I took 4 years in a course at the local college for video design... First things first you need a bad ass pc... MORE RAM = LESS STRESS
alot of pc video editing programs use alot of ram or system resouces to run / render videos.
Adobe premier is a very very good program to use , you can get off limewire or any other illegal software downloading website . Once you get the hang of it the creative'ness will take off and you will be making cool videos in no time.
Reccomended : adobe premier
my editer : 3.9g overclocked to 4.20g, 2.5gb ram
good 3d card : 256 ddr3 x 2 ( sli )
dual monitor output is always great for big time line editing , i run 3 monitors and a seperate tv with vcr ( for recording out ) .... What it all comes down to is the pc , the longer you edit the more resources the actual project will take up. If you got a few questions or need help with editing shoot me a pm. I will show you what i know