My cat's name is Mittens.

I think more people should give their pets names like 'Alan'. Or 'Deidre'.

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My Mother-in-law wanted to be a bit different so she called her budgie Dave

Oh, you had to choose 'Alan' as an example didn't you Marc? I'll remember that next time I need a whipping boy

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

hey rjamesd, just curious. Whcih way did you go on this in the end. Did you decide to stick with the Sony or what?

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

UPDATE:

I phoned Adobe technical support and asked them why they let Sony bundle their software with laptops/notebooks that don't have the minimum 7200rpm hard drive. Also, correction to my original post the VGN-A117S only has a 4200rpm hard drive

Adobe said in many cases it should be okay for video capture but 7200rpm would definitely eliminate any risk of dropped frames.

I also phoned Sony and asked the same question. They said that they have had no problems in this matter and any problems have been fixable by configuring the notebook correctly.

I also asked Sony technical support whether the warranty would be invalidated if I changed the hard drive to a Hitachi 7K60 7200rpm notebook drive. They said it would not invalidate the warranty provided there was no physical damage. My thinking is that there is still a risk, apart from my own competency, because the higher speed drive may draw more current and so overload the motherboard. Also more heat could be generated which could cause damage to the notebook, which wasn't designed for the 7K60 in the first place. Then there's the risk that the drive may not fit inside due to difference dimensions. However, anecdotal evidence (and it always has to be anecdotal, such a minefield is this search for a decent machine!!!) in notebookforums.com / notebookforum.com says that such an upgrade by one user has posed no problems.

In conclusion I think that a lot of people will be satisfied with their Sony for lightweight video capture. However, once the drive starts to get fragmented and once they begin to want to do affects between multiple footage in real time that's where it will fall down.

I've gone off this laptop. The only think it really has going for it is the large hiresolution display. I think it's well built but Sony are stupid to not provide custom options.