I have just completed my first edit on HD footage. I have a 6 minute video with music and transitions and some slow motion. Nothing special. I have been doing the same with SD for some time and never had a problem.

My HD encoded files have good quality but the footage is choppy and the sound is cutting in an out. All I can guess is that my PC is not strong enough for the extra weight? I tried posting a sameple on YouTube but that one turns out fine once it is up loaded and compressed by the site?

Just wondering if my PC is the problem.

9600 Quad Core 2.3 Ghz
4.0 GB Memory
7500 RPM

Sounds like it. If you're editing native HDV you're leaning on your system pretty hard. I get audio breaks in playback periodically. It happens after I've been editing for several hours (on Premier Pro CS3). I attribute it to a widely suspected memory leak in PP. A reboot solves the problem.

Your system should be beefy enough for HDV. You might want to go to your NLE's support Web site and search for any system optimization tips they might have there.

What Operating system are you running? Eg. XP. XP-Pro, Vista 32, Vista 64? Where are your source files and where are your program files and then your output files at the end?