercury playback support then the there is currently a short list of nvidia series cards only. Mercury engine is not supported with any other card maker or models other than the listed cards on the adobe site. There is likely to be more cards supported as updates roll out. But there are no guarantees. If you want mercury playback now refer to the short list on adobe site. If you just want to use cs5 and aren’t looking for mercury engine support there is a listing of ati and nvidia cards too.

It seems complex and I think the game changing abilities of mercury engine I exciting non users to switch. I just don’t want to see systems being built and not having the mercury supported cards when the builder expected to get it because they bought a cuda card.

Regards, Jon Barrie 😉

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
http://www.suiteskills.com