The Airs are completely solid state, while the Pros are still available with conventional hard drives. If you're going to be taking it with you on the bike, the Air is arguably more suited, but I have had two Pros over the last 5 years, and never had any issues stemming from them riding in my top trunk (powered off, of course).
Since you mentioned video editing, more monitor space is a valuable commodity, as is storage space. The Air comes in either an 11" or 13" model, while the Pros come in 13" and 15" (they just discontinued the 17" on the last refresh cycle). I don't remember the drive sizes for the Air, but to get more space = $$$$$$ bucks, as SSD are still much more expensive than conventional hard drives, though far speedier and suitable for editing. If you do go with a Pro, make sure the drive is a 7200RPM model. I would definitely suggest in either case to invest in a sizable external hard drive (either USB3.0 or Thunderbolt) to store video. The newer the machine, the closer to $2000 it will be; you should be able to find a recent refurb model (not a bad way to go with Apple, my iPad was a refurb and its still going strong over a year later) that should hit most of the specs I mentioned for close to your $1500 budget...if not, there's always Craigslist...
