Cam's Recommended Gear

Your Computer

If it’s not immediately obvious to you, I’m a Mac guy. I prefer the user experience and if there’s something I need a PC for, I use a PC for that specific task (or run parallels, or run a cloud based windows system). I’ve also been using Macs for over 30 years (I started early), so there are some inverted golden handcuffs at play (I pay them). 

It used to be that Macs and creative production went hand in hand. All videos were edited in Avid or Final Cut Pro 7 (RIP, or earlier versions). No one used PCs for these tasks. In the late 2000s, Apple dropped Final Cut Pro 7 development and most post-production generalists reluctantly shifted over to Premiere. At that point, most folks got locked into the Adobe ecosystem and are still there. While Final Cut X has it’s niche, you can walk into any production company and if you know Premiere, you’ll fit in just fine. More and more folks are also using DaVinci as their color suite and NLE, but if you’re used to using ADLs and After Effects is integral to your post production tool box, adding in an editor that doesn’t support ADL is an efficiency slow-down. 

Ok, now that you know that perspective, let’s talk about performance. 

I want something light, can fit in my backpack, can be used to drive media to several 4k surfaces in a pinch, and renders reasonably quickly. A high-end MacBook Pro with Apple Silicone, for the first time, can out-perform rendering in some use-cases on a high-end Windows machine that is tuned for post-production. Not a lot to offer in terms of AAA gaming, but for work, it’s truly a miracle of engineering. The needs for my personal “main whip” are different from the needs of a media server.

If you’re going to be doing a lot of renders – for what “kind” of computer to buy, I recommend reading through the info about rendering, as it breaks out performance of analogous specs and what they’re good for. 

The Windows analog of a high-end Apple silicone laptop is probably a Razor Blade. A step up from there is a custom build from Falcon Northwest. I can recommend both thanks to Kurt Lorey and Jason Batcheller.  

Internal Hard Drives

Most folks will do just fine with a 2TB internal M2 or NVME. If you’re managing several large-footprint media projects simultaneously and you don’t want to delete your itunes media from 2008, you might want an even bigger drive. You can always pinch-hit with external drives and RAIDs, but being nimble and using less things can be a massive time saver. My rule is basically this: buy the biggest you can afford. Read more about hard drives of all kinds and their use cases.

Processors

You want 8-Core or more for most things except for Web Books, POS, Digital Menus, or Kiosk NUCs. I’ve worked with 10-Cores that absolutely scream and 16-Cores that are miserable so it’s a bit subjective and is very dependent on the RAM and GPU configuration. 

RAM

Here’s a nice breakdown:

Your Kit

Every good nerd has a toolbox of gear. Cornelius AKA Projectile Objects (of VIDVOX / VDMX fame) put together a killer guide for VJ touring gear and there’s a lot of crossover with my kit. I love to see that Hot Shit all broken out. Check it out here. Very comprehensive. 

Before you proceed, I recommend watching this video about “Every Day Carry” (EDC)

Here are my recommendations. 

Base-Line

For All Kinds Of Projects AKA your “Kit”

Bonus Gear

Adapters, Headless, Cables, Signal Distro

Some adapters have limited or specific resolutions. Look it up first! Active adapters are always better, but often unnecessary. They cost about twice as much as their stupid relatives.

You may also want some signal distribution or signal splitting devices.

Documentation & Recording

The biggest mistake you can make is not documenting your work. Even if someone else says they're going to do it, they might not do it well, or capture what you need for the reel or portfolio.