Hi all,

The title sums it up I guess but I have questions about both hardware & editing software. Any advice would be much appreciated.

I've been making 3-5 minute promotional type videos for work for several months (but at home cause I like doing it so much) with Windows Movie Maker and want to upgrade to a better editing software and possibly computer. But I also want to start bigger/longer projects of my own eventually so whatever upgrades I make I'd like for them to be able to handle more than the short promo videos.

Currently have:
Dell Pent. 4
512 MB
128 MB DDR graphics card
80 GB ATA Hard Drive
1 Monitor

I started to get an Imac and Final Cut Express but now I'm wondering if I could be just as well off with some upgrades to my system (doubling the RAM for starters) and either getting Pinnacle or Premiere or something.

Thanks for reading, any adive would be very appreciated!

maybe you could double the ram, but a gig is a dime a dozen now, and if you want to get into some real serious projects, go with 2 gigs, and at least 250 gigs of HD space, and make sure your processor is at least 3.0 ghz, with HT (hyperthreading), this is good because most new editing programs will use the dual strands of binary to their advantage (i.e. premiere) no need to update your graphics card, unless you go with premiere pro 2.0, because it has this awesome new feature, using your GPU to render (how sweet it is).....

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Mac G5 workstation with 4 gigs of ram, 4x250 gig drives in raid 5. High availability cluster server running centos for a server. 2xCanon GL2 cameras.

TuscSports.com

Thanks for the advice!

In that case, I'll probably just need to start fresh with a new machine...I don't even think I can upgrade to over 160 GB HD in this one. (And that would even have to be external)

Just so we can help you out what country do you live in. In Pcworld i know there are some cheap 250 GB external free-com HD's for £90. Just depends wether you live in the UK.

never thought of that luke, one really good source for pc's and upgrades is tiger direct : www.tigerdirect.com

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Mac G5 workstation with 4 gigs of ram, 4x250 gig drives in raid 5. High availability cluster server running centos for a server. 2xCanon GL2 cameras.

TuscSports.com

Dells arent very upgradeable... i suggest starting from scratch and going to your local independent pc shop spending a fair bit of dosh and getting a fair bit of discount at the same time. also check out these sites www.overclockers.co.uk www.ebuyer.com and www.gladiatorcomputers.com

I'm in the U.S.

Thanks everyone for the advice. If I was to go with a powerhouse PC, what software would you guys recommend for someone with only a background of Movie Maker but a desire to get into more serious stuff?

Seems there are a few solid options out there...I guess I don't want to spend more than $200-$300 on the software if possible though, I'm not overly concerned with the learning curve.

And I don't mean to spark the eternal PC V MAC debate but I'm strongly considering going the MAC route with Final Cut Express. Besides the fact that the new Imacs are a first generation and there may be bugs, would one of them with 250HD and 1GB Ram be a solid editing machine? Or would I be just as well off with the original Imac G5?

Thanks again for the input! Sorry if my questions are a bit broad!