I have a super old Dell - no sound or nothing anymore. So I need to upgrade. I'm looking at the Dell Dimension XPS and want to get all of the right equipment up front. The goal here is internet access, being able to work from home occasionally and being able to take my hours and hours of vhs tapes and 8mm tapes and convert them to digital and make my own wakeboarding movies (what else are you going to do in the winter?) Any suggestions? I've been told just buy a mac - but it seems awfully silly to me - no place to put a 2nd computer, etc. I want the easiest set up possible - yes, I had problems just installing DSL. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'd obviously need Pinnacle or Premier as well...

The keys are processor speed, memory, and disk space. If you can afford it, get about the 2nd fastest processor available (fastest available is always a big jump in price). For the XPS it looks like 3.0Ghz, which is plenty fast. Next is RAM, and a good start is 1GB. The XPS has a fast frontside bus, which is important, and upgrading to 1GB of RAM will help speed things up. Finally disk space, 80GB is minimum and since you apparently have a lot of tapes you should upgrade to at least 120GB. I have 2 120GB drives and the extra space comes in handy. Consider adding a 2nd drive with serial ATA interface (you can always do it later though). <BR> <BR>Another option worth considering is a DVD burner. Prices for both the burner and blank media have come way down and it's nice to be able to edit videos and then burn them to DVD to give to friends. They are also good for making backups of your hard drives. <BR> <BR>

YO, BILL IS SOOO RITE BOUT ALL OF THAT TECHIE MUMBO JUMBO. BUT A FEW OTHER THINGS TO THINK ABOUT THAT I WISH I HAD DONE!!! <BR>1. IF UVE GOT THE BUKS FRIKIN BUY A SWEETASSS LAPTOP!! THAT WAY IF U FIND URSELF STUCK ON A AIRPLANE FOR 7 HRS OR SOMEWHERE ELSE U CAN EDIT! <BR>WISH I HAD!! THEN PCS ROCK!! STICK WITH IT I DON'T KNOW IF U HAVE ANY EDITING EQUIP, BUT VEGAS BY SOUNDFORGE QUICKS ARSE!!! ALSO I HAVE READ IN SOME MAGS THAT BIG BUK EDITORS ARE STARTING TO USE PCS THEMSELVES. DEFINITELY GET A DVD BURNER (WISH I HAD) CAUSE IT CAN BURN THE CDS ALSO YA KNOW!! 1 MORE MINOR THING DON'T FORGET TOO THROW IN ALL OF THE NECESSARY PORTS. USBS BUT PRIMARILY A FIREWIRE PORT!! WELL TILL NEXT TYME PEACE OUT YO WE SHOULD GO FILM SOMETIME!@!!!!! I ALSO OWN A SUPER 8 BUT HAVEN'T HAD ANYTIME TO GIVE IT A TESTRUN!! I ALSO OWN A KICKASS CANON GL2!! SEE YA

Just purchased a Sony Vaio 1430, it has P4 2.8 GHZ 512 meg ram that I want to upgrade to 1 GB and 120 GB hard drive, a second drive is a good idea. This PC is Sony's video editing model. I have not got into the editing yet, but one thing it has over a lot of other models is many inputs. It has an S-Video, RCA in and out jacks, fire wire, a bunch of USB jacks, and even a coax input from your home cable. I have a feeling these will all come in handy when I get into actually working on the pc. Oh yeah, it also has a DVD/CD burner. They go from around $1000 to $1200 depending on rebates "pain in the a**" and if you get a package deal. <BR> <BR>At Costco last night I saw the newest model which is slightly better than mine with a 19" Sony flat screen monitor and 3 GHZ proc. for $2199.00 I am not sure if it came with a printer or not. They might offer a rebate on it too. <BR> <BR>