Using an ACER Laptop with Video Editing - possible ?

[deepdown]

I've got this great offer, buying a ACER computer,

Acer Travelmate 291LCi, Centrino 1.4Ghz
15" TFT, 512MB, 40GB, DVD/CDRW, WXP Pro
Intel®Extreme Graphics Technology opp til 64 MB (DVMT 2.0)

Or should I go for;

Acer Aspire 1603ELM, P4 2.6GHz
15" TFT, 512MB, 40GB, DVD-RW, WinXP Home
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000

Just wondering - are these computers good enough ?

After what I read, is that its better to buy a laptop with a good quality graphic card, since they are non-replacable. True ?

Centrino prosessors uses less amount of power - but is it good for games ?

Thank you for helping me making a selection..
I will write back instantly to replies!

[unclebud]

If you want to play games go for the ATI mobility graphics over the Intel extreme.
For video editing either should work just fine.

[snafu099]

More than enough provided you use the right capture device such as USB2 or firewire hardware encoding. Check out the sys specs for these devices, they are not that high. The encoding is done within the device not the computer so the "critical" part of pc is I/O thru-put and hdd speed.

Except for IDVD-1, I would recommend looking here:
http://www.adstech.com

They are supposed to be coming out with new product in March, InstantTV Deluxe $229-us (srp) usb2,tv-tuner,pvr,remote

[deepdown]

These laptops come with IEEE plugs.
But do Pinnacle Studio support them ? Or do I have to use a "pinnacle firware device" ?
(i'm used to pinnacle studio dv 8.0, so would be nice to keep using it)

But looks like either PCs are good enough. Although I might need more HDD. But that I can buy later on.

[donpedro]

I believe that PS should work with any FireWire port (but I might be wrong, I have never tested it) based on that they say on the web.
Pinnacle Studio specification

[deepdown]

Hehe,.. and you should be the Pinnacle expert here,
Ah, don't worry. But it would be nice to know if anyone done this!

[donpedro]

Tell you the truth, I was planing to test it on laptop but I was not willing to spend extra money on 4pin-4pin FireWire cable since laptops usually have 4pin connector. Now when I have cable, my previous laptop is dead and new one does not have firewire.

BTW: I am not an expert. I am just trying to help.

[deepdown]

I thought the laptops had 6pin firewire.
But more important - that the laptop is able to render video!!!

After what I read, the Centrino 1.4 is almost the same as Athlon XP 2200+ or Pentium 4 2,2 GHz.

Comments on that ?

[mujahid7ia]

Yes, the Centrino's Pentium M is a lot faster than a comparable clock speed Pentium 4 M CPU.

From http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109606,00.asp:

Power Boost, Too

Most mobile users don't want to sacrifice performance to get long battery life. That won't be an issue for Pentium M-based notebooks, thanks to a more efficient processor architecture built from the ground up to be a mobile part (Intel's previous mobile chips are reconfigured desktop parts).

The new chip completes more instructions per clock cycle than today's P4 chips (which favor higher MHz instead), and the Pentium M has a 1MB Level 2 cache (twice that of the P4's 512KB L2 cache). As a result, the three 1.6-GHz test notebooks landed impressive PC WorldBench 4 scores, outpacing notebooks with faster-running P4 and P4-M processors.

The Dell Latitude, the highest-performing notebook we've tested to date, scored 125--a noteworthy 13 points higher than our previous top mobile performer, a 9.5-pound desktop replacement from Toshiba with a 2.5-GHz desktop P4 processor. That's about 12 percent faster, a performance gain any user would notice.

The IBM is close behind at 124, and Toshiba's Tecra M1 machine landed a still zippy 111--a significant hop from a comparison Tecra 9100 unit's score of 95. Another comparison machine, Gateway's 600XL desktop replacement with a 2.4-GHz P4-M, notched a 107.

In additional tests focusing on processor-intensive tasks, the Pentium M notebooks performed well with Adobe Premiere 6, Nero Burning ROM 5.5, and AutoCAD AUGI Gauge work. The Dell Latitude flew through the AUGI Gauge test in a cool 251 seconds; the IBM ThinkPad finished in 253. The Toshiba Tecra M1 completed this test in 288 seconds--compared to 456 seconds for the Tecra 9100.

Differences between the Pentium M and Pentium 4-M notebooks are not as dramatic in Adobe Photoshop 7.01 and our VideoWave DivX tests; the new and older Toshiba notebooks stayed within 3 seconds of each other on the VideoWave test.

[deepdown]

Wow.. I'm beginning to lean more, and more over to the Centrino processors.

And I have to pay more money for a P4 processor, than the Centrino.

Just that - I don't get the same graphic card

Well, Centrino it is!