Red Submarine DV-LT 2.8 review

Red Submarine's DV-LT 2.8 may be a relatively hefty beast, but that's probably because there's a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, 1GB of memory, two hard disks and a 15.1in screen buried inside. Okay, so it's far from ideal for the travelling executive, but it's perfect for the moviemaker on the run, who won't find it a burden when already packed with camcorders, sound gear and tape stock.

Two internal hard disks are installed - a 40GB system disk and a 40GB video-capture disk - both running at 5,400rpm. The AV disk is good for just under three hours of DV capture, but that's not allowing for temp files and rendered effects. A bigger disk would have been better, but failing that an external one is a must.

As you'd expect from a DV editing laptop, the Red Submarine has FireWire built in, but only one unpowered four-pin socket. It can't, therefore, supply power to FireWire drives and you're unable to capture via DV to an external FireWire hard disk, as there aren't enough ports. Fortunately, the system is equipped with four USB 2 ports, which will be ideal for LaCie Pocket Drives if the internal video drive proves too small.

A second monitor feed allows the Desktop to be spanned across two displays, which is a huge bonus for video editors who regularly wrestle with numerous project windows. But even on its own, the 15.1in display is sharp, with good colour, and perfectly adequate for video editing. The keyboard is a good size too and comfortable, but I strongly recommend using a mouse for video editing rather than the built-in touchpad. The built-in speakers deliver reasonable sound, but there's also a headphone socket for more discreet work.

The supplied optical drive is a combined DVD-ROM and CD-RW unit, and there's also a single PC Card slot for further expansion cards, such as a second FireWire port. Video editing can be a slow process, so it's best to keep your editing system (and any connected camcorders or decks) powered from the mains rather than batteries - our intensive rundown expired after just 54 minutes.

Given the power under the hood, the DV-LT 2.8 is surprisingly quiet. It's by far the fastest notebook seen at PC Pro - the overall 2D benchmark score of 1.42 is streets ahead of anything else we've seen. It's also the second fastest laptop we've seen for 3D performance, with a 3DMark2001 SE score of 6,802 in 32-bit XGA.

Mainstream laptops have been capable of handling DV editing for a couple of years, but data-heavy functions such as real-time effects previewing and video encoding for DVD or the Net are now becoming the responsibility of software and system power. It pays, therefore, to have as much power as you can afford, which includes your choice of software.

Red Submarine provides the DV-LT 2.8 with Avid Xpress DV 3.5 as standard (or with the Power Pack for £3,995), which alone costs around £1,300. It's also dongle-protected, using up one of the system's USB 2 ports. But with a mouse occupying another port, that still leaves you two free ports for external drives.

Xpress DV is an excellent choice, though, focusing on editing and storytelling rather than selling itself on effects. It's a timeline-based editor, but sports only eight video and eight audio tracks, although each one can contain a further eight 'nested' tracks, which effectively makes for unlimited media tracks.

The editing and media management tools are first-rate, and Xpress DV feels comfortable, intuitive and professional. The audio tools are also reasonable, but not outstanding. The video effects tools are very rich, however, with an excellent colour-correction interface and plenty of video filters.