I'm a long time (1996?) Media Composer user, and have been for the majority of that time Mac-based. My primary systems at home and at work continue to be Macs, but I have some upcoming clients for whom it would be a smart move on my part to be visibly working on a PC-based system. 

The qualified hardware list is pretty long and caveat-filled. Does anyone have any strong opinions on for a PC laptop based on the following parameters:

• 17"
• Easy attachment of external monitor (or monitors) that MC recognizes. 
• Reasonably portable (it'll be used on set, hotel rooms, planes, etc). 
• STABILITY. I really just want a system that's as turnkey and non-finicky as possible. 
• To the latter point, any opinions on OS version combined with MC version would be appreciated as well. 

Thanks, I appreciate the help.

Funny, this is exactly the advise a friend asked me a few weeks ago. You wouldn't be able to read dutch by any chance? In that case I could just copy and paste what I wrote him. What's your budget?

Ah never mind, google translate (with a little/lots of help) is your friend

I ended up with four options for you. They run from cheap to ridiculously expensive. One problem was that for 17 inch no IPS HD screens are available in laptops. In fact, there is only one, a TN panel made ​​by Chi Mei. What's the difference? IPS has better colors and viewing angles, TN better black levels and is faster. Our work is the best served with IPS alas.

Option 1 A beautiful Volkswagen Passat: Asus N750JKT4069H

http://tweakers.net/ Product / 376709 / asusn750jk

A good laptop for daily use and if you run it with 16GB of internal memory fine to work with Avid. This will set you back around 1300 euro’s. But be careful, it’s available in various versions. So with 16GB of internal memory, a 1TB hard drive and a 256GB SSD.

Benefits: great value for money, can actually take care of all your editing needs, has a long battery life, Asus has good reputation, fast delivery as it is quite popular.

Disadvantages.: Well, it all works, but you do not have the luxurious feeling the other options offer. Keyboard is ok, not great. The screen is not very bright, the other options were able to achieve better results with the same panel. The graphics card is ok, but not more than that. However, enough for video editing and quite capable with recent games.

Option 2 Luxurious BMW: MSI Gaming Series GS70 2PE

http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/386102/msigamingseriesgs702pe290nlstealthprowannabe.

html

A classy laptop with heavier specs and a mac design with ditto appearance. Retails for about 1800 euro’s. Again available in different versions, but you take this one because of the type of SSD that it has, M2 stacks directly connected to the PCI-e lanes.

Benefits: In all aspects better than the Asus. Very fast SSD, backlit quality keyboard, able to resist the violence of avid gamers, the lighting also can be adjusted to your tastes and colors.

A better, brighter screen. Also a faster graphics card than the Asus. Faster than Avid currently has need for, but that may change in the near future. And fast videocards are always pleasant to render movies for export.

Disadvantages: Unfortunately this so modern that they have omitted the DVD burner to keep it’s thinness and cool as well. But for about 30 euros you can buy an usb burner separately should you need it. Has a shorter battery life than the Asus. MSI has not such a reputation in building laptos as Asus does, but it has more to do with the fact that they only have been doing so for a few years, not because they are stinkers. It is expensive, but considering what you get for it worth every penny.

Option3  Hummer: Dell Precision M6800 Workstation

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=ca027nfm6800mumws&model_id=precisionm6800workstation&c=nl&l=nl&s=bsd&cs=nlbsdt1

The first in the row that Avid also "supports", mainly because of the graphics card, a Nvidia Quaddro. A video card you pay a small fortune for and actually is an outdated and weaker brother of the cards that are in the options mentioned above. The difference is in the drivers that have little significance for MC. With a little hack I have been using for years MC will use above mentioned GFX cards just as well. This is a work horse, with all the features that go with it.

Benefits: You can drive the actual hummer over it and it will continue to run. If something does break there is spare part support until the end of time (or at least until the end of Dell) The parts are top of the line, good keyboard, excellent DVD burner, hefty battery. It has, within the limits of the panel, a good screen. In addition, it is currently on sale because it will soon be replaced. And you have Avid’s blessing.

Cons: It is currently on sale because the successor is standing in the wings, so you pay top dollar for a collection of components of last generation. It’s not fitted with an SSD at this price and the price of an official SSD upgrade borders on the ridiculous. Look, if you are planning to edit on an oil rig in the Arctic, I would recommend this. There it would stay, because really it’s not really that portable, being the heaviest of the bunch by far.

Option 4 Lambourghini  Razer Blade Pro 2

http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/335736/thenewrazerbladepro

(2014)/ Specifications

For the same money as the Dell you could also consider this. The PC all mac fans would have liked but didn’t get. What a style! What a color! What a nice logo! And an extra touchscreen!

Benefits: What a style! What a color! What a nice logo! And an EXTRA touch screen that lets you experience what it feels like to be captain of the Enterprise! With such a laptop everyone takes you seriously as a professional. This is a man with taste who knows the ropes. Also fun: all Mac devotees instantly jealous. Moreover, also fast, a good keyboard, a nice little adapter and the same graphics card as the MSI. And the brightest screen of the bunch, with a unibody of beautifully finished aluminum.

Cons: Only been out for a few weeks. Not for people who are left-handed. No DVD burner, no slot for SD cards. As a company Razor has reputation in the gamers gear, mice, keyboards and other accessories, but this is their second laptop only. Room for one hard drive, or an SSD, but unfortunately not too much disk space. You pay premium for looks. The battery is not too big. (Also barely fits in a casing as as waferthin as this one). But then, what style, what color, what class.

NEWSFLASH

HP just announced an upgrade to their workstation line-up that include Thunderbolt 2.0. As probably Dell will do soon. And of course if you can settle for a 15 inch screen you could always use a Macbook Pro with Windows installed via Bootcamp

 

Would be an interesting read for me either way :D

Take your witty but effective answer to ask an updated advice about a laptot (WIN) that I use with Avid Media Composer 8.

Budget around 2000,00€ (I live in Italy)

Thank you

Regards

tvsystem:

Take your witty but effective answer to ask an updated advice about a laptot (WIN) that I use with Avid Media Composer 8.

Budget around 2000,00€ (I live in Italy)

Thank you

Regards

I bought a high end consumer 'multimedia' laptop from Lenovo, Quad core i7, Nvidia Geforce etc. I must say I am very happy with it and it performs very well with Avid, Fusion and the usuals. But at the time it was only a stop gap whilst I built a new desktop. With 2000€ I would definitely now look at lower end workstation laptops. 

I would be after these minimum essentials for Avid: i7 Quad core of at least 2.4GHz, Nvidia GPU with at least 2GB Vram (either GTX or Quadro), FHD (1920 x1080) IPS wide gamut screen and Thunderbolt port/s (preferably TB2). Of course such a machine will have all the USB 3.0s and etc. anyway.

Make doesn't matter but I'd probably plump for Dell from what I'm hearring of value, quality and service. Lenovo have rubbish customer service and some dubious component issues at the moment. HP I'll never touch again and are overpriced.

Just a note concerning the Nvidia GPU. It makes no difference on a laptop, for Avid MC, if you have a Quadro or Geforce. The laptop Quadros can still not use ACPL effects. But it may matter to you for other programs and for your budget you should be able to get a reasonable low to mid Quadro included.

I would not advise to get a 4K display on either a 15" or 17" laptop.

And a final word of caution, make sure you find a laptop with an easily accessible service cover and removable battery: you'll be amazed how rare they are becoming.

Mercer:

I bought a high end consumer 'multimedia' laptop from Lenovo, Quad core i7, Nvidia Geforce etc. I must say I am very happy with it and it performs very well with Avid, Fusion and the usuals. But at the time it was only a stop gap whilst I built a new desktop. With 2000€ I would definitely now look at lower end workstation laptops. 

I would be after these minimum essentials for Avid: i7 Quad core of at least 2.4GHz, Nvidia GPU with at least 2GB Vram (either GTX or Quadro), FHD (1920 x1080) IPS wide gamut screen and Thunderbolt port/s (preferably TB2). Of course such a machine will have all the USB 3.0s and etc. anyway.

Make doesn't matter but I'd probably plump for Dell from what I'm hearring of value, quality and service. Lenovo have rubbish customer service and some dubious component issues at the moment. HP I'll never touch again and are overpriced.

Just a note concerning the Nvidia GPU. It makes no difference on a laptop, for Avid MC, if you have a Quadro or Geforce. The laptop Quadros can still not use ACPL effects. But it may matter to you for other programs and for your budget you should be able to get a reasonable low to mid Quadro included.

I would not advise to get a 4K display on either a 15" or 17" laptop.

And a final word of caution, make sure you find a laptop with an easily accessible service cover and removable battery: you'll be amazed how rare they are becoming.

Thank you for your answer. I need other informations about Quadro or Gtx choise, because only Quadro are cartified from Avid, and then I read some problems about Gtx driver.

This is the configuration that I thought:

Clevo P771DM
Intel Core i7 6700K
32GB DDR4
Hard Disk SSD PCI-Express 256GB +1TB,
Nvidia Quadro M3100 or Nvidia Gtx 970 or Nvidia Gtx 980
Display 17.3" FullHD

Which graphics card should I choose?

Thank you

tvsystem:

Thank you for your answer. I need other informations about Quadro or Gtx choise, because only Quadro are cartified from Avid, and then I read some problems about Gtx driver.

This is the configuration that I thought:

Clevo P771DM
Intel Core i7 6700K
32GB DDR4
Hard Disk SSD PCI-Express 256GB +1TB,
Nvidia Quadro M3100 or Nvidia Gtx 970 or Nvidia Gtx 980
Display 17.3" FullHD

Which graphics card should I choose?

Thank you

The short answer is definitely the Quadro M3100.

The longer answer is that I repeat for Avid it will make no functional difference between a Geforce or Quadro on a mobile platform, except if you have an issue and need to contact support, as happened to me recently. Avid's certification is about limiting qualification to as narrow hardware specs they can in order to minimise problems and costs, and obviously therefore professional hardware is where they need to concentrate (Bear in mind also, and everyone should be aware, that unless you buy a particular certified model from Avid's list, they can technically and may refuse to support it). But since mobile Quadros cannot use ACPL accelerated effects in Avid at the moment (I don't know why) you will see no difference in performance between similar Quadro and Geforce chips. Bear in mind there are no Macbook Pros with Quadros and Avid certify them fully. The Geforce 344.75 or 347.52 drivers are pretty stable as far as I know but you won't be able to use the included Quadro driver with a Geforce card. The only issues, as far as I am aware, were when people tried to edit the GPUqualified text file in order to invoke ACPL, for the above reasons I mentioned.

Having said that the advantages of Quadro with professional 3D and FX 3rd party programmes could be very important for you in terms of such features as precision, 10bit and GPUDirect. Davinci Resolve and Fusion will work happily with powerful Geforce chips but Quadros are probably still better, particularly for Resolve. 

But I would say that presently the quality of the FHD display and the precence of a Thunderbolt port is more important on a laptop. Although you can change the display fairly easily on modern laptops it makes sense to get the best you can, which should be an IPS wide gamut one. Because laptops are far less expandable than desktops a Thunderbolt 2 or better port is really critical if you are going to use 3rd party IO hardware and/or edit in 4K, now or in the future. It appears from the model you are looking at it has a combined USB 3.1/Thunderbolt 3 Type C port, so that should be good.

Overall the Skylake platform laptop you are looking at looks great, especially within that budget, although make sure the Clevo case is sturdy enough, particularly on the the lid. But with a fast Quadcore like that and 32GB of ram it should be an excellent performer with Avid Media Composer. Don't get it with Windows 10 just yet though or if you absolutely have to make sure it is the enterprise version not pro, but that's a whole different subject. Also make sure the psu is powerful enough for the Desktop cpu and 8GB graphics cards - at least 230 watt, you'll never get a lot of battery life but I imagine that is of little concern.

Hope that helps but bear in mind these are just my views after looking into it all for a while, I'm not a professional systems builder.

Mercer:

I bought a high end consumer 'multimedia' laptop from Lenovo, Quad core i7, Nvidia Geforce etc. I must say I am very happy with it and it performs very well with Avid, Fusion and the usuals. But at the time it was only a stop gap whilst I built a new desktop. With 2000€ I would definitely now look at lower end workstation laptops. 

I would be after these minimum essentials for Avid: i7 Quad core of at least 2.4GHz, Nvidia GPU with at least 2GB Vram (either GTX or Quadro), FHD (1920 x1080) IPS wide gamut screen and Thunderbolt port/s (preferably TB2). Of course such a machine will have all the USB 3.0s and etc. anyway.

Make doesn't matter but I'd probably plump for Dell from what I'm hearring of value, quality and service. Lenovo have rubbish customer service and some dubious component issues at the moment. HP I'll never touch again and are overpriced.

Just a note concerning the Nvidia GPU. It makes no difference on a laptop, for Avid MC, if you have a Quadro or Geforce. The laptop Quadros can still not use ACPL effects. But it may matter to you for other programs and for your budget you should be able to get a reasonable low to mid Quadro included.

I would not advise to get a 4K display on either a 15" or 17" laptop.

And a final word of caution, make sure you find a laptop with an easily accessible service cover and removable battery: you'll be amazed how rare they are becoming.

Thank you for your detailed answer. Also another one question please.

Is it better previous configuration also this?

Macbook Pro 15" Display Retina

• Intel Core i7 quad-core a 2,8GHz, Turbo Boost fino a 4,0GHz
• 16GB di SDRAM DDR3L a 1600MHz
• Unità flash PCIe da 512GB
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics + AMD Radeon R9 M370X con 2GB di memoria GDDR5

Thank you

tvsystem:

Thank you for your detailed answer. Also another one question please.

Is it better previous configuration also this?

Macbook Pro 15" Display Retina

• Intel Core i7 quad-core a 2,8GHz, Turbo Boost fino a 4,0GHz
• 16GB di SDRAM DDR3L a 1600MHz
• Unità flash PCIe da 512GB
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics + AMD Radeon R9 M370X con 2GB di memoria GDDR5

 

Thank you

I would say that the Skylake Desktop fast Quad core, 32GB ram (upgradeable to 64) and 8/6Gb Geforce/Quadro of the Windows laptop you quoted would be a much more powerful and capable machine, but I am not too experienced with Mac. I know they are very well made and reliable but they are not upgradable as far as I know (Only 16gb ram?) and they have no user serviceable parts. As I mentioned I would not recommend at this time a 4k or Retina display for Avid MC either.

But it does depend somewhat on which platform you are most comfortable with, Mac or PC, and whether your suite of 3rd party software depends on one or the other too.

In short the Macbook Pro will perform well with Avid but the Clevo will offer a considerable amount of further power into the future IMO.