Even before faster internet connections made video a popular online media, budding directors relied on their computers to turn boring home videos into relatively polished and entertaining short movies. The video editing tools we feature here range from the most simple, incapable of nothing more than simple cut transitions and basic titles, to more full-featured options that in the right hands can give professional movie editors a run for their money.
Most of the tools in the following list are free. However, in this case, you really do get what you pay for in terms of capability and user-friendliness. We excluded very expensive video editing software like the full version of Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. Yet the paid options we're featuring do justify the money you'd spend on them.
Pinnalce Studio HD ~$130 and user friendly. Lots of features if you dig a bit (RTFM) and several useful add-ons. Includes a nice DVD Burning setup with chapters and animated menus. Past versions have not been rock solid stable, but certainly useful. Scorefitter soundtrack software gives custome length royalty free music, but not as good as Smartsound.
Sony Vegas Studio ~$130 not the high end Vegas (~$500) but is comparable to Pinnacle. More stable. Fewer add-ons/plugins available, but plenty powerful for most advanced home users.
FCP X $299 - Forget all the initial screaming, FCP X is easy to use and more powerful than it gets credit for. Sure, it has that easy to use "iMovie Pro" interface. Is easy to use a drawback? Most of the power-user features are there, including a very handy multi-cam syncing set-up. Larry Jordan has some nice tutorials if you know how to use a search engine.
Those are the ones I know best in the sub $500 range. Above that you get Premier (why would you NLE in After Effects?), Sony Vegas Pro, NewTek SpeedEdit, Avid, and Edius.
Interesting story on the Pinnacle/Avid front. Pinnacle made home video software for years. MAde a lot of money and they bought Avid. Just this year, Pinnacle sold Pinnacle to Corel, but kept Avid and continue to develop it. This seems like an odd move unless they know something we don't.
http://lives.sourceforge.net
http://lives.sourceforge.net
http://lives.sourceforge.net
http://lives.sourceforge.net
http://lives.sourceforge.net