Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
I have a lot of long flights ahead, and I want to make sure that I get the most out of my Powerbook battery. I am primarily interested in watching movies on the airplane.
If I rip the DVDs and store them on my hard drive, will that improve my Powerbooks battery? I figure DVDs drain the battery so fast because of the constantly spinning optical drive, and I can cut that out completely by playing the movie from my HD. Does this make sense? Does it make any difference? |
quote |
Veteran Member
|
You are going to be doing a lot of Hard Drive access instead.. I think you will still go through your battery pretty quick.. It's not like the iPod where the data can be cached.. Movie data is so much larger and therefore your Powerbook will be using the Hard Drive all the time.. So another motor spinning and heads moving..
Also you are going to be using the screen, and I presume sound... All in all not great for battery life. Why not throw the goggle box away for a few hours and re-discover books. 'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take' Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt |
quote |
Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
|
Yes, this is something many people do and will help the battery last longer on the flight. It's still not going to be a fantastic length of time, but it'll be better than reading off of the DVD.
The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
quote |
25 chars of wasted space.
|
I'd compress the movie to a high quality avi or something. 800mb, probably doesn't have to read the HD as much.
Isn't there a power adapter so you can keep power to your book? |
quote |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: New York City
|
Only on certain airlines/flights/planes/classes
Jet Blue has it on all of their seats. But you DO need to buy an "air" adapter. I have the kensington auto/air/wall adapter and it works great. 1215/234215 (top .51875%) People really have got to stop thinking there is only one operating system, one economic system, one religion, and one business model. -EvilTwinSkippy (/.) |
quote |
New Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
Dont forget to turn off airport!
|
quote |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Colorado
|
just wait for tiger and h.264... i bet if you encode a dvd that way it would save your battery quite a bit... unless it takes too much cpu power to decode
|
quote |
‽
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
|||
quote |
I shot the sherrif.
|
Turn off bluetooth, airport, and dim your screen. A few notches of brightness on your screen will more than make up for ripping your movies to the HD.
brightness is the evil of all batteries. Google is your frenemy. Caveat Emptor - Latin for tough titty I tend to interpret things in the way that's most hilarious to me |
quote |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
Thanks for the suggestions. I looked up those NewerTech batteries, but it appears they don't sell any for the 17" Powerbook.
I already have a spare battery that I bought with my original purchase, so I will have 2 batteries for my 14+ hour flight. I can't wait for Tiger and that new codec...that sounds perfect, and I forgot about it until one of the previous posters mentioned it. Thanks again. |
quote |
Subdued and Medicated
|
While compressing the movie may reduce disk access, it also boosts processor use. The biggest drain for my battery is the DVD player and, like you said, copying the DVD to the drive greatly enhances my battery life. I can play 1 movie and a bit more if I use the DVD drive, but I can watch 2 if I copy them to the hard drive. I'm not exaggerating; I tested this. (And the battery was new.)
|
quote |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
You can also reduce your processor speed, it shouldn't hurt play back much if at all. Then you would save energy and reduce the amounts of heat produced which should keep the fans off and saving more energy.
|
quote |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
|
I want to do exactly this.. Rip DVD to a high-quality AVI, not neccessarily sized to burn to a CD, just to access on the HD.
My question: Does DVD2oneX do this well? Any other app recommended? Thanks in advance for your help. |
quote |
New Member
Join Date: Feb 2005
|
Quote:
|
|
quote |
Posting Rules | Navigation |
|
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
New 15'' PowerBook Full Review | Messiahtosh | Apple Products | 32 | 2005-02-02 19:48 |
PowerBook Battery Question | Jay | Genius Bar | 6 | 2004-11-25 15:10 |
15" powerbook battery problem/recall | SKMDC | Apple Products | 7 | 2004-08-20 12:13 |
powerbook battery problem | Justastupidkid | Genius Bar | 3 | 2004-07-18 10:32 |
Battery Meter Inaccuracy on Powerbook G4 | Maciej | Genius Bar | 6 | 2004-07-12 12:55 |