Notebook instead of PC???

[vitalis]

Hello,
i´m planning to replace my PC with a notebook. I always rip movies and encode it with Divx to burn them on CD. Now I´m not sure if a notebook is able to encode like a "normal" PC, or if there could be any problems. Is someone using a notebook for ripping/encoding/burning/watching movies?? or should I keep my PC?
Thanks

[jggimi]

I use a notebook for watching .avi files when I travel. I've found that when on battery power, playback from HD consumes much less power than playback from CD. When plugged in, CD works fine.

My laptop also has S-video out, so I use it to display with a television monitor once in a while.

I've never used it for encoding, as it has neither a cd-rw nor a dvd-rom.

[Uli]

I use a Sony R600HFPD with DVD/CDRW on travel. No probs with ripping and encoding. Only missing RPC-1 firmware is annoying but ripping works. You have to ensure, that the notebook is properly cooled when under full stress (encoding). Most cheaper models run very hot under stress making inacceptible noise. The Sony is very quiet thou.

greetz, Uli

[LordDethstar]

Laptops have crappy hard drives (= slow, small), which can make moving around big files a pain. Nothing beats having two seperate hard disks and copying from one to the other (when multiplexing, etc.).

[Neo Neko]

Laptop is a bad investment over a PC unless mobility is an absolute must. Otherwise stick with the PC. It will serve you much better for encoding etc. ;)

[Koepi]

I absolutely agree with neo here, my GF asked me about that too and I had to think about it for a longer time - she's planning to study in "usbekistan" (dunno the translation) for a semester and thus could need one... it's still a bad choice. For the tasks she does a cheap, used 200MHz class laptop _additionally_ would suffice.
For encoding I'd dare to say it's even a no-no to use a laptop, even if it has a "top end" CPU. You have so many trade-offs in such a system that it's just a pain in the well known a**.

Buy yourself a fine, "real" desktop computer. If you have some money left, for mobility issues buy a "small", cheap laptop.

Uh, many thoughts compressed here, I hope it's still readable/understandable why I'd propose NOT to use a laptop (well, the first paragraph is about that you have to think some days about it).

Best regards,
Koepi

[dark_eye]

Hi! i'm using a notebook (Dell 8100) with 1 GHz Mobile Pentium III-M and i'm very satisfied with it. I've backuped several DVDs of mine, burning them was no issue for me, as I use my old PC at home. I connect them by 100mbit ethernet. OS is Windows XP home, hdd could be faster:), but it is no real problem, the LCD and graphic subsystem is super! (15" and Nvidia 2 Go)

Of course, I've to admit that I'm a notebook freak, I have notebooks since 7 years, since I were a student. But simply buying a notebook for ripping & encoding DVDs only, is not good, on the one hand the components are much more expensive, on the other hand they are not as fast as PC components. If you simply want to save place, you could think about buying a barebone PC system, they are much smaller, but I don't have much experience in this field.

hope this helps!
dark_eye