Whether you're John Woo or John Q. Public, these are the key components you need to make your video editing happen.

Anatomy of a Video-Editing Workstation

(A) CPU: Configuring a video-editing workstation starts with the processor. No other system component has nearly as much impact on video-editing performance; you don't want to skimp here. Most current systems have enough processor power, but we recommend you get the fastest processor you can afford, because the faster your CPU the faster you can expect your software to run.

(B) Sound Card: When you're working at the high end, choosing the right sound card is also critical. For example, if you ever want to produce 5.1 surround-sound tracks, you'll need a sound card with this capability.

(C) Graphics Card: Check your video editor's system requirements before purchasing a new graphics card. Pinnacle Edition, for example, off-loads 3-D rendering to the graphics card, so you'll need a card with 3-D muscle and at least 64MB of RAM.

(D) Capture Card: Almost any FireWire card is sufficient for capturing video from a DV camera. If you're capturing from an analog source, however, you'll need an analog video capture device. If your goal is DVD production, consider an external USB 2.0 product like the ADS USB Instant DVD ($199 direct), which converts analog video to MPEG-2. If general editing is your main concern, look at devices like the Pinnacle Studio MovieBox DV ($199.95).

(E) Hard Drive: To work with digital media, you'll need a lot of hard drive space. We recommend you get a drive with at least 80GB free. As the drive fills up, performance will slow down, so get as large a drive as you can afford. You'll also want your hard drive to be fast. SCSI isn't necessary these days, but you'll need a 7,200-rpm IDE drive or faster. You can improve perfor-mance by using two physical hard drives, placing the source files on one drive and the temporary video files on the other.

(F) Control Surface: Once you become a serious video maker, you'll probably want some cool gadgets to make your job even easier. A variety of companies make control surfaces that give you hands-on control over the software—such as the shuttle controls.

(G) Monitor: A lot goes on in a video-editing program, and desktop space is a real commodity—especially if you want easy access to all the tools you regularly use. While a small monitor won't prevent you from finishing a project, you'll find the process much easier with a larger screen, such as a 19-inch monitor.

(H) DVD Burner: You'll need a way to burn your projects once they're completed. CDs are not large enough; you'll want a DVD burner. This has the added benefit of producing discs that are easy to distribute. After years of format wars between the DVD-RW and DVD+RW camps, we're starting to see drives like the Pioneer DVR-A06 and the Sony DRU510A, which support both formats. This flexibility is critical when you want to distribute discs.

(I) RAM: The amount of RAM in your system can have a drastic effect on usability. When there is insufficient RAM, the computer pages to disk and back, slowing performance. Increasing RAM will improve the performance of individual tools and actual editing functions. 256MB of RAM will allow you to edit video, but you should really have at least 512MB. Considering how inexpensive RAM is these days, we recommend 1GB.