So, I have a tiny netbook with an Atom processor running Ubuntu 11.10. I shot some video with my camera phone and had no problem editing it. Shot some video with a Nikon Coolpix camera. It was in a lower resolution, and no problems editing. Sound wasn't great, but I just used the built in microphone in my camera. I edited out the sound in KDenlive (well, I think I just muted it or something)

I decided to pick up a Kodak Zi10, a 16 Gig sdhc card and a Sony ECM-DS70P mic. The mic is okay for clipping on my collar and talking or holding in my hand and talking. Not good at all talking with someone at a distance more than a few feet. Thinking about picking up a hand-held mic with a longer cable.

So - I learned that I can hardly even view 720P at 60 frames per second on my netbook. It is really funny. 720P at 30 frames per second is odd. I didn't even try viewing 1080P. I'm planning on bringing it down to WVGA to see if I can view it. I know I can edit and render lower resolution stuff in KDenlive on my netbook (already did with my camera). Just trying to determine if I want to lower resolution on the Kodak Zi10 or try and snag my oldest son's laptop (with a good processor and a lot of memory!).

Sorry for just blathering on. Trying to figure out what the best way to shoot, edit and render a video with my youngest son for his class project would be. We enjoyed using KDenlive to edit and render a brief segment from my Nikon, and it played just fine on Youtube. Might take that track.

So - for lower powered netbooks, what resolution would you recommend filming in? Anyone messing around with small, easy to carry microphones have a recommendation? We're trying to do an environmental film and will film outdoors, along some trails, a reservoir and a stream. We're planning on about three minutes, but that would mean a lot of video cut down to hit the three minute mark. I think 720P or 1080P would really bring out the leaves, trails and water - but I know I can't edit that on my netbook. Would Proxy editing help in this situation? Or is that asking way too much of the Atom processor?

This is exactly what proxies are for.
Of course, the final render will take some time.
(and maybe the initial generation of proxies)

I think that will do the trick! I have three rescue beagles, so shot four short clips of them doing Beagle things. Shot in 720P at 30FPS (I think it's at 30 - need to verify). Was able to bring them into the timeline, add a title and view the project. Render time for the short clips was estimated at a little over an hour and a half. Not a problem! I cancelled out of the render as I want to do some editing and playing now.

But! You can open, edit and play clips from a Kodak Zi10 with an external mic in KDenlive on a Netbook, and they play just fine in the default movie player. I'll try editing and rendering tonight, to make sure I can go through the process before handing the Playsport over to my son.

Proxy is the way to go on the Netbook!

I use a netbook + external hard drive as a backup when I'm away for weeks at a time and don't have enough SD cards to store hours of video off my Canon 550D's, so I bump the videos onto the net book and duplicate to the external h/d. Then do some rough edits from time to time using the netbook. When I get back, I copy all files to a 4TB RAID and external OEM drives for archive.

Problem is trying to edit with kdenlive on a netbook is that some of kdenlive's interfaces such as the render panel are too long for the screen at it's native resolution, so you can't always actually see the OK / Cancel / whatever buttons to use kdenlive successfully, either a bit more efficient use of space or scroll bars or collapse / expand's are really needed to make using it on small screen laptops / netbook more suitable.

Yeah, I noticed that problem in trying to resize or move panels. I ended up tabbing and hoping I hit okay. My options are to talk my kid into loading KDenlive on his Ubuntu laptop, snagging a monitor from a dreaded Windows desktop my youngest kid uses for online highschool, or tabbing and hoping. I was able to edit a bit on the Netbook using lower quality video, and able to mess with my Kodak 720P video (and add some audio tracks) - but your right, some of the screen sizing is hard to deal with on a small Netbook screen, and sticking an external monitor on it defeats the purpose.

(maybe I should limit my hobbies and trade my beer-making supplies for a desktop - naaaaaa - beer good)