Imac for NLE?
 

I am planning to upgrade from my old desktop PC NLE system to iMac 24", 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo,
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM. Any comments on this and what are my limitations? Thanks...

You will need some form of external disk storage.
As well as something along the lines of AJA IO / matrox MXO 2 / MOTU V4HD for professional video monitoring.
Since there is no internal space for extra drives or broadcast video cards.

Actually even the MXO2 won't work because the iMacs have no ExpressCard slot. It would be difficult to manage your camera (if it uses Firewire), I/O box, and external storage all running on the same FW bus. You'd be better off with a Macbook Pro or a Mac Pro if you want to run Pro apps.

Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack all work great. Motion and LiveType should work OK but Color I wouldn't guess. A FireWire800 external drive is all you need to make the iMac work as a NLE system. While I know someone who has been successful with cutting DVCProHD (transfered from a FireStore), your best chances of success will be with DV or HDV.

I edit FCP Studio 2 with my imac with the same specs exepct only 2gb of Ram and everything works like a charm. I have cut 720pn shot on a Panasonic HVX200 and mixed it with some SD video and some 720p shot on a MinoHD and all works well.

I use an external hardrive connected Firewire 800 for media storage and a 1 TB drive attached via USB for Time Machine back-up. I use the firewire 400 to go out to a "capture camcorder" connected to a TV for a "client Monitor". It works very well for my needs.

I got a similar system last fall (3ghz processor though) and it works like a charm with FCS 2. So far I have only edited HDV and DV, and burned DVD's with DVDSP, but it has been a pleasure to use and WAY faster than my old dual 2.5ghz G5.

I have an external 23" Cinema Display with a Matrox MXO box as a monitor. I have sort of mixed feelings about this. It works fine, but the software seems pretty buggy (haven't updated for a couple months, maybe something new is available?), and I find it annoying the way the screen goes black, then redraws itself when you do certain things. For the price though it's a nice way to get color accurate HD monitoring.

If you don't need expansion slots, it's a lot of bang for the buck and the 24" screen is very impressive.

I have used the first 24" iMac that came out for 2 years and done a lot of HDV and XDCAM EX HD editing and it worked great.
Of course no monitoring, but since you are considering an iMac it´s probably not that important to your workflow.
It´s a great place to start, but you can´t upgrade by adding video cards etc.
So consider a MacPro as well, but I realize it cost quite a bit more

I bought a refurbished 20" 2.66 GHz 2GB RAM iMac for a grand. Loaded FCS 2 and Logic Studio up (and CS3), and bought a 500 GB External WD. I'm using it to re-edit my first feature, and it's working like a charm.

Using Motion, Color, After Effects, all that jazz, working fine. Maybe a little slow, but I upgraded from a four year old PC, so it's lightyears from where I was.

I have been working on a 24" imac with the 3.06GHz and 2GB ram (storage via Gtech G-RAID via FW800) for nearly a year with no problems. I have edited DV and HDV (720p24/30) and almost always get real-time (until you add effects, transitions, CC, of course) performance in Adobe CS3 .

I would love a real pro monitoring setup but at this price-point my work-around is simply to burn a DVD and play it on different TVs, make notes and then go back and CC accordingly...

The only change I am making is to upgrade ram to 4GB - but only because I'm getting more into AE. Basic editing in Premiere has been fine w/2GB.