Help Choosing A New PC

cmoon1975

Hi Guys, I could do with a little help in buying a new PC.....

I'm looking for a machine that would do the following;
Internet & E-Mails
Create & Burn DVDs
Watch Freeview TV / Possibly Take in another source (Sky/VCR)
Edit Video

(Not that bothered about a Monitor Mouse Keyboard at the moment)

To be honest guys I could also do with your advice on the OS and what sort of budget I'd be looking at.

All help greatly appreciated.

rdpro

For that usage you wouldn't need a particularly powerful box, but for editing/capturing you'd need to fork out for a fairly high spec graphics card or combine a mid-range card with a tv capture card (like this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160946 ).

Depending on your editing needs, you may want to go for a high spec CPU too, if you want fast rendering of video. If you're happy to leave it processing for a few hours then stay on the cheap

I'm not a great fan of the free linux OS at the moment, but one that was recommended to me was Mint - I had a look and it does seem to be a good improvement on a lot of the others (no fiddling about finding drivers in general)

rdpro

As an afterthought, also add a nice big 7200rpm hard drive as storage/usage for capturing in raw AVI format - 1 terabyte or thereabouts. From memory, a 1hr30 min VHS conversion took up about 160Gb in raw high resolution format before editing.

As for budget on the box without Windows, I'd look at about £280, possibly a lot less - e.g., one of these ( http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225703 ) with an added TV card and/or PCI-e graphics