Everyone has their favorite software, mine is Vegas. Really nice program, doesn’t need monster video card (everything is run through the processor), excellent support community, more than one way to do things is the program, the only limitation to it is your imagination. When choosing your laptop, you need to make sure that the Hard Drive speed is 5400 rpm or higher (you DO NOT want to capture the footage to the hard drive containing the operating system, so you will need a extra drive). Make sure that the camera you get has a good lux rating (the lower the number, the better) and has firewire output or you will need to get a analog to digital coverter.
Good Luck.
