I am a first year film student and most of my assignments involve video editing usually turned in VCD or DVD. I started the year quite innocently trying to edit videos on my family PC (Dell Dimension 2400) and what happened was that after 4 or 5 hours of editing the computer heated up, the video card gave out and I lost all my work . This happened a few times, and I now go to friends' houses for all my work. I usually leave all my editing till the last night so I need a system that can withstand 5-8 hours of non-stop work and won't give out. From what I've read a brand name motherboard is a must for stability. I was also wondering what the veredict is in the Mac vs. PC duel. If my budget is 1000 dollars tops, is a useful Mac totally out of range or will one of the lower priced models work? I've wanted to switch to Mac for a while, but prices usually make it impossible for me to get what I need without paying a fortune. Basically I want to know some basic specs for a PC and a Mac equivalent.