Laptop recommendations for HD editing ?

[pyvo]

Does anyone have recommendations / experience of using a laptop to edit High Definition video with Corel products ?

Over the last few years I have been very happy with UMSP 7 on a WinXP Pentium IVht at 3GHz from footage from a Sony PC109 (Standard Definition) but have just acquired a Sony HC7 (HDV).

As HD video is starting to become accessible and laptops are becoming more powerful, I am toying with the idea of "upgrading" the PC to a transportable PC or laptop.

Sony have a range of laptops which seem to have HD 'features' (Blu-Ray disc drives, HDMI outputs, etc) but I wonder whether their HDDs (at 4200 or 5400rpm) and memory limited to 2Gb are up to HD processing and regret the missing eSATA connections.

Packard Bell have a nice range of transportables (SB range) that include fast HDDs (up to 7200rpm) and eSATA connections but the IEEE1394 is type 400, not 800 so I wonder whether it would be able to 'receive' HD video from the Sony HC7 (HDV tape).

What about the processors ? Is there a min recommendation for Intel's chips (I would guess a Duo @ at least 2GHz would be required) ?

When external Blu-ray writers become affordable, what will be the best means of connecting the laptop to the writer ? eSATA, Firewire - surely not USB ?

Does working with Vista cause any headaches with HD ? (I have checked the web board but do not find anything particular against it apart from a reported problem with IEEE1394). Are there any manufacturers that still sell laptops with WinXP ?

Thanks for your help / advice.

[sjj1805]

I have now made 3 laptops pre-installed with Vista - dual boot with XP.
One was my sister in laws - got everything working except sound - I think if I had her laptop long enough I would have found the necessary drivers but she didn't need sound and did need the laptop back for her job.

The other two laptops are my own so I was able to spend a bit more time tracking down the drivers and happily found all the drivers and both now dual boot perfectly.

The two I had success with are both made by Toshiba and are different models. My sister in laws laptop was a gateway.

I would consider checking the availability of XP drivers for a laptop if you find one you like.

[pyvo]

Thanks for the info but

a) what are the configurations of your laptop(s) (processor, DDR, HDD, connections, etc) and

b) is it sufficient for processing High Definition video from HDV cassettes ?

Rgds

[sjj1805]

...... Are there any manufacturers that still sell laptops with WinXP ?

Thanks for your help / advice.

My response was aimed at that particular sentence - you will probably find it is getting more difficult to purchase a new laptop pre-installed with anything other than Vista. The reason for creating a dual booting system on my systems was the fact that more than half of my vast supply of programs built up over the years either do not run at all, or do not run efficiently on Vista.

Those that do run more sluggishly in Vista than on XP - on the same computer. This is not a Vista bashing exercise - that has had enough of an airing already - but an attempt to overcome problems caused by Vista in relation to compatibility and speed. If you are going to use HD material then even more RAM and processor power is going to be needed, XP uses less of both making more available for the task of dealing with HD.

I am still in the SD age, (though digital TV recordings from my Hauppauge TV card seem to come close using a very high bit rate,) thus my laptop specifications would not help you much.