New to video editing and burning.. Could use some advice

[Top Dog]

I have a Sony Mini DV Digital camcorder.
I have an older system, 800 Mhz Processor, 380 Megs of RAM, 200 Gigs of Hard drive space (newer HD 7200 RPMs)
Newer DVD burner

I bought the camcorder with no idea what I was getting into. I have captured, rendered, and burned a couple DVDs with Pinnacle Studio and like the program but it is only the Quick Start version without some of the features of the full version. It seems a bit unstable at times (crashes occasionally) so I don't know if I should shell out the $$$ for a new full version. I also had a problem where towards the end of a long DVD, the video became unstable and had skips and misses in the feed. Someone suggested that I turn the write speed down on my burner on the next attempt.

Other than Pinnacle Studio.. What is a good EASY video editing program to use that still allows you pretty good vesatility (such as adding background music, and putting together a clip using stills)?

[guns1inger]

I personally Vegas from Sony for editing. It is great for DV work, although the interface is a little unusual for people from a more traditional editing background. I you are just starting out, I have heard good things about Ulead's Video Studio. I used to use it's big brother, Video Studio Pro, and found them to be pretty solid apps.

I would spend less on the editing app and upgrade your processor and add more ram instead. While editing isn't too bad, real-time previews and rendering will be very slow on your machine.

Finally, the skipping is probably caused by using cheap media. Burning slower to fix this is a bit of a myth. Yes, you might get a deeper burn at slower speeds, but you will probably get a less accurate burn as the disk tracking is more stable at the recommended speeds. Slowing it down will take longer, but may well give you the same result anyway.

[Top Dog]

I personally Vegas from Sony for editing. It is great for DV work, although the interface is a little unusual for people from a more traditional editing background. I you are just starting out, I have heard good things about Ulead's Video Studio. I used to use it's big brother, Video Studio Pro, and found them to be pretty solid apps.

I would spend less on the editing app and upgrade your processor and add more ram instead. While editing isn't too bad, real-time previews and rendering will be very slow on your machine.

Finally, the skipping is probably caused by using cheap media. Burning slower to fix this is a bit of a myth. Yes, you might get a deeper burn at slower speeds, but you will probably get a less accurate burn as the disk tracking is more stable at the recommended speeds. Slowing it down will take longer, but may well give you the same result anyway.

Thanks for the input.. It IS very slow rendering.. The media that I used was Memorex DVD+R disks. The DVD player that it was played on is very new so compatability shouldn't be an issue as far as the +R format. What media would you recommend to use?