Hello,

I work for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game and I have a rather unique
application in mind for a laptop computer, but I've been unable to find
a make/model that suits my needs.  I'm hoping someone here can help me.

I want to use a laptop computer to record digital images of salmon
passing by a remote video camera placed alongside a clear water stream.
I've been doing this successfully for years with an analog time/lapse
VCR, and in recent years digitally with desktop computers.  However, I'd
like to switch to laptops due to their power efficiency, convenience,
portability, compact size, etc.  The problem is, I cannot find a laptop
that allows me to go into the bios to configure it to automatically boot
up whenever it is receiving adequate power.  I'm using desktop computers
now because they do allow this function, which is absolutely critical to
our application (our video sites are very remote, they run 24 hrs/day,
and there's no one there to reboot the system in the event of a power
loss.  It’s imperative that the computer boot itself back up when power
is restored by our solar and wind generators charging our 12V battery
bank).

So my first, and most important question is:

1) Is there any laptop available that can be configured to boot up
automatically when it receives power? (We're willing to experiment with
"customized" bios if need be).
If such a laptop is available/configurable, then please also answer the
following:

2) Can we easily rig a laptop to receive 12V power directly from an
external battery bank?  I believe the answer to that is yes, but I would
like some details on how to do it.

3) Do high-quality, laptop-sized, video capture cards exist that can
capture images from an external analog camera via a BNC or RCA plug-in?

4) Is there an easy way to turn the monitor completely off while the
laptop continues to run so we can reduce power consumption during remote
operations.

5) Is there a laptop that has the features listed above that also has
easily swappable internal hard drives?  I realize there are high
capacity external hard-drives available, but I believe they all require
their own separate AC power source and we'd like to stick entirely to DC
while reducing our power consumption as much as possible.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

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