Asus VivoTab Note 8 - Reviews

This is super interesting! I would have thought the 32-bit limitation difficult to work around as most modern video production software.

Could you give a full list of the production software you use that runs well on the VTN8? This would open a lot of new use cases for the many power users on this forum! Thanks!

 

well, some softwares indeed require 64 bit today - the most imporant being Premiere Pro CC/CS6 (32 bit up to CS4) or the current Avid Media Composer (32 bit up to media composer 5 iirc) and Fusion (iirc 32bit until 2015 release).

However, these are few, and for any of them there are good alternatives.

Listing them all would be toooo long a list, so i will focus on the free/open source and the "oldies but goldies" one can grab for a good price on ebay etc.

Editing:
Free:
Lightworks
http://www.lwks.com/
Lightworks is the editing systen whicht cut, among many many others, Batman, Mission Impossible, Braveheart, Pul Fiction etc etc. Free is limited to 720P output, above that its (iirc) +-10-15$ monthly. However, as the Asus has a 720/800p display, 720P output is the way to go anyhow.
Lightworks is extremly powerful - here is a short overview:

Download link:
http://www.lwks.com/index.php?option=com_lwks&view=download&layout=d&dtype=win_public_32&Itemid=206
commercial license:
I also have my (older) Premiere Pro CS4 license on the Asus - that one i rather use if i feed my other systems with the Vivotab, or want to send 1080P (or higher) resolutions to clients.

3D CGI
Free:
Blender
Works very nice with the Vivotab, highly recommended software on any platform.
Blender is also extremly powerful - a true rival for the €€€€ packages as 3ds max/Maya.
Here is a short showreel of blender

Download link:
http://www.blender.org/download/
commercial license:
I also have (sometimes) my older 3ds max v6 license on the vivotab, mainly to access older projects & to interface with co-workers.

Encoding
Free:
Handbrake
One of the most versatile and fast frontends for encoding/transcoding.
download link
https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

Besides handbrake, several opensource encoders (from ffmpeg to, dont laugh, some DCI-tools).
commercial license:
Also the Adobe Media Encoder which is part of the Premiere Pro CS4 license.

Rotoscope Compositing VFX.
Free:
KRITA
Logically. Krita is such a nice tool. Basically a mix of photoshop with fractal design painter/artrage/manga studio.
Here is an (very old & outdated, meanwhile NTRIG is supported and much more) short video which shows dual mode:

and a short self-portrait

download link:
https://krita.org/download/krita-desktop/

NATRON
Basically a compact open-source NUKE clone.
download link:
https://natron.inria.fr/install/

commercial license:
Also, and thats my main tool, i keep my old combustion license on the vaiotap; basically my swiss-army knife for VFX, as well as (blast from the past) Elastic reality (still one of the best warp/morphers out there )

 

Nice painting, I like Krita's brushes but found it unbearably chuggy/laggy/slow to start on my AVTN8 so it's been installed and deleted twice now. It's actually running smoothly for you? I basically just use PS CC on it, and OneNote for quick doodles/discussions. I was using the Metro Sketchbook app a bunch before they upgraded it and removed the 'brush radius start from zero' from the free version...

 

krita takes a long time to startup, yea, i can confirm that.
But once its loaded however its fast enough IMHO/for me.

If you want to draw/paint AND free software AND have lightning-fast startup - how about "fresh paint"?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/freshpaint/default.html

 

I'll give Blender a spin sometime on the AVTN8 (I admit to hating the desktop interface also). Good to know!

Fresh Paint came preinstalled, so I doodle in it sometimes. It's really just a toy though. The brushes are quite soothing for messing around with but the pencil brush is just too wide by default + that horrid preloaded canvas texture that I have to change every time...

The nice thing about OneNote is you click it and you are instantly there with an ink pen. The standard ink brush is actually really nice for sketching thumbnails and ideabashing with other people. Plus it's OneNote so everything is nicely accessible and easy to look through, perfect for notes.

I messed around with Sketchable and ArtRage the other day in metro and I'm on the fence about those two too. I have too many unused purchased artapps on the GNote, don't want to repeat that I don't mind paying for software as long as I'm going to use it but god knows I bought almost every single art app on the GN and used maybe 2 of them properly, ever.

FireAlpaca starts super fast (also free), has decent brushes and works with PSDs to a fair extent. I'm surprised Krita is so slow in comparison -- Krita also crashed a few times during a short testing period so that was like a big downer. Maybe they have improved it in the version you have. However if it still has that insanely long startup time I'll just load PS CC instead since I have a license anyway PS has crashed, but only a couple times in the last..... almost a year that I've had the AVTN8. Multi-layered/large PSDs are the main problem for the dinky RAM of the AVTN8, aside from that I'm really impressed by Baytrail.

 

Hi! Does anyone know where I can find the VivoTab Note 8 in the NYC area. I don't want to order online...want to test drive it first. Googled and tried these places: staples, best buy, b&h, microcenter, and called a few other stores. Thanks!

 

Given that its around 16 months old, I doubt you'll find it in any chain stores. Asus even phased it out for the pen-less models. The only store that even had it on display were the Microsoft Stores, but they don't carry them anymore.

The B&H NYC mega-store would probably be your best chance though since they do have a very vast selection. You may also get lucky with non-chain electronic stores. Not even so much the ones in time square with everything in the windows....but a few years ago I missed the last 1:21am train and just drunk walked the city all night, and in the morning to kill some time I stumbled into a non-chain electronic store....no way I'll remember the name or where it was......but it was open as early as 6am....that aside...my biggest surprise was the selection.....they had almost every tablet PC that was available around that time. The Ep121, S7S, Q550, and just alot of other Fujitsu/Lenovo tablets you would usually never see at a brick and mortar store.

If the chains don't have it.....a non-chain might be your best hope.

 

Does anyone know where I can find XYZ in southwest Virginia? ... oh I guess I'm the only one around here that lives there =P