First of all, welcome to the board and VV3.

Secondly, you are definitely NOT a bubble-head. A bubble-head thinks the CD-ROM tray is a coffeecup holder, and from the sound of it you aren't one of those. Even if you were, that would be okay, too.

Thirdly, the system you describe is probably about 4 times the system you would need to do video editing. Enjoy.

Finally, RAID is good for some things, but adds complexity. Years ago RAID was used to boost hard drive data transfer rates. Today, hard drive data rates are much, much higher than they were 5 years ago and you definitely don't need RAID to capture DV without dropped frames.

Figure on DV eating up about 13GB of disk space for each hour of captured video. Unless you are doing a remake of War and Peace, you should be fine for now. It would make housekeeping easier if you partition your big drive into two chunks (using PartitionMagic, for example) so that you can keep your miscellaneous VV3 files separate from all the Windows files. If you really get into it down the road, then you can always buy additional drives. I use a method where each hard drive is installed into its own plastic case, and those cases slide into a receiver built into the front of my PC. In this fashion, I can swap drives quickly and work on multiple large projects.

For best editing, an external monitor is almost a must have. The simple reason is color hues and color levels are different when viewed on computers as opposed to viewing off a television. So if you plan on rendering to CD's, DVD's or you think you'll need to touch up whatever you capture with your video camera even if you only play edited videos through your camera connected to a TV, adding a simple inexpensive TV with video-in to your wish list would be helpful. You don't need anything fancy. A small 12-15 inch TV works fine. To use such an 'external monitor' you need a digital camera or equilvant box, then connect the output of the video camera to the TV video-in and make adjusments while viewing the preview window off the TV. While you can get NTSC monitors, they are rather expensive and would be overkill for most people.

All you need is a small C: drive, (20-30gb), for your OS, so you can dedicate your 120gb drive totally to video. Things will run so much faster if you do, having only one drive really slows things down. Both major HD manufacturers, (Maxtor and WesternDigital), include install discs w/their drives that make it possible for you to transfer your Os off of your old drive to your new one, (provided you dont already have more on your old drive than the new one will hold). After the transfer is done, just reverse the jumpers on your drives, making the new one the master and the 120gb'r the slave, and you'll be ready to edit in style...

Did I read anything about an OHCI firewire card in your specs?

The Pyro 1394 OHCI Compliant Firewire card is excellent. Since you need at least ONE in/output for firewire, that would be a good one.

Two HD Drives are generally better than one. Keep the one you have and add a nice new one as the D: drive. You will not regret it.

Dont get a Pyro card, you'll just pay for software you'll never use. Go to pricewatch.com>controller cards>firewire, and order the best deal on a OHCI IEE1394 compliant firewire card you can find. I just got one about 3 weeks ago from Akida computer for less than $20 delivered.

That, too, is reasonable.

Search this forum for Newbie type info and other and you will learn tons as well as get buried in information. I just did a topic VV to DVD Newbie Stuff and got lots of good feedback. Many of the guys on this site are real pro's and have answered many of my startup questions. Good luck.