But I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about, 'bouncing across drives/arrays' - ? Two hard drives? Yeah, I guess I do know that, if thats what you mean - I'm just desperately trying to keep this under $1000.00 - as low as possible, and if it means upgrading a year later to more "stuff" than that's fine, but I just want him to be able to get started. Seriously, he's not going to do more than make short movies of his football highlights and snowboarding highlights put to music at this point, but he has an interest, and I want him to be able to develop it if he desires. BUT, if he loses interest, then we don't upgrade, you know?

Basically, I want him to be able to make short movies of his sports, we need the analog input as lots of his sports are on VHS and I still have an analog camcorder at this time - and then upgrade later if need be. Would 512 RAM be adequate or should I def go for the 1 GIG right away?

Thanks! Do I need the Firewire card? I figured that would be available for a storage upgrade in the future, (external hard drive type thingy?) but I may be wrong, don't hesitate to set me straight, please!
And if you don't get a DVD Rw, what does he write the movies to? Back to analog/VHS?

Thanks!!