If you are a student you can probably get a decent mac and Final Cut Pro for about 3500. FCP is only 300 for student compared to 900 for regular. If not a student (of college or highschool) then find a family member or friend that is to get it. FCP is probably more used proffesionaly then say Adobe Premier.
You can either buy or build a really nice PC for under 2000. I just upgraded or pretty much built a new computer for 600 bucks. I only used my CDRW drive and my old 80 gig HD and replaced everything else. Its a athlon 2200 with 160 gigs of HD, CDRW, DVD, 512 ram (soon upgrading to 1gig ram), 128 ATI radion card with TV out, etc. It does Adobe premier just fine with no problems. Premier can look proffesional.
I personaly think it is the editor more then the program to make it look good. Just learn the program real good and you should be able to do a lot no mater what program.

Good luck
-Shawn

I currently attend filmschool at www.rockportcollege.edu

Let me just say that if at all possible, go with a Mac with FCP. It kicks the ass out of everything windows based.

That said, if you must go with a windows based editor, Adobe Premiere and Vegas Video are both supposed to be very good.

For the hardware, you'll need a dedicated hard disk for capturing and editing. Do not do it on the hard disk that is running your OS, keep them seperate. Make it a big hard disk as well, at least 80 gigs.

You'll also need a firewire card for getting the footage from your camera onto the computer.

And of course a fast processer, over 1 GHZ, and as much RAM as you can get, at least 512.

You'll want at least a CD burner, they have a thousand uses, or mabye even a DVD burner. I hear Ulead DVD Studio software is good.

For an OS go with Windows 2000 or XP.

For a monitor, do not get a flat LCD screen that seem to be all the rage nowadays. Sure they look spiffy but they are very bad for graphics work, as the brightness changes depending on where you are looking at the screen. Get a 17 inch flat screen. My Samsung Syncmaster 753DFX has never let me down.

Hope that helps you get started ?:)?

Megacles

for a bit more than 3g's you can go mac G4 and avid express. i would'nt spend a lot of money on anything less.

This is not nam smokey there are rules.

The mac set-ups listed are nice, but only if you're a mac user. It sounds like you're a PC user and so I'd stay with PC if I were you. Stick with what you're comfortable using. Adobe Premiere and After FX and Vegas Video are great NLE systems and are in the same market as FCP. I wouldn't say FCP is more professional than those. Avid Xpress is a little more professional, but a lot more money. I suggest that you download some demos of these programs and try them out to see what you're good at. If you have any adobe experience with photoshop or anything, then premiere will probably seem nice to you. Test out the product before you make a serious purchase!

As for a computer, find someone would can custom make one. We got ours custom made for $1300. Make sure you get a lot of HD space and a lot of ram. An external hard drive is also advised if you're gonna do some serious editing.

This is what I did.

I bought a custom PowerMac G4... Dual 1.42 Ghz, 512 DDR RAM, 120 Gig HD, Studio Display, Pro Speakers, iSub, a editing Jog, and Final Cut Express for about 5 Grand. Now that they came out with the G5 processor, you can get a g4 cheaper, or go with the g5.

I also have Adobe Premier, which is basically the same thing as Final Cut Express, but has a really ugly graphic interface.

I went with Final Cut, because it's the easiest (for me) to use. That and it's in sync with iDVD and DVD STUDIO PRO 2.

I just got my Canon GL2.. So I can't wait to complete my first film with it!!!!