Notebook for Windows Media Encoding

Hello all,

I am looking for a portable computer that I will only use on AC. I do live webcasting, and I need to add a Windows Notebook for Windows Media Encoding. I need: Firewire, CDRW, excellent throughput, good cooling, 10/100, probably 512MB RAM minimum (I usually buy crucial).

I noticed that Costco is selling an HP Pavillon 15" for $999. It has an AMD Mobile 64 processor. The Costco computer has many features that are nice "freebies" (802.11g, dvd/cdrw, 60GB, etc). The real question is that I'm not sure whether to get a P4 with HyperThreading or whether the AMD 64 Mobile will give me enough poop for what I'm doing. I like the idea of being "future proofed" with the 64bit processor, but more important is today's performance w/ WME in the 32bit world...

Again, I'll only use this notebook with AC, so battery life is of no concern. Cooling will matter however, as the webcasts often last for 8hrs. I use a Sony DV cam to digitize analog video and pass it through to my notebook (via firewire) - and then the notebook compresses the video/audio via the Windows Media Encoder (WM9 codec).

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Aaron Booker