Hi, I have a chance to get a great deal on a 1.83ghz core 2 duo Dell m1210 ultra portable laptop. It has 1gb memory and the stock 60gb, 5400 hard drive (will upgrade myself), and the Intel standard GMA 950 memory card.

How usable would this configuration be for HDV Rack 2.0 for real-time monitoring do you think with the XH-A1?

My main concern with dv rack right now is the lag, and I read some bad reports from a few members saying the lag made it virtually useless for live focus adjustment decisions.

I would likely add an additional 1gb of ram to this and the 100gb 7200rpm hard drive. How much difference would that make?

Also, for long term use, would I be able to replace the cpu on this with a faster core 2 duo processor? I read it was swappable on some older core duo machines if you wanted to upgrade to a core 2 duo.

Thanks for any info...at just $700 it's very tempting, and I'll need to act quick, but it only has the Intel GMA 950 video card, with no way to upgrade that. If not for that, I'd jump on it.

Try downloading the trial version, lasts for 10 days. I had a Sager p4 3.2 ghz with a fairly strong video card, 128 mg of ddicated ram etc. 5 years old now, and yeah, it lagged with HDV, and it was a little unstable as well. If you use it make sure your computer has a good firewire connector, if it wobbles and the connection blinks at all, you can be hosed.

OTOH, it was nice to have a nice big monitor screen, that could be adjusted to reference to, and hard drive recording that makes tape dropout a non-issue.

That's a lousy video card and dv rack allegedly needs something more robust. But who knows, maybe there are some members here who have used similar configs successfully. Anyone?