Hi,

Need some advice - I'm looking for a new desktop to get started with video editing (mainly short films). I have a budget of anything under £350 so pretty strapped - only need the base as already got monitor etc. Anyone advise on a good spec and suitable place to buy? Could probably do without operating system.

Appreciated

The simple answer is that anything wil get you going. The more you pack in though the better - obviously.

Plenty of threads offering advice on what to get and not to get but generally....

* Forget Vista at the moment.
* Plenty of hard drive space - preferably two physical drives, one for the operating system and s/w and one for video projects.
* As much memory as you can get. I'd consider 1Gb a minimum but make sure it;s configured so that a second bank can be added.
* Graphics card are largely redundent for video editting. However some apps do use the GPU at times. But if you can then get one wiht a dual head for later on. You can get soemthign decent enough here for about £25.
* Assumin you have a miniDV camera then make sure you get a firewire port in it. This is absolutely compulsory if you have a miniDV camera.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Alan is on point with his advice.

There are a ton of good turnkey deals on Ebay. Do you already have software? If so, what
apps? Premiere Pro....Vegas....Pinnacle. If not, there are a ton of off the shelf apps that are
more than capable of doing the job and don't require a powerhouse pc.

Along with the 2 drives, I'd also recommend an external drive for backup purposes.