Need help in buying a PC or Mac for professional editing

Hi there

I am fairly new into editing and very much enjoy it, I have recently filmed my friends wedding with Sony FX1E HDV camera. Now I am looking to by a PC or a Mac, with a budget of £2200. I would like to make a professional DVD with the footage I have taken. My knowledge with software is okay, am well versed with Adobe Premiere pro but when comes to the Hardware side of things I don’t have that much knowledge.

Please advice me on what to look for when I am buying a PC or a Mac for editing with a budget £2200.

Currently I use


Hi-Grade Ultis PV4 Pentium 4 2.4GHz
1GB RAM
120G HD
Graphics card - NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti
Sound Card – Sound Blaster Audigy 4
NEC DVD RW-+
Pioneer DVD RW –
Floppy disk drive
56k PCI Modem
1x Ethernet Connection
8x USB Ports
2x IEEE 1394 FireWire ports

And a Video Capture card, Pinnacle - Studio Deluxe Version 8

I want to upgrade to another computer, where the rendering time is much faster and doesn’t drop frames when capturing via firewire .( my current setup takes 8 hours to render a 10 minute edited video clip)


I have read that it good to invest on a video capture card as it is better then a stand alone firewire card, is this true? I have been looking at Canopus Edius product, is it wise to invest in buying this card?

Please Help

Many thanks