Strong enough computer for HD
 

I'm looking to build a computer that I can use to edit HD footage in. I'm used to a basic mac for all of my SD stuff, but this is a big step. What would you suggest that I look into?

Also, I'm used to editing on a mac, but I've been reading that Macs can't burn blu-rays due to DVDSP dropping the ball on that. Will I need to pick up a PC as well just for burning those DVD's? Should I make a complete platform switch? Is that worth it? I've been using FCP since 4.0 was new, and I'm very adjusted to that, but I also know that NLE's are basically the same with different cookies here and there.

**EDIT** This is, of course, mainly to be used for weddings. I won't be making a Star Wars film on this, so I don't need to go that over the top.

You might also get some answers from the High Definition Editing and Non-Linear Editing for Mac forums here in dvinfo.

I'm rather new to editing HD myself (I'm on a Mac Pro 2.8ghz 8-core), but from what I've read, a high-end iMac can handle HD editing fine, but if you're making videos professionally, a Mac Pro will serve you well.

I've read about simple Blu-Ray movies able to be burned on Toast 9 (with an additional plugin) but you won't have flexibility on your DVD authoring. The other option is Adobe Encore for PC (and remember you can install Windows on your Mac now), and I've seen threads about workflows with FCP to Encore but it seems complicated, difficult, and painful...if authoring Blu-Ray discs are important to you, you might want to do a forum search for such workflows and see if it's doable for you...

Strong Enough??? Try a titanium casing, I think HD footage is very heavy so might need to also get re-enforced flooring :PPP just kidding.

If you are shooting HDV then what you have should work fine, just rendering times might be a bit long so a Mac Book Pro or something with at least fast dual core (quad core recommended) would fly and other formats ar pretty good except for AVCHD, at this stage nothing is fast enough :P because of the lack of great optimised codec support but even that you can transcode pretty quickly.

As Chris said look through the other sections there should be plenty of answers.