Help required on what Mac to buy.

I'm thinking of switching over to an iMac from a PC. I want to edit and categorize my photos and videos. I want to create videos and stream them to my blu-ray player wirelessly to my big screen. Will an entry level 21.5 inch iMac do this? Should I upgrade now before I buy and get the 3.2 i3 or should I go for the i5? I'd like to make sure it has the capability to last me a few years. Any advice will help. Everyone I speak to loves their Mac. I look forward to being one of those people.

Just another thought: you are aware that blu-ray is not natively supported on the Mac, right? If you want to create blu-ray videos, you will need to either run Windows (with an external blu-ray burner) or third party software such as Roxio Toast - they claim their HD plugin will produce blu-ray quality; however, unless you get a blu-ray burner and media, you can only get about 20 - 30 minutes of HD video on a regular DVD.
Other than that, I do video editing (using iMovie and Final Cut Express) and my i3 (27") is fine for it; but I do not produce "blu-ray" quality - it's HD quality scaled to 720p which happens to be perfect for my TV. Any video editing is processor-intensive work - a faster processor will do it faster. I'm happy with the improvements in the i3 compared to my previous 24" iMac and since I don't produce videos for a living, I don't mind waiting 9 minutes for rendering instead of 6 - that and the cost were the deciding factors for me. I will be getting more RAM though shortly; whichever Mac you decide on, you might want to consider purchasing your RAM elsewhere saving money - just make sure it's from a reputable vendor such as OWC or Crucial.
Message was edited by: Barbara Daniels1

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