windows 8 surface pro with sv

[John Rofrano]

I would think that a Core i5 with 4GB of RAM should run Vegas Pro just fine. The question is, will you be able to edit without a mouse? My experience from using remote desktop on my iPad is that Windows applications are difficult to use on a touch device because they are designed for mouse interactions. You really need to redesign the applications interactions to make it usable on a tablet. If the surface supports a mouse you should be OK.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Craig Meeks]

Thanks John. That’s kinda what I figured. It does have support for a mouse and comes with a keyboard. I figured it might be nice for basic editing on the go without having to buy a seperate ultrabook.

Craig Meeks
Intel i7 x990 6-core 12 gigs ram
gtx 560 dual monitor

[Dave Haynie]

The Surface Pro is based on an Ivy Bridge i5, which is pretty common in $500-$650 laptops today. This is enough to run Vegas just dandy, not ideal for multi-cam AVCHD editing, but it’ll do the job in a pinch. Of course, this is also PC-chipset graphics, so no GPU acceleration.

The Surface Pro actually has a Wacom-like pen interface. I’m not sure just how Wacom-like it is, but a real Wacom digitizer can see your pen over the tablet surface, without making contact, and it can deliver 512-1024 levels of pressure (I use a graphics tablet for PC drawing). If this is even close, you’ll have the full mouse experience with a pen. I’d check on this.

I’m a little skeptical of the Surface Pro. It’s definitely a good enough PC, a mid-range laptop in power, but a bit weak on RAM (I like 8GB for video, 16Gb for photos and everything else I do). But the storage is weak (64GB or 128GB) for media use. And there will be a dozen or more similar Windows tablets. Microsoft is very unknown as a hardware vendor. I’d wait, and check the stats — if you really even need a Windows tablet.

I have a higher-end Android tablet, which is good for viewing media, uploading it, etc. I had enough of an issue dealing with editing on a laptop, just due to performance and tiny (17″, 1680×1050) screens…. not interested in downsizing that just to have it on a tablet.

-Dave

[Craig Meeks]

I would like to see what the pen input is like. I’ve never used a wacom myself. As far as storage goes the physical seems small but it actually has external data ports as well as Microsoft’s cloud storage skydrive. I use skydrive myself between my pc, laptop, and phone. It works great.

The problem to me with android tablets and ipads is they are more recreational. The surface actually comes installed with Microsoft office and the pro actually runs all programs, like Photoshop or whatever. Its more for productivity than liesure.

I do agree though, if it had more ram it would be even better.

Craig Meeks
Intel i7 x990 6-core 12 gigs ram
gtx 560 dual monitor

[Dave Haynie]

Any Windows system can use Skydrive, or any of the dozens of online storage schemes. Here’s the thing… video. That whole 12GB per hour or so thing we all do here.

How fast is your internet connection, really? If you can sustain 25Mb/s or so to Skydrive, you can play back a video in realtime. One video. And that’s not editing, that’s linear. I don’t think, in practice, online storage helps at all for video editing. Not to mention that Skydrive is free for 7GB, paid beyond that — one significant video project is larger.

For the tablet, I suppose an SDXC card may suffice. Surface Pro only supports microSD as a built-in, so that’s 64GB storage. Enough for a short project (not that many minutes, once you add in multiple takes, audio, FX, etc). But given the CPU power, you’re not taking on complex videos, animations, etc. That’s probably the place to look.

The other thing to consider: Windows is still Windows. That 64GB or 128GB is going to have a big chunk eaten up by Windows itself. My desktop PC’s boot drive is 2TB, my laptop’s is 640GB — not a big deal. But Windows 8 is larger than Windows 7 .. there’s this whole secondary WinRT operating system sitting aside normal Windows. 64/128GB seems awfully small, for media work.

-Dave