Need a camcorder soon and trying to get up to speed on options.

I'm looking at the UX1 because it's the only HD camcorder I can find within my budget. My hesitation is all the comments I've seen regarding the PC horsepower needed to handle the AVCHD format. I will be buying a PS3 soon so that will handle most of the play back of what I shoot but I want to be able to put these videos on regular DVD's that can be played in non-BRD players.

So what kind of horsepower would I really need? I have a new laptop with the following specs. Based on other posts I have seen I question whether this machine will have enough juice.

Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5600 (2MB/1.83GHz/667MHz)
2GB, DDR2, 533MHz 2 Dimm
256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1400

I think it is your vid card more than anything else. I thought you needed an Nvidia 8500 or 8600 or an ATI 2900 to get hardware video acceleration. Otherwise your cpu will be taxed to the max. Try it out and let us know.