Laptop for Digital Imaging

[yettitheman]

True, however even with the faster spinning access times can generally be reduced and transfer rates increased. The drives are at a point at the moment where the data density seems to make that less effective, for whatever reason. And yes some SS drives can be faster in certain ways but from what I've seen many can fall down when you have enough simultaneous transfers going on.

Have you seen Intel's new SLC and MLC SSD's? Very very fast, and the old mechanical drives only come ahead in very few situations.

And of course my statement of false was mostly in response to your assertion that a Mac is a superior imaging platform. A dated statement that never had a strong foundation in practical results anyway. Certainly Apple had an early foothold in much of the media content/creation but catering to that crowd, tradition and user comfort with the familiar have likely had more to do with the perception of their superiority than anything else.

Couldn't have said that better. With that said, though, the systems are still usable beyond a doubt, and cases/system design are pretty neat.
The only Apple that wowed me with it's electronic design and technological ingeniousness was the old Apple II. The things they were able to make that machine do with so few chips.... I'll have to find the article Woz did a while ago about how he was designing the audio interface. Real neat stuff.

 

[yettitheman]

Ok, pulled the trigger... Thinkpad W500..
Thanks for all your help... I'll let ya know what I think once its in my hands... so much for that new DIY sub project.. oh well...

No problem. I think you'll love the Thinkpad. It should serve you for many many years.

 

[lsiberian]

You can talk about theoreticals all you want, I know the differences. In actual use the G4 often fell behind its contemporaries using many mainstream imaging software programs... particularly later in its life as Motorola failed to scale it effectively.



Looks like he did, certainly doesn't hurt.



True, however even with the faster spinning access times can generally be reduced and transfer rates increased. The drives are at a point at the moment where the data density seems to make that less effective, for whatever reason. And yes some SS drives can be faster in certain ways but from what I've seen many can fall down when you have enough simultaneous transfers going on.

And of course my statement of false was mostly in response to your assertion that a Mac is a superior imaging platform. A dated statement that never had a strong foundation in practical results anyway. Certainly Apple had an early foothold in much of the media content/creation but catering to that crowd, tradition and user comfort with the familiar have likely had more to do with the perception of their superiority than anything else.

It isn't theoretical. there is a major drop in the instructions count when the velocity engine is use. I do think that IA architecture is superior in design because it's more flexible, easier to code for and generally cheaper. A risc processor used to it's full potential will smoke a CISC chip in most applications. That being said Windows is far easier to program for and has way better development tools. Visual Studio is a major reason why Windows has so many more apps. I can build an app in a couple of days with Visual Studio whereas other tools would take significantly longer. Since Windows is so much easier to program for your tools will likely be more efficient, and have more features. Thus the reason they win the battle. I of course would never buy a mac so the whole argument is a moot point. I think he made an excellent well informed buy and will be very happy with the results. It's nice that there is a forum with so many knowledgeable people on it. I love this place.

Solid State Drives have numerous advantages in certain situations. But it is very expensive to build large drives and you will want to have very good defragging to get the true benefits. Of course there are always situations where a standard hard drive would outperform a solid state one. The standard hard drive is going to be obsolete in 10 years IMO for most applications. The seek time is a real issue though on a standard hard drive. And it takes milliseconds for a the head to move and start reading. a solid state drive works in the microseconds magnitude. Though if your data is poorly distributed a solid state drive will run much much slower.

If you have a program timer. Try this. write an array based program with two loops.

An outer and an inner

Flip the indexes on the outer and inner. there is a huge performance difference. It's crazy how big a difference that makes. That is what a fragmented file on a solid state drive will do.

 

[emorphien]

It isn't theoretical. there is a major drop in the instructions count when the velocity engine is use. I do think that IA architecture is superior in design because it's more flexible, easier to code for and generally cheaper. A risc processor used to it's full potential will smoke a CISC chip in most applications. That being said Windows is far easier to program for and has way better development tools. Visual Studio is a major reason why Windows has so many more apps. I can build an app in a couple of days with Visual Studio whereas other tools would take significantly longer. Since Windows is so much easier to program for your tools will likely be more efficient, and have more features. Thus the reason they win the battle. I of course would never buy a mac so the whole argument is a moot point. I think he made an excellent well informed buy and will be very happy with the results. It's nice that there is a forum with so many knowledgeable people on it. I love this place.

I said theoretical in the sense that yes it has the capability to do all that you said, but using the applications most people in the digital imaging/photography world use do not show there to be an advantage in that direction. Of course if coded specifically for the G4 then there would be big advantages, but that can really be said of just about any CPU.

Take Adobe for example, with support for multiple cores and now adding support in CS4 for GPU processing (which is an excellent tool for array processing obviously) there are a lot of exciting directions for the biggest and most popular software packages for most "consumer" (in other words not scientific, etc) imaging applications to really get some major boosts in speed. I don't have CS4 yet, but I'm waffling on picking it up soon.

Solid State Drives have numerous advantages in certain situations. But it is very expensive to build large drives and you will want to have very good defragging to get the true benefits. Of course there are always situations where a standard hard drive would outperform a solid state one. The standard hard drive is going to be obsolete in 10 years IMO for most applications. The seek time is a real issue though on a standard hard drive. And it takes milliseconds for a the head to move and start reading. a solid state drive works in the microseconds magnitude. Though if your data is poorly distributed a solid state drive will run much much slower.

No kidding, I'm watching and waiting for SSDs to offer better capacity/$ and for the higher performance SSDs with more access channels to come down in price. The system drive on my desktop would surely get swapped out for one of those when the time comes

I could take advantage of even the current crop of SSDs with their fewer access channels if I used them for image storage, particularly for images I'm working on in the immediate future since even if I can't access multiple pieces as fast as with an unfragmented HD, the transfer rate for a single file (which is what I'd care about) is much faster than the HDs are without getting in to SAS drives.

Have you seen Intel's new SLC and MLC SSD's? Very very fast, and the old mechanical drives only come ahead in very few situations.

Yes indeed. The problem with many of the more affordable SSDs seems to be the controller. Not enough channels perhaps. Intel has some SSDs that get around that and perhaps others, they're just much more expensive.

I won't mourn the death of ye olde spinning platter for most things, although for cheap capacity until SSDs surpass them I think I'll continue to use multiple hard drives as backup media.

 

[lsiberian]

I said theoretical in the sense that yes it has the capability to do all that you said, but using the applications most people in the digital imaging/photography world use do not show there to be an advantage in that direction. Of course if coded specifically for the G4 then there would be big advantages, but that can really be said of just about any CPU.

Take Adobe for example, with support for multiple cores and now adding support in CS4 for GPU processing (which is an excellent tool for array processing obviously) there are a lot of exciting directions for the biggest and most popular software packages for most "consumer" (in other words not scientific, etc) imaging applications to really get some major boosts in speed. I don't have CS4 yet, but I'm waffling on picking it up soon.


No kidding, I'm watching and waiting for SSDs to offer better capacity/$ and for the higher performance SSDs with more access channels to come down in price. The system drive on my desktop would surely get swapped out for one of those when the time comes

I could take advantage of even the current crop of SSDs with their fewer access channels if I used them for image storage, particularly for images I'm working on in the immediate future since even if I can't access multiple pieces as fast as with an unfragmented HD, the transfer rate for a single file (which is what I'd care about) is much faster than the HDs are without getting in to SAS drives.



Yes indeed. The problem with many of the more affordable SSDs seems to be the controller. Not enough channels perhaps. Intel has some SSDs that get around that and perhaps others, they're just much more expensive.

I won't mourn the death of ye olde spinning platter for most things, although for cheap capacity until SSDs surpass them I think I'll continue to use multiple hard drives as backup media.

Neither will I. I think Blu-ray burners would be amazing though.

 

[emorphien]

If Blu-Ray burners and the media were cheaper I'd seriously consider it as an additional means of backing up my data, including my images. CDs and DVDs are both just too small to be worth it.

 

[lsiberian]

If Blu-Ray burners and the media were cheaper I'd seriously consider it as an additional means of backing up my data, including my images. CDs and DVDs are both just too small to be worth it.

They will be. CD burners cost 1000 dollars about 10 years ago. They are now like 20 dollars.

It will take some time though. But with 16 layer Blu-rays that's a lot of storage space.

 

[emorphien]

It is a lot of storage space, and it will take forever to burn! I do wonder about the longevity of those but time will tell. I remember when I bought a Plextor DVD burner that was $200... now you get all that for $30.

 

[lsiberian]

It is a lot of storage space, and it will take forever to burn! I do wonder about the longevity of those but time will tell. I remember when I bought a Plextor DVD burner that was $200... now you get all that for $30.

Well not necessarily. Cheap stuff will have a much greater amount of multiplexers and de-multiplexers in it. It's one way you can save a lot of money on copper. Plextor made good drives though.

 

[emorphien]

I've got my old Plextor PX708A in an external enclosure. It's funny I still remember the model #.

 

[yettitheman]

Yes indeed. The problem with many of the more affordable SSDs seems to be the controller. Not enough channels perhaps. Intel has some SSDs that get around that and perhaps others, they're just much more expensive.

Channels, cheap NAND, and crappy (see don't care about NAND write cycles) controllers. Where Intel has it correct, is the controller. I'm sure a lot of time and calculating went into how to make a controller that writes as few times as possible. Reading does not kill the NAND, but a lot of writes do.

I won't mourn the death of ye olde spinning platter for most things, although for cheap capacity until SSDs surpass them I think I'll continue to use multiple hard drives as backup media.

Same here. I have a few MyBooks laying around in various sizes, as well as a couple old Sun Storedge A1000 JBOD boxes interfacing with a Ultra 1. Still working out the kinks on that one.

 

[adwilk]

Just wanted to update... I've had the machine about 2 weeks or so now... I'm very happy with it. Pleasantly surprised that it didnt come with a bunch of junk pre-installed like so many OEMs like to do. I'm glad I asked here, the advice was very spot on. I love the display and glad I didnt go with a cheaper one. Its plenty quick and has made mobile computing much more enjoyable.

Just wanted to follow up and say thanks again...

Now back to the search for a new camera...

 

[highfigh]

Alright, unfortunately, It has to be a mobile solution... As far as a desktop goes, I've got one that'll do the trick that i built about 8-10 months ago and really doesnt need an upgrade just yet. I need to put together imaging projects on the road and use a lot of graphic intensive processes in web development and what not.

If you look at Dell for Business, you can still get XP Pro.

 

[emorphien]

Just wanted to update... I've had the machine about 2 weeks or so now... I'm very happy with it. Pleasantly surprised that it didnt come with a bunch of junk pre-installed like so many OEMs like to do. I'm glad I asked here, the advice was very spot on. I love the display and glad I didnt go with a cheaper one. Its plenty quick and has made mobile computing much more enjoyable.

Just wanted to follow up and say thanks again...

Now back to the search for a new camera...

Well if you need camera advice let me know

 

[adwilk]

I need camera advice... best bang for buck for under 800

 

[emorphien]

I need camera advice... best bang for buck for under 800

I assume you mean you want a DSLR but I should probably make sure. If that's the case do you have any lenses already or are you basically looking for a starter kit. I'm kind of thinking that's the case.

The "biggest" brands with the most accessories and all that would be Canon and Nikon then and the Canon Rebel XSi or Nikon D60 would both be available in various kit forms with a lens or sometimes 2 within your price range. Pentax (K200) and Sony (A350) are also options in kit form under your price.

There are also lower end models beneath those from those manufacturers. There's also Olympus but I somewhat struggle to consider a lot of their 4/3s system as being good bang for the buck.

Within the options mentioned previously (Canon, Sony, Nikon, Pentax) there are various advantages. System-wise I think Canon and Nikon are the best options but they all have their strengths. Usually Pentax may fall behind a bit on gadgets but their ergonomics will likely be the best of those four as that has traditionally been the case. To decide what you want you have to consider how much you want to invest in a system and how far down the rabbit hole you plan to go (in terms of additional lenses and accessories). Otherwise the best way to decide would be to go to a camera store and check out those cameras and see which you find best in terms of comfort, viewfinder, ergonomics and interface.

 

[adwilk]

I've been eying the D60 for a bit now.. seems to get good reviews...

Its here at newegg

Seems like a good price.. might have to pull the trigger... I assume i can get different/other lenses for it?

 

[emorphien]

I've been eying the D60 for a bit now.. seems to get good reviews...

Its here at newegg

Seems like a good price.. might have to pull the trigger... I assume i can get different/other lenses for it?

There's a lower price somewhere else. I'll PM you the details since I'd like to ask you to do something for me if you could.