slartabartfast

all laptops are made by an ODM

So where do people like jcschild find components to build customized laptops?

i buy the shell add the few components needed. (CPU, memory,HDD)
the issue is finding a shell that works.
it used to be we would test shells until we found one that worked (usually 4-10 to find one)
a few yrs ago when TI firewire disapeared (and also when i became an Apple dealer as they were the only ones with TI left but thats over with now) i went thru a total of 28 (this included some brand names including full built)
many of these shells once opened i could not return Ughh.
 
i was about to give up on laptops i know Jim can relate.
 
the last 3 gens have all had to have custom bios made based on our requests of what to do in the bios.
we are very blessed to be as small (compared to Dell etc) a company as we are and still able to get a custom bios.
each new gen has become worse requiring more and more bios tweaks.
2 of the laptops we are selling now just got discontinued (yet again) all in the name of USB3 what a pain
and a near pointless feature.
 
so here we go again. last one took 7 revisions of the bios
(communication is difficult from English to Mandarin) not to mention they never fully understand why we need these tweaks
they dont get or want to get what DPC latency is or why we are trying to use laptops as workstations.
they were floored when we asked them to set and lock the video card at its lowest possible clock speed (video ramping is one issue that causes DPC spiking)
 
this is just a small idea of how much trouble present day laptops are. and even with the custom bios i still have to do windows tweaks like turning off the ACPI battery and many others.
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Scott

Thanks for spending some of your time to give us in depth details on the problems with current laptop DAWs.  

I bought a custom built (Clevo based) laptop form a UK company about 5 years ago which has recently died on me, but it did work pretty well through most of its life.  It is such a shame that the current laptops have developed to be such a PITA to set up as a DAWs.  Don't know if I'll replace the laptop as I do most of my recording and mixing on a desktop machine now and the only the time portability was really required was for playing Softsynths rather than recording - might end up going the Muse receptor/Musebox route for that.

Andy

Did you ever own any fire wire gear?

For your desktop that is?

The problem is not firewire... the problem is laptops not being made with proper firewire chips.

That is a fixable problem.... the only reason the computer companies don't use proper firewire chips is that they are saving money.

mike_mccue


Did you ever own any fire wire gear?

For your desktop that is?

to answer your questions..

yes,  I had a laptop with TI firewire (HP,  still use it actually,  but as it's own little station..that's what I do with older gear..set up little stations around the house).  When I used it with a hard drive playing back 40 plus tracks,  I would get drop-outs.  When i switched to USB for the same thing,  no drop outs.  Flaky. 

I also had /have firewire built in to several desktops I've had.  I worked for a studio that had a nice DV camera and I would bring it home and do the transfers through firewire.  Worked fine.   I currently have it disabled. 

But even then.  it was just too specialized and too many hoops.  And USB 2.0 has always been fine.  They myths that surround USB are old news (by like 5-7 years).

mike_mccue




Are there any USB based video switchers?

I have no idea nor do I care.  I deal with AUDIO and this is a Cakewalk (by Roland) forum. 

:)

For anyone curious, some useful applications of a video switcher are live video feeds that can be presented on stage during a concert, church service, live to tape music video, TV broadcast, web streaming etc.

With firewire one can switch the video and keep the audio sync'd the whole time.

You can create seamless audio while the imagery is switched without glitches common to systems that do not have locked video.

It is the least expensive system that will do this.

There are some cheap composite systems but they have very lo res video... and they are not locked so glicthes on switches will show up now and again.

To the best of my knowledge... USB is never going to be able to do that.

It's true we do network live shots seen by millions of people on 15 year old Betacams frequently.

We have full 100Mb/s Hidef cameras but the Satellite trucks are not fully equipped so we are frequently hired to bring a Betacam 550 or 600.

It's the infrastructure that dictates the technology.

Good technology doesn't get old till it stops making money.

I would very much like to enjoy the benefits of a new screaming laptop... guys like you that celebrate the de-evolution of the technology are the problem. You encourage people to not understand the benefits of firewire.

Firewire began to die in the marketplace when the first generation of fire wire cameras were not embraced by the home video crowd. It took the suburban movie maker a few years to figure out how to edit video and by that time USB was ADEQUATE for that purpose.... that simple fact in no way makes it as useful as firewire.

It's the ignorance of the facts that has led to people who like firewire to watch a fine technology disappear right out of our hands. My P4 toshiba did an excellent job for me. I kept it alive... even bought and installed a second LCD screen.

The new card cameras are fun and all but they have introduced new working hours at the end of every work day. That means increased labor costs. Card reader cameras bleed a business dry day by day as those extra hours add up and eventually exceed the cost of a tape mechanism.. which is why tape and now disc cameras are still working very hard out there.

I'll be working with a RED Camera tomorrow... we'll be using a laptop to download the card data. It would be nice if that laptop would also work with any of our firewire decks.

regards,
mike

What are you suggesting... are you suggesting that this forum is for karaoke discussions only?

You talk about anything you wish.

I'll speak my mind and attempt to stay cordial.

I find it frustrating that USB fan boys are mis educating the public at large with claims that firewire is dead because USB is on par.

That is not the case... firewire is suffering on laptops because people ignorant of it's benefits claim its potential can be matched by USB.

I can see clearly that you do not understand this... nor do you appreciate your role in the circumstances.

You are encouraging people to remain unaware and you divert them from the potential to develop their capability into small and effective full service media producers.

regards,
mike

There's nothing flaky about firewire... I use it every day.

You are misleading people with false information.

So is it your intention is simply to annoy us while request that the real firewire chips... the ones we can easily buy for our desktops... become implemented once more?

I disagree. If you go to native instruments forums, you will find a thread where people have been having issues getting Traktor Scratch Pro to work with their Dell Studio laptops. And their interfaces uses USB.

I have been researching this subject for several months. I am a drummer and looking at an alesis usb trigger IO and superior drummer and hearing about the latency problems. I would also like to do some recording but i have concluded that laptops are not the answer. So what i need is a portable desktop. This is my conclusion as an amateur computer builder.
Rack mountable ATX computer case.  http://www.newegg.com/Pro...x?Item=N82E16811165083
RME Multiface II / HDSPe bundle. http://www.sweetwater.com..re/detail/MultiDeskPCIe
They should both fit in the same case.
Portable rack case. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GR6L
Alesis usb pro kit.

Would love to hear your opinions. I think you can fit it all in a four rack space case and then a monitor , keyboard and mouse. It's not perfect but it is portable and with a little redneck engineering , (i am a redneck so i can say that) hinges , liquid glue whatever, you could make it very portable. Then just bring it back home and plug it into your desktop monitor.

I realise this thread is kinda old,but I should make it known that my totally "of the shelf" DELL XPS L502x i72630[could have specced the 2720 or 2820 like the macBP but didnt] 4GB RAM[doubled to 8GB/$55]750GB HDD with X1 Producer is NOW running GREAT! Its been 3.5 months since I got it and in the begining there were hassles.I must admit some of this was "user" error and some hardware conflict.A TASCAM US 600 would not work at all.This was swapped for a cake UA25-EX wich works,clean on ASIO but,at30ms RTL MINIMUM;not great but tolerable[only just]The onboard Realtek actualy gets better latency and most surprising is the on board JBL speakers are usable and loud enough for "in bed" DAW fun [not that kind of fun!!!]and work,just with a M-AUDIO keyrig 49 plugged in to USB[2xUSB3.0 1xUSB 2.0/e-SATA]True Pianos is pretty amazing, laptop speakers/on bard card! W7x64 is perfect and I initialy tweaked like crazy/tried to get DPC[latency tester]to be lower but there were NEVER any "pops/ clips" unless I had too lower buffer on ASIO or moved the WDM/WASAPI slider in SONAR too low.After reinstalling W7 a couple of times back to as NEW[via DELLs "factory state" reinitilization] and making sure power is set to "high performance" and "minimum processor state" too 100% with absolutely nothing else turned 
off or tweaked,its been great!Even the "mild bloatware" like DELL stage etc etc is all still running with no problems.Same with internet, always on,except when tracking/mixing.It of course be interesting to see how long this continues,especially when tracks/plugs/synths get high.One thin I think makes a difference is the two USB fans I have semi permanently attatched underneath,positioned directly over the major vent holes on the bottom,with the main exhaust vent is on the left side on this model and the "internal" fan almost NEVER even turns on!I think this is a major plus compared to the macbookpro,which has had horror stories of over heating with only one slim vent on the rear and running temps of 70-90+c!!This Dell NEVER gets above 65c. even with the intel "burn " test,not bad.Im soon to buy a Glyph external[cant remember model]HDD,as Im aware that using the sole internal is flirting with danger.
             Its definately not :Mother of all Laptops -but its pretty good for $1200 and first try,cheers all RKS.





















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What I would like to see??

I wold love a cube housed desktop with a guitar amp style handle on top. A plugin hardwire connection (whatever protocol is best USB, Firewire, or something else) to connect the cube/desktop to a laptop controller. Maybe even use a completely independent wireless USB set to connect the keyboard/mousepad to the computer and a HDMI cable to run the "laptop controller" screen.
Of course include all the options to use the cube/desktop tower with a regular qwerty. mouse, and monitor.

But I would REALLY like a setup like that, giving me the power of a desktop, in my lap... and it shouldn't be much more expensive than a regular desktop if one could get gutted laptops with just the parts needed for it to run off of and control the tower.

Does that make any sense. I wouldn't care how it connected, it could be completely wired (it would be best for me if it could be disconnected) but basically a heyboard/mouse/screen in a basically otherwise empty laptop to use with a powerful tower or cube computer. Then I could sit in the "big leather chair" and do prelim mixes or anything that I can do with headphones... then grab the tower/cube by the handle, grab the interface, and move to my monitor room when I need to... or if I decide I want to record something in the closet, greatroom, off the balcony from upstairs, in the bathroom, or record a small amp that I stuck in the dryer with some foam... everything is really portable and has the power of the desktop with the ease of the laptop.

Maybe someone could make a shell of a laptop that would work with most any DAW desktop... I don't know, maybe it's just something I would buy.

Julien