I went there and I ended up with about 5,500 to spend.:)

The RAID drive is a killer. You need the hard drive(s) and a PCI card to coordinate them ( I got it down to two, a 500 and a 750).

Will the dual core Intels at 2 GHZ be fast enough. I can save some money there.

I think I can get away with not having an optical drive and just using the ones I have on this computer.

Has anyone used Final Cut Express? If so, what features are not on it (as opposed to FCP)?

Thanks for telling me what FCP is BTW?:)

Do you think they may be overcharging on memory?

I'm terrible at being frugal.

research
 

Robert- you need to do a lot more of your own research on readily available sources (including other forum areas here and google terminology searches)
If you are economizing, firewire capture onto normal modern drives or a software RAID (no additional $) will cover you fine. You won't need a terabyte either right away (unless you need 100 hours of footage online).
final cut express is probably not where you would economize (compare on apples web site). Additional RAM and hard drives are cheaper to buy outside the apple store. The RAM has to be exact and in pairs, the drives generic. You could add one additional 1tb internal SATA to a mac tower. Firewire enclosures with standard ATA drives pick up the slack.
Hope this helps, but further inquiries in this line should be elsewhere in the forums, and still preceeded by a search for existing sources.

Avid has been used on both Macs and PCs for years.

It's really not bad. You get a great system for a thousand bucks. Just build your own PC and get Sony Vegas 6.0 for $99. Run it on XP. It'll do anything Final Cut does and has better audio feature. Think of all the money you'll save. You can buy a lot beer with it.

Or you could get a PC and Vegas and be happily editing HDV for less than $1000.


EDIT: Oops, someone beat me to it.

Iv'e been up on TigerDirect.com doing just that.


Software RAID, that's great info, thanks.

Seagate or Maxim hardrives: Are either of these more preferable to this type of work (HD)?

$5,500? That's a top of the line set-up they were promoting (of course).

HDV uses about the same amount of disk space as DV (sometimes less) so a fast RAID set-up isn't required. A full fledged frame based HDTV format does require a RAID but not HDV, one of the reasons why it's so economical. Please remember that when getting quotes.

You can get an iMac and Final Cut Express (it's missing some useful professional features but otherwise the editing experience is exactly the same, many people have used FCE for major projects successfully) for $1500, add some memory (get up to 1gb) and an external hard drive for long projects and you have a professional editing system for under $2000. Use the preloaded iMovie and you have a non-professional editing system for less although I don't recommend it. I know of at least two documentaries done in iMovie.

$99 for Vegas? Sounds promising but once again find a store with it on a computer and try it out. And make sure your present computer can handle it with HDV footage. Every one of my friends who tried to upgrade their existing PCs to edit regular DV ended up buying new PCs (no, they didn't all get Macs but some did). Newer cheap PCs are usually capable editing systems but just be sure.

Whatever you do here are a few questions you need to ask yourself before any purchase.

1) What do I envision for this system?

2) Can I afford to replace this set up completely in a year if my needs change or do I want to plan for the next 3 to 4 years?

3) Am I presently working in long format (movies, series) or short format (music videos, commercials, short films)

4) Am I working for clients or myself?

For number 1 you should try to clear up what this new system means to you and consider some future goals that the system could bring you closer to.

Number 2 is a short-term/long-term question. Do you want to get up and running on a limited budget right now or invest some more and get a system with open upgrade options? That's like the $5,500 system you were quoted although you needn't spend that much.

Number 3 is a consideration of what you are doing right now since that's a good comparision to what you'll be doing with a new HDV system. Short form projects will work well in a low-cost system, long form might create some considerations for a higher-end set up.

Number 4... well it should be said that if you are already doing work for clients you might want to invest in a higher end system. If you are working on your own projects then you can probably get away with potential difficulties from using a more economical system. A client might not be very understanding when you run out of drive space or the rendering is taking so long.

There you have it, several suggestions (from others and I) for an adequate system to edit your footage from the HD-110.

Now THAT'S a post.

I'll be re-reading this for sure in the coming weeks.

Thanks.

Does anyone know a good PC tech site that is up to date?

I'm on PCmechanic.com and a majority of their articles are a couple of years old.