Thanks to all those who took the time to provide much appreciated and valuable advice on this subject.
I have tried to convince the client about the benefits of the Mac, I even used the reliability of his new purpose built Windows XP machines (both Premiere and Avid machines), which keep crashing (this is the reason he has come to me to get the project completed) funnily enough. But to know avail. Does anyone have any experience in transferring data files and captured video clips back and forth between Adobe Premiere pro and Apple Final Cut Pro? Regards Ken.