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What digital cameras are good for new filmmakers and which PC's are best for digital editing?

I am a new filmmaker and I want to start filming short films for entries into film festivals. I have Adobe Production Studio for post production but I need to get a new computer so that I can install the software. What kind of computer would be good for editing digital films and what kind of cameras are good quality yet inexpensive?

Public Comments

I use a home-built pc with a pentium 4 hyper-threading 3.4 gig processor, 1 gig of memory and 256mb AGP video card. You need to make sure you have a large hard drive, since video files take a lot of space. I have no problems with this set-up. Personnally, I prefer Sony Vegas 6.0 for editing, it's really good once you understand it and get all the plug-ins. As for cameras, I bought a Sony HDR-FX1 high definition camera. Great picture! You can add the look of film with plug-ins in Sony Vegas later. Cost me $3000.00 though. For digital pictures, anything over 4.0 mega pixels is good. I use an Olympus E-500 8.0 mega pixel camera with changeable lenses (like an SLR camera). You'll find, as you get more into this subject, that it starts getting very expensive!!!
Since you posted in the laptop/notebook section, I'm assuming you want a notebook. Not a good idea. High end digital editing stuff will cost a lot more on a laptop than on a desktop. On a laptop you'll want dedicated video memory, and a lot of memory, both RAM and HD space. Get the higher end dual processors w/ hyperthreading so editing is physically quicker too. Get the most you can afford, but getting a desktop will be a lot better.