Hi all,
I have just upgraded my camera to a Canon XL2 and need a NLE system as
my existing system is the basic Pinnacle Studio. (note: I am in PAL land)

My computer spec. is:

AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual core processor 4200>, 2.12ghz, 2ghz RAM, Radion X1300 video card with Windows XP-SP2.

I am a total novice so the system must be simple to learn and yet provide
all the functions necessary to produce quality dvd's.
I will not be using HDV so an earlier edition may be suitable and cheaper.

Any advice to help me make a decision will be greatly appreciated.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=73400

Having graduated from Pinnacle a few years back, to Premiere with one of Pinnacles editing boards (Pro One), and given the fact that I also own Vegas, I can tell you that as far as ease of transition, it will depend on how you edited with Pinnacle. I learned to like the time line method in Pinnacle, and thus switching to Premiere was easy for me as it had a similar feel.

But if you are staying in PC land, you can actually try trial versions of most editors. You can also get a good taste of Vegas in their limited function edition called Movie Studio, and for Premiere you have Premiere elements. These have some functions limited, but supply plenty of horse power for your next step in the evolution you are going throught.

Finally, there is a free editor from Avid, called Avid Free. Try that out also.

Henry,
I'm using Avid Liquid Pro 7.1. Very nice editing suite, you can do all your work inside from capture - editing - color correcting - sound - and finally burn to DVD or export to file in various file formats.
http://www.avid.com/products/liquidfamily/index.asp

I was using the Pinnacle Studio before, the upgrade to Liquid was a huge step, but a couple of weeks hard study, was enough for me to handle the new software.