Buying a new computer to get faster, please help.

Question

Hello there,
At the moment I have the 17'' powerbook G4 with 2GB ram and 5400rpm 120GB HD, and external 800FW 250GB HD.
My main work with my computer is editing with FCP 5.1.2. I'm capturing from miniDV cameras throw the day to the internal HD, editing as i go, and in the end of the day exporting my edited footage of the highlights of the day to DV again to play on a projector (I don't want to plug the computer to the projector).
On my last job the problem that I had was:
1. It took sometimes 40min to render the project before i export it to DV, I'm trying to render as i go, but some time it's not possible coz I'm too busy editing. And I don't have this 40min to wait.
2. while FCP is rendering (throw the day) I'm trying to work with LiveType or Motion, but it goes very slow, and almost impossible to do.
I'm using the internal HD to capture (with 400FW) and render, and Export with media manager to the external 800FW the final edited version after the day finish. then deleting every thing from the internal HD and starting a new day (normally doing 10 days)
So because on my last job I couldn't do much titling and some time I had to put on the big screen unrendered video, I decide to buy the new 17'' MacBookPro.
My question is:
Is the way that I'm working with FCP right? or is it better to capture and render on the external HD?
If the internal is better, should i get the 100GB 7200rpm or the 160GB 5400rpm.
If the external is better, should i get another 400FW card so i have different bus for capturing and writing on external 800FW HD, or should i sell my 800FW HD and get an SATA external HD?
I hope I explained myself OK....
Thanks
Elad
power book G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Answer 1

Is the way that I'm working with FCP right? or is it better to capture and render on the external HD?
Capture to and render to the external as the scratch disk.
If the internal is better, should i get the 100GB 7200rpm or the 160GB 5400rpm.
the 5400 is fine.
If the external is better, should i get another 400FW card so i have different bus for capturing and writing on external 800FW HD, or should i sell my 800FW HD and get an SATA external HD?
if you are working in DV or HDV, the fw800 is fine. If you have intentions of editing uncompressed footage, you will want an e-sata - possibly a RAIDed version which will require an expresscard 34 connection to the computer.
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