To become a video editor you must have these 5 key things plus the skills and patience for this line of work. The first purchase you will have to make is your computer. You need a workstation to do all your editing and projects at. The best computer for video editing hands down are Apple computers. Windows base computers for this line of work do not offer you as much as a Mac. You will want to be looking at the Mac Pro models, these computers were built for the purpose of editing video, editing music and programming. You could get an iMac to save some money but if you are going to be taking this seriously you should be purchasing a Mac Pro because they offer you the best performance in all areas. There are two Models a 4 core and a 8 core Mac Pro. The 4 core is powerful enough to handle video editing but having the 8 core is doubling that and its like having 8 computers in one. Now that you have purchased your Mac Pro it is time to get a big canvas to work on - I am talking about your computer monitors. You could purchase the 24-inch Cinema Displays from Apple but this is going to burn a hole in your wallet. You can get two cheaper but nice monitors from Dell, HP, or Sony and hook up dual monitors to your Mac. This will give you plenty of room to lay out your stuff and edit. Two monitors are always better than one. Last but not least have a good sound system for your workstation; sound in film is just as important as the image and you want to be able to hear clear, crisp sounds when your editing

The second purchase you will have to make that is just as important as the computer is your editing programs. Software is what you will need to actually edit. If you have a new Mac Pro but no editing software how are you going to be able to edit? For software we do have more choices then we do then computers for editing. The top 3 editing software companies that are out there are Avid , Apple, and Adobe. Avid is the number one editing program used in most of Hollywood for movies and television but is too expensive for the amateur editor. Second most popular editing program for professional and amateurs is Final Cut Pro that comes in Final Cut Studio. Final Cut Studio is much cheaper then Avid around 999 dollars and it comes with Final Cut Pro, Motion, DvD Studio Pro ,  Compressor and more all needed for making professional looking videos. Also there is Adobe that has Adobe Premiere pro and After Effects both are very good programs. Adobe Premiere Pro is a editing program like Final Cut Pro and After Effects is a special effects program as in Motion from Apple. Personally I like Final Cut Pro more than Premier Pro but Enjoy After Effects much more than Motion. So my advice is try demos of all the ones you can get a hold of. Buy the programs you like the most but talking money wise Final Cut Studio is the best deal. 

Ok, you got your Mac Pro and your editing programs, what do you need now? Well now you need a nice Hd or Digital camcorder, so you can actually film and edit your own movies or be able to do gigs for others. When you find people looking for a video editor most the time they want you to be able to film the movie or event also. So to have your own camcorder is a good idea. On top of that you need the practice. On your own make little films and edit them. You even can post them on a website like Youtube to get feedback. Cameras can get expensive but like all other purchases look around try to find deals. The companies you should be checking out are Cannon, Sony, Panasonic and JVC. Also do research about what chip the camera uses, 3-chip cameras are the best. Another thing to research is what codec the camera captures in so its easier to edit later on. The camera you purchase should also be using DV tapes or HDV tapes. These tapes do not compress the video you captured as much leading to better video quality. 

 Next your going to want a VTR(Video Tape Recorder) this is the machine you put your DV tapes in to get transfered to your computer. The VTR will be part of your workstation and is key for getting the best quality video to edit. The main reasons you would want to transfer video from a VTR to your computer instead of your camera is because it is to much strain and work for your camera and could decrease its life expectancy. Plus you can do video mixing and sound mixing with the VTR.

 Last but not least to be a well equipped video editor is to have lots and lots of storage space. Buy at least two external 1TB hard drives with firewire ports to hook up to your Mac Pro. Shooting all that Hd video takes up a lot of hard drive space and you will have  to store it somewhere. Do not save all your projects on your computer's hard drive it will break down eventually. The brands that are good are Western Digital, Seagate, Iomega and more. Also you can get a Hard drive tower where you can have tons of hard drives in it and have all the memory you can want but that does get expensive. So my advice is to pick up 2 external hard drives for about a 100 bucks a piece.