Thanks again for all the great advice.   CJ

This one seems to have more of what you guys are talking about...although it does seem to have some drawbacks like the USB ports and slow starting. I also don't see a firewire connection and I like to use that...  http://tinyurl.com/yk6xxwy cj

Okay, based on the advice I got here I decided I need to buy a new computer to handle the world of HD editing. If you had to buy a computer, what would you make sure to have on it? Here is one I am looking at... http://tinyurl.com/ykfvvyp CJ

Thanks, Igor. Good advice that I will take into consideration. I also have a friend who has a Canon HV40 and I might get that since it outputs in mpeg2. Even with my computer I think I should be able to work with this?  cj

Thanks to you and Bernd. I thought it might be that. Playing around with it I discovered I could make mpeg-2 files through Pinnacle and those work pretty well, but that seems to defeat the purpose of using the camera I have. Not ready to upgrade the computer yet so will return the camera and go back to my old non-hd Canon camera and at least use ...

Thanks, Igor...  I've updated my profile and here are the specs of my computer. Gateway 3.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium 416 kilobyte primary memory cache2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache1022 Megabytes Installed Memory The problem could be that I don't have enough resources but I upgraded to Studio 14 because I bought an HD ...

First I tried MP4 files...didn't work. Then I tried .mts (AVCHD) files...didn't work. You'd think that Pinnacle could deal with these kinds of files. What good is buying an HD camera if the HD editing software is so finicky?  CJ

Just got a new Canon Vixia HF20 camera and have Pinnacle 14 Ultimate. It doesn't seem to like those kind of files and from what I've read they need to be converted to MPEG-2. How do I do that? Fastest way? I'm really getting discouraged about shooting and editing in HD because every turn there is some kind of problem.  Thanks for any help ...

Thanks for the reply, JKoch. Yes, the file came from a new FLIP HD camera and that is no doubt the cause of the problem. Since it was accepted on the timeline and played okay in preview I thought it was compatible. The device has limited software but I didn't see anything that converted the file to another kind. I will check into ...

Just upgraded to S14 Ultimate and made a movie with HD (mp4) file. Looks fine in preview window, but when I made a DVD it is slightly out of sync. Same with a wmv file I made. What could be the problem? And how can I fix it? Older files from my regular nonHD camera work fine and don't go out of sync. I upgraded because I want to edit HD and this ...