Re: we're gathered around a very small pond.

but i'm only talking about your average joe or jane editor who is working on series and conforming and not the 3d super high res 4k file pushers. a very large percentage of what is done in the industry as far as editing is concerned can be done on fairly modest systems. most boutique shops that provide offline services (and are now forced into online as well, but thats a different story) and almost all television news stations and video amateurs downloading stuff on you tube don't need a huge powerful tower with cards for this and that. they just need to get video into their machine, make it all look good and spit it out. obviously i would never even consider trying to cut a feature film or do 3d compositing on an imac or mini just now. there will always be a market for high end machines that perform amazingly fast. thats a small percentage of the actual people using computers for editing. but just wait a few more years. most people i know are still using machines that are 2 years old or more...myself included. but when it comes time to trade in my old mac pro, it won't be with another one. i already know that my next machine will be a mac mini server connected to a hi end iMac with a second display and an iPad for a controller. and i'll be doing it by 2012. best part is it will cost me less than my current system and be way more powerful....