Need help Choosing!

I am trying to decide between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. I mainly use my current Powerbook G4 for surfing/downloading/burning/playing videos to my TV. I was wondering if there would be any benefit going to the PRO vs the regular MACBOOK for this kind of useage? Is the extra power in the videocard meant for video-intensive programs? Would this affect the playability of larger/higher quality videos? Is the video card used at all for encoding videos or is that just the regular processors job?

Also I was wondering if anyone else has chosen the macbook after owning the Powerbook G4 (1.5 ghz.) and could comment on the difference in processing power?

Thnx.

~Leylan

EDIT: I also plan on doing a little bit of video editing (mainly cutting longer videos down to combine with others... home video stuff).

I use my Macbook with the specs to the right for: surfing/downloading/burning all the time. Burning DVDs is a sinch, and web browsing was never better nor faster with safari (and thats coming from a diehard firefox lover). I don't do any video editing, except for the casual encoding, so I wouldn't know about that. But my Mac does everything I want it too fast and efficently =)

While I would love to justify getting another GB of memory, I can't at this point. Sure it would be faster, but I don't really have any complaints as of yet! =)

xRACExITSaRALLY said:

I was wondering if there would be any benefit going to the PRO vs the regular MACBOOK for this kind of useage?

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I'd say it depends on your budget more than anything. Doing only the tasks you listed, you could really go either way, and probably be very happy.

Is the extra power in the videocard meant for video-intensive programs?

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Yes it is, but even moreso, it's meant for gaming and streaming video rendering. Rrendering a 3-D graphics or iMovie stuff is more dependant on the processor.

Would this affect the playability of larger/higher quality videos? Is the video card used at all for encoding videos or is that just the regular processors job?

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It might affect the video quality a little bit, but it's there more just to render graphics for games and the like. The video card is not solely used for all encoding. Say you are ripping a DVD, the processor is what's rendering all the frames, not the video card. The extra video RAM is a plus though.

I also plan on doing a little bit of video editing (mainly cutting longer videos down to combine with others... home video stuff).

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Like I said, you could go either way. It depends on wether or not you want the bigger screen. To me, the biggest thing was portability. I wanted the smaller size, and I didn't want to pay the extra money. I LOVE my MacBook, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Macbook would be fine. You may need to get a bigger HD GB and 2 GB RAM.

welcome to MF! search this topic and you will find tons of good info.. this has been asked many times in the past.