Watch your PPC Apps... i know crazy but that is what i traced my problems with my MBP down to. My battery was only lasting 2 hrs and encoding was seriously slow.. only 30fps (on a MBP that used to get 90 thats slow) and so I updated my OS with my installer CD's and it actually fixed these problems... but the more PPC apps I get rid of the faster I begin to encode and the more battery life I get. My advice, get rid of Your PPC apps you dont need, then reinstall or "update" the OS with your installer DVD.