zv6000 for video/ audio editing???

Hey everybody, I ordered my zv6000 from office depot on the 17th of april. It's still "in process" as of this morning... Yesterday i called techdepot's 800# to ask about the ship date of these bad mamajamas and he told me he'd check and email me. He actually got back to me in like 20 minutes with a response. He said that he called HP and they said my order would ship today (5/7) and get here in 3-5 days. FWIW... I ordered the 3500 chip with 1 gig or ram and the bluetooth option, maybe one of those things held it up, or maybe they just got more orders than they thought. Seems like $1150 after the rebate is a smokin deal, unless the video suks BAD, it should be a sweet little machine, eh?

Anybody have plans to use the zv6k for video editing or audio capture/send with a USB converter??? I used adobe audition and premiere pro 7.0 I've been reading all the posts i can find about this and there is some serious discrepancies in people's opinion of both what video hardware is in this thing and how it'll perform. Somebody posted a linky to ATI's site where it said the 200m has 128-bit "pipeline" somebody else thinks its only 32-bit... I'm not doing any gaming or 3-D stuff, i just wanna capture video from the digicam and edit/burn it to a DVD. Anyone think i'll have any problems wit dat?

Hows bout the USB audio stuff. I'm the sound guy for a rock band and i wanna pump some beats into the board at concerts before and after the gig just to have some background tracks playing. And i wanna capture mic'd sound onto the harddrive while i'm videoing so i can mate the good sound with the video later. will this little jobbie do the trick or do i need a zd8000/x6000? waddau guys and ladies think????

thanks all, take it easy. Benji

 

I used Avid Xpress in my zv6005 before I returned it and it worked with no problems. I even setup 8 lines of video each with layered with disolves, picture in pictures, titles, and superimpostions and it worked with no problem. Adobe premeir should work fine. Only reason I returned it was cuz I would rather have the compaq r4000, cuz I like the look and build of it better. Personal preference.

 

You should be fine for video and audio editing. A faster hardrive would help in those kinds of applications, so hopefully you ordered the 5400 rpm hard drive or you could upgrade it yourself to one of the 7200 rpm hard drives out now. Also when you get it reformat the whole thing, cause HP preinstalls a crap load of programs which will defintately affect your performance for video and audio editing.

 

ya, i got the 80gig 5400 at the time it seemed like the best deal for the dolla, but now I'm kinda wishing i got the 60 @ 7200. But you're right, i can prolly switch out later if it causes too much slow poke trouble.

about the reformat... since you guys and ladies have the thing already, does it come with a disk w/XP alone and a separate disk with the bloatware on it? and can you choose to then just put on selected programs and not all the junk they send with it???

thanks for the info. I agree with you a touch on the r4000 being a little more of a looker... but it looks like it doesn't have the IR port. I don't know why they'd leave that off of one and not the other... i like the gray and i like the shape how it is nice and sealed-looking around the edges; the HP has that big gap in the front... maybe the gap will make it easier to open... (trying to look at the positive...) Man, i'm eagerly awaiting this thing! Ever since installing SP2 on my home desktop, Adobe won't control/ capture from my DV videocam!!! what's the DEAL! I'm hoping that the lappy will work fine. thanks for the info, enjoy your new "rides" Benji[ ]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by maddog

 

yeah i saw that it didn't have the ifrared on it. What is the infrared for anyway?

 

the Infrared is for a couple things. If you have a palm pilot or cell phone with IR, you can "beam" like Scotty. send contacts, pictures, documents, calendar appointments... blah blah

it can also be used as a remote receiver. the zd8000 comes with a remote for windows media center. media center wasn't an option on the 6000 when i configured it, so i'm not really sure what it can be used for. the zd8000's remote was a sweet little tiny jobber that slid into the little pcmciwhatever its called port when not in use. somebody somewhere posted that you can buy that little thing for 20 bucks and that it would work with some other "tv tuner display" program. i can't remember which one though, sorry.


thats nice about the o/s disk stand alone,eh. HP must be listening to the voices of change. If i reload XP on there, are there still a bunch of startup programs i need to get rid of or disable? or will they all be gone with the fresh install???

thanks, later Benji[ ]

 

I just reloaded mine with xp on a smaller partition and it seems to be a clean version. The separate DVD with selectable drivers and apps is also nice. The only startup items seem to be the bluetooth tray and a DVD check (if you install their intervideo), but I don't think they make a difference. Just make sure you don't select the norton apps. I also left off some of the other software (muvee, itunes, zone.com games, help and support center, hp enhancements) and the bootup seems much less bloaty. Also a lot of the trial ads (for isp etc...) are gone now too.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by maddog

 

If anyone sees this i have another question??? My current desktop is a P4 3ghz with 1gig of ram and an ATI Radeon 9600 SEC as the primary video card (128mg i believe) it lists a secondary video controller (for the second monitor support i believe...) as a Vision TEK XTASY 9600

QUESTION: Will the zv6000 (2.2ghz w/1gig ram, and 128mg 200m) at least match my current desktop for using Adobe Premiere for video work and Audition for audio editing??? I am considering ebayin' the zv6k and steppin to a zd8000 if needed, but if the zv6 will at least match my desktop, then i'll stick with it for value's sake. Waddau think??? benji [?]

 

Since you're only doing 2D work, the zv6000 will be a bit better than your P4. Even then, like scottman said, the 9600 isn't that much better than the 200M. The only things a zd8000 would buy you are a larger screen (which would be nice) and a better GPU (which you don't need), but with an inferior CPU and costing more $$$.

 

thanks, just curious though... why exactly is the AMD gonna be a better processor for 2D stuff than the P4? I've learned through conversation (which seems highly suspect at times...) that the hyperthreading of the P4 lends itself to act like a dual core processor for things like rendering and other parts of 2D work. Why is the athlon better suited for this work? I am kinda wantin the bigger screen and the DDR2 ram (wouldn't a gig of that stuff way outperform whatever the zv6000 can do?) but that adds size and weight. And i've also read that the zd8000 is loud and HOT to handle.

I only paid $1170 (after rebate) for the +3500 2.2GHz, BV WXGA, 1gig ram, DVD burner, bluetooth, 128MB video.

seems like I can't find a better deal than that now, and the zd8000 i want is about another 500 bucks. I'm just not sure i need it. I'd rather spend that money on other stuff, like not computer stuff... unless somebody convinces me i need the 8000 or offers to buy the one i'm gettin for more than i paid, i think i'm keepin it.[ ]

 

2D editing is far less intensive than 3D which has a great demand for video graphics support. Hyperthreading for multitasking from what i know is very similar to AMD's HyperTransport (more bandwith, lower latency). AMD's are much more efficient than P4's also allowing them to run at cooler levels. Also, the fact that it is equipt with the 200M, it produces less heat. the HD and graphics Card are the two main power drainers. Program-wise, graphics editing and gaming produce the most heat. Because it's so hot, the zd8000 also needs to run more fans at higher speeds; thus louder.

 

HyperThreading can help or hurt you, depending on what you're doing. It is no substitute for a real dual core CPU like the upcoming Athlon 64 X2 (late June? Opteron servers went dual-core first). Synthetic benchmarks tend to favor HypeTheading since they can cherry pick two threads that won't trip over each other. In the real world it doesn't work that way. Plus, as you noticed, the P4 runs HOT.

I'm hoping the reason HP went Socket 939 for the zv6000 was so they could offer X2's. We'll see. AMD is busy feeding demand for the very pricey Opteron server chips right now (940 pin, just in case you were wondering). The X2's are going to stomp anything Intel makes for what you're doing and burn less power doing it. They're going to be expensive at first though, $500+ and up. Swapping CPUs, when they become available and affordable, is theoretically possible, though they made it rather tedious in the zv6000 (it was easy with the zv5000z, been there done that).

DDR2 RAM should have higher streaming throughput (good) but higher latency (bad) at a higher price (bad)... streaming is what you need though. AMD is big on low latency. I don't think it's enough of an overall difference to worry about.

 

hey hey, you guys are makin me feel all cozy about the zv6000 that's currently in Shanghai on the FedEx ramp...

the one other thing that makes me feel comfy about the 200m is the placement of the PCI express slot which, please correct me if i'm wrong, will enable the graphics to be upgraded in the future. I really don't know how much that will "improve" the functionality of the thing though. Will it allow more video ram to be placed, or more bandwidth for graphix processing, or what??? I'm not really sure. I found a PCI express tv tuner, that was kinda coolio.

 

You mean the ExpressCard 54 slot? That's an improvement on the old PCCard and PCMCIA slots but you can't plug a graphics card into it. It's not designed for high-wattage cards like that. nVidia has a mini-PCIe slot design called MXM, ATI might have an equivalent (or have been smart enough to follow MXM), but I have seen no indication that HP put anything like that in the zv6000. Sorry.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by maddog

 

Wait maddog you ordered yours on 17th and it is shipping on the 7th? First, I thought the promotion ended on the 16th. And second, I ordered mine on the 16th and it is expected to ship on the 10th.

 

yah, I ordered mine on Tuesday the 19th. the Fedex tracking info shows it in Indiana as of 2 this morning. We're past the "9 days..." they stated when i bought the thing, but i'm just happy about the price i paid, 300 bucks more now for same configuration.

I thought i screwed myself back then, cause i was in there and configured one on the 16th, but lacked the ballz to actually buy it; then i noticed the sale ended... Then i saw that preconfigured one at costco, ordered it and thought i was done. I went back to OD and configured one even a little better than the first one, and it came out slightly cheaper??? price fluxuations i guess. so i cancelled the costco order and have waited for the OD one. Your guess is good as mine as to how they prioritized these stupid things... I called the 1-800 # on techdepot's website last friday and gave him my order number and told him that it was way past their "stated" ship date (website still showed it in process), and asked him what he could do about it. He said he would personally check on it and email back what he found. I was delightfully surprised to get an email from him in like 20 minutes or somethin and he said it would ship the next day, he was right; it did. Maybe you should try calling them and ask about your order, i don't know if it'll speed it up or not, but its worth a try, eh? later[ ]

 

The squeeky wheel gets the grease (or laptop). Who do I call about the one I ordered through Costco?

HP Pavilion zv6000
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz)
15.4" Bightview (1280x800)
512MB DDR SDRAM (2x256)
MS Windows XP Pro w/ SP2
80GB 5400 RPM
DVD+/-RW CD-RW Combo Drive
128MB ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
802.11 b/g, Bluetooth
8 cell battery

 

Yea I did actually call them yesterday, and the interesting is the lady told me that it would ship the next day as well (today),and it did. Maybe calling them actually speeds up this process.

 

I think you hit it on the head there with the squeaky wheel theory. whatever works eh?

so i've been watching mine get closer to my doorstep since saturday night, right... Kunshan, then Shanghai, then Anchorage, then Indiana... then this: "Regulatory Agency Clearance Delay"

I figured this might be a normal part of an international shipment, right... so i saw it stuck there all day today. I found me a nice 800 # to fedex and called em up.

the lady says there is some discrepancy as to the contents of the package... can I please verify what is in the box. I'm not WITH the box, but i did order a laptop from HP. they are built in China... uhhhh what else do you need to know. I'm sorry but the department i need to transfer you to just closed for the day a couple minutes ago, please feel free to call us back in the morning. We will also need to get the shipper to verify the contents. thanks for calling fedex, have a good night.

a good NIGHT! are you kiddin me lady! so thats where she rests, all lonely in Indiana just beggin to be plopped on a plane for oregon. Anyone else have such an issue?[?]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by maddog

 

I just talked to fedex this am and they suck! they really don't give you any hope that they are trying to rectify the situation. she basically says "I think it should ship out by the end of the week..."

I really wanted to say: THE END OF THE WEEK LADY, ARE YOU KIDDIN ME! THATS MY NEW LAPPY WE'RE TALKIN ABOUT! GET IT FIGURED OUT!

but i didn't

so i called techdepot's hotline this morning and told the guy everything and also gave him the numbers i found for the indianapolis customs office. he said he was gonna contact his HP rep and get them movin on it.

here's to a new lappy, eventually...[:0]

 

Yeah I know how you feel, I spoke to fedex IP direct distribution this morning after trying to get through for about an hour and a half and they told me they are waiting for some paperwork to come through.

I then spoke to HP and after explaining the situation to the rep, he told me that fedex is waiting on some additional paperwork from the warehouse in china and he basically told me that he couldn't do anything to speed up the process but that it should leave that facility by tomorrow in the a.m.

If I don't get it by saturday I will have to wait another week before I'll be able to get my hands on it. So here's to hoping that I'll get it by then.


"If you find yourself in a hole, it's time to stop digging."

 

i'm not trying to rub it in... i just thought that this was unusually fast. yesterday morning I got an email from fedex that my laptop had been shipped (R4000). It said:

May 10, 2005 11:07 a.m. Left Fedex Origin Location


and today I got an delivery attempt.

May 11, 2005 10:03 Delivery Attempt.

Um.. I was not expecting this laptop till later this week or next. So I wonder why you are having this issue.

 

cause we ordered the nicer one... oh wait, they're the same [^]

I actually tracked down a # for the customs office in Indianapolis and talked some lady named Liz who's the "liason" between fedex and customs. she said there was a bulk shipment from HP in Kunshun (289 computers in one shot) and ONE of them didn't have a tariff # so that held up the whole lot.

i wanted to tell her, ARE YOU KIDDIN ME LADY! i just want my freakin LAPPY 386.

she said that the "paperwork" had been sent by the factory and would be transferred or somethin tonight. they should ship out in the morning.

I also just got an email from the techdepot guy telling me that everything was straightened out and my Precious should be on its way tomorro. Maybe the truck delivering it will drive off a bridge into a lake or something... that would be awesome. oh well, gave me an excuse to go out and clean my fish pond today, just what i didn't want to do...

btw, i do like the look of the R4000 slightly better. a little cleaner lines in my opinion, but i never could configure it the same as mine for cheaper, and it didn't have the IR port. congrats on your new arrival though, i'll drink to your new little bundle of joy[ ]

 

What a coincidence, mine is in Indianapolis as well and it only took a day...but it seems sooooo looooooonngggg. Although it says the expected delivery date is on monday the 16th, I'm expecting it sooner. How long can it take from IN to CA? But anyways, the zv6000 has IR port? where does it say that?

 

My laptop left Indianapolis a couple hours ago so it's on the way and the estimated delivery date is still May 13 so hope I get it by then.

"If you find yourself in a hole, it's time to stop digging."

 

The IR port is not really what it sounds like. According to Hp, it can ONLY be used in conjunction with specific video software & specific remotes offered by them. BTW, the port is located in the front, b/w the volume controls:

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/3750.jpg

------------------------------
Http://www.zv6000forums.com

For all zv6k/r4k dialogue.

 

fedex tracking shows mine in portland on a truck this morning comin to my house. i was gonna go run some errands today... maybe i'll stick around and maybe sit on the porch with a brew waiting. haha i can't wait[ ]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by maddog
the screen is nice and bright, i need to run that dead pixel locator somebody posted to see if i'm good, but i don't notice any yet.
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

Why would you specifically look for dead pixels if you don't notice them?

Russ

HP ZV5000z
Athlon 64 3000+
768mb RAM
60gb 4200rpm HD
nVidia G0 440 64mb
DVD-RW/CD-RW
1394, 5-in-1 card reader
15.4" wide screen
802.11 b/g w/Speedbooster

 

i'm typin on my new lappy right now hooked up wireless to the internet. this is pretty sweet. the fedex guy thought i was wierd cause i was drooling and foaming at the mouth as he walked up. he asked me politely not to hump his leg...

initial review:

looks and works fine
had a little trouble setting up wireless internet, quick call to D-link solved the problem.

intervideo DVD player seems like it kinda sucks, bad video quality.

i want to get rid of lots of crappy bloatware on this thing and update any drivers that can be.

sound is fairly weak. i haven't really tried playing much, but the movie i had in was real quiet.

the sound of the fan going is nothing compared to any desktop i've ever had. its actually more of a "soothing" wind sound, not electronic or mechanical sounding.

build quality seems fine so far. the keyboard is tight, no flex at all. I got both the vertical and horizontal scroll zones workin, although they aren't perfect, they do work okay.

the screen is nice and bright, i need to run that dead pixel locator somebody posted to see if i'm good, but i don't notice any yet.

as long as this thing runs my video capture stuff well, i'm a happy camper.

also, the button that toggles the touchpad area on/off is NICE, i use it all the time cause my righ palm touches the scroller all the time.[ ][ ]

 

i guess i thought there could be dead pixels that i may or may not actually notice for awhile until i viewed something that actually "pointed" them out. Maybe there aren't any, that'd be great. I just read a couple posts where people with this same computer had dead pixels and somebody posted a linky to a utility program to show you if you have any. dats all i know...

 

mine came too!!! im so happy now, im actually typing right now on mine!!!![ ]

 

yup, me too. this thing is runnin' sweet. I reloaded windows xp on and then chose just the bare applications from the software disk (need a bunch of drivers from there also) and this thing is smokin fast at everything i'm using it for.

I just loaded all the adobe software for video editing and dvd authoring and it all seems to be working great. I'm a happy camper. I don't do any gaming (thats what the xbox is for) so i'm sure this machine is gonna fill the bill for quite a while now. its just plain cool to be surfin the web downstairs at the dinner table with no wires connected... [^]

let me know how its goin for you all.

 

to bad the x-box isn't portable, wonder why they dont make one?

 

i just saw a new version of the xbox is out now, haven't actually seen it yet though. supposedly has dual processors among other improvements. yeah, i agree, they need to step up and bring some competition to sony's PSP. for now i guess i'll have to go to my family room til then...

 

Hey Maddog,

Have you tried capturing video with your laptop yet? Keep us posted on how it works.

Also, this link to ATI gives a good picture of some display capabilities for the card:

http://ati.com/products/radeonxpress200m/specs.html

thanks,

Derek

 

results are in, this thing works AWESOME!!!!!! not kidding, I wouldn't say that it "smokes" my desktop, but definitely faster, and reliable. hasn't dropped a capture yet. i have been capturing to the internal hard drive and then transferring the whole thing to an external 250gig 7200rpm hooked up with firewire (used to be second drive in desktop, put it in a nexstar case; works awesome)

I then edit straight from the external drive, save it, and burn onto DVD. seems to work great. and to do it mobile, SWEET!!!

I also just bought the Delorme Street Atlas 2005 w/usb GPS pod. that also works flawlessly. only 75 bucks at Fry's Electronic's. Man, it is SO cool to see your trail around town displayed in real time on the lappy. It actually displays your current speed and direction very very accurately. the speed was easily within 1mph all the time. I wonder if you could pull up a saved log to use as evidence in court that you weren't speeding??? hmmmm

anyways, the lappy is workin awesome except for one thing. Playing DVD's is odd. Some play fine, but i just put in Life of David Gale, and it wouldn't play, gave me message that intervideo wouldn't play that kind of disc... the DVD actually loaded its own player onto the computer and now it works. But the intervideo player seems to kind of be a cheap one, not a very good picture. Windows media player doesn't play DVD's right either, anyone have any suggestions???

later, Benji O.

 

I think you should download the new version of media player (10), as mine came with 9. Also, consider trying the free download of divx, its a codec that might work for burned video files. found at www.divx.com

 

ya, thats a good idea, i've been meaning to get media player 10.

what's the benefit of divx? I have no trouble burning dvds now, what will i gain with the divx codec?

thanks, Benji