Hey Guys & Gals,

Firstly, i am very new to all of this, so please forgive me if these seem like very basic questions, but if you could give me your advice, i would appreciate it very much.

OK id like to learn to edit my own videos and create half-decent family dvd's out of my work, i have done some research and purchased Power Director as my software of choice.

I have captured some footage which i done in HD, with a resolution of 1920x1080 however when viewing the footage on my computer, it is very jumpy. In all honesty i expected it due to the high res and the HD factor, however its no good for me to use to 'learn' how to edit videos.

I have a brand new laptop which i am using for this, which has 2gb of ram, 2.4ghz dual core athlon, so i have to work with what i have got.

I am assuming i need to some how convert this video so the res is smaller, or something. can anybody advise on what i need to do to just allow me to use the footage i have already captured to have a play around with Power Director, and if im serious about wanting to edit videos, i can then build a custom-built PC specifically for this.

If you could point me in the right direction, or give me any 'starter tips' i would really really appreciate it.

Thanks guys
Andy