Ok, I'm trying to decide what would be the best thing to do if I am spending $1500-$2000 on parts from newegg or tigerdirect, possibly to build a system with a minimum of 4gigs of ram(ddr2 pref but not req) a nice 512mb fast clock/mem speeds video card and a decent processor...or maybe Dual xeon? would it be worth it to build a system like this to use with AVID XPRESS PRO HD etc..Maya..with all the bells and whistles for an upcomming movie and a few music videos or go with apple that I don't know much about. What do you all think?

If you are going to spend $2000 or more for a software package, you better look at all the other available software (including Final Cut Pro on the MAC). By the time you get all the accessories, I estimate you could easily exceed $30,000 in production equipment, especially if you are going to do parts of the front end of your movie. Also add sound equipment if you are going into music videos.

Well first, I would not jump the gun with HD... you can not even get real hidef on a disk yet. They are SUPPOSED to be coming out with a new disk called BLUE RAY (and the machine to play it), but they have run into a few snags. The HD industry is so volitile right now... they are far advanced in one end of it, and lagging behind terribly at another end, so I would not even think about HD until the technology stablizes somewhat. Second, wizard is right... this can be a pricey hobby so you need to study it and draw a line for yourself before you get in over your head. If you want to build a system to run a good quality editing program then probably the best thing to do is look at the high end AVID and especially CANOPUS products and see what their system requirements are. Your ram for example... 4gig is kind of a waste, you don't need that much... but you do need BIG drives, fast video cards and preferrably dual core cpu. Visiting the requirements board on some of these high end editors will give you a good idea of how much to spend and where to best direct the cash.