Minimum laptop spec for K3CCD?

[GazOC]

Can someone tell me what the minimum spec for running K3CCD and a Toucam Pro?

I want to get a cheap lappy so I don't have my 'best' one outside getting dewed up and knocked about!

The main questions are processor speed, memory and do I need USB 2 or can I get away with USB 1? I'd like to cut every corner possible on this as webcaming will be the sole use for this laptop, it won't need to do anything else at all, I can do the processing on my other PCs.

[daz]

Gaz - I will PM you later. I may have the perfect thing for you.....

[Jamie]

As for the specs , just keep the hamster fed :lol:

Processor = 450mz

Ram = 64

HD space = a couple of GIG would do.

[GazOC]

Thats the type of answer I wanted mate!! I can pick one of those up for £60-£70 off Ebay.

Is the USB 1/USB2 thing an issue with getting the frames into the laptop?

[Jamie]

USB 1 will suffice mate no issue there.

But if Daz has something you can use then hold off buying anything till you have spoken to him first.

[GazOC]

I've seen Daz, the laptop was a bit high end for what I need.

[russ]

Gaz, you can go with a PII 300 if it makes it dirt cheap. Both K3CCD and the Toucam require a PII 233 min spec. I ran for 18 months with a Dell Latitude equipped with a PII400 and 64Mb.

HD space runs out very quickly. You're gonna want to 2-3Gb spare before starting out each night. If you shoot at 640x480, you can gobble as much as 0.5Gb per AVI. Usually 200-300Kb per movie. Better bet is to shoot at 358x288 and the movies shrink to 60-100Kb.

Russ

[Jamie]

Or you can do the bigger versions and just move the files after every session.

[GazOC]

Do you loose image quality when you lower resolution or is the image the same quialty but croppped down?

[russ]

It's cropped down Gaz, so you don't lose anything other than empty Space. 320x240 would be low res.

There's another upside to shooting at 358x288. Because there's less data travelling down the USB cable, the camera can use less compression at 10fps, so better quality movie. To get the best out of 640x480 you have to shoot at 5fps.

Russ

[russ]

one downside, if your tracking is not good the planet moves off screen pretty quick.

[GazOC]

LOL!! I had thought of that, but then again if you can get 10FPS rather than 5FPS you won't need to track as long anyway (is that right? )

[russ]

Little nudges on the EQ6 hand controller at 2x slew keeps it in chack.