Is the preference for an ATI GPU (instead of nvidia) still a relevant issue when choosing a new laptop ? Or has the design/perf of modern GPUs changed so dramatically since AL 7.2 was released that it is no longer relevant ?

If I'm in a hurry, I use the build-in ''HDV format MPEG file'' If I have spare CPU time available, I fine-tune this preset somewhat by changing the ''Motion search precision'' parameter; I'm reluctant to change the ''DC component precision'' parameter, b/c I'm not sure it won't create non-standard HDV stream.

check your MPEG2 footage with:mediainfoGSpotReStreamYou can change some of the stream attributes with ReStream (e.g. change the bitrate in the header to match the actual bitrate of the stream, in case it is not correct (some encoders and DVD recorders don't bother to write the correct bitrate in the header...); but for the most part, any ...

Upscaling is certainly also a viable path, but your SD media will be converted twice (1 upscaling & 1 downscaling) and that causes extra degradation...can be perceptible if the original SD video isn't ideal (low light, cheapo camcorders,...)

I'm facing a dilemma: what new laptop should I buy today that would run AL 7.2 on Win7 (XP compatibility mode) and nextgen when it comes ? I know the requirements for AL (ATI GPU preferably), but what about hardware requirements for Nextgen ??? Or should I just wait another year, to get Win7 SP1 & hopefully Nextgen on a matching platform ?

I have now more than 30 seconds for some more hints: I would definitely avoid upsampling your DV material to HD (then to SD back again during the DVD encode stage): even upscaling decreases slightly the video resolution (no scaling algorithm is perfect), so your video would incur 2 lossy resampling for zero net effect. Same for the widescreen ...

MDoragh:AVCHD to editable formatNTSC 30i to PAL 25iMinidisc to something (Wavs?)I use an external encoder for AVCHD to MPEG (HDV or full HD/35 Mbps, depending on my other footage)I had a lot of trouble going from PAL to NTSC in the past with Liquid (audio desynch); I ended up using an external converter do the job; so I would have an external ...

with every new version of Windows, the mechanism that protects critical system files gets more robust: it detects any ''abnormal'' change in such files and automagically restores the ''proper'' version. Circumventing this is becoming harder and harder at each W generation...bye-bye MS-DOS & Windows 3.1  

Is there a way to have the WB CPU pipette do an average of a small area ? In real life video, adjacent pixels are always somewhat different, and I found it extremely difficult to find the ''right'' pixel in a grey or white area that has the correct overall cast. To me, this difficulty to find the one pixel that exactly matches the average color of ...

TVJohn:Consider TmpGe Express 4. Very fast mpeg encoding, uses all 4 cores, many encoding options. I do use TMPGEnc Xpress 4 & love it (even if I have only 2 cores ) But this means I have to somehow export my project from LE to feed into TEXP4...using what codec ? if I fuse, I get the original problem ...if not, I get an extra ...