Looks like I might have to finally bite the bullet and get some real video software… I guess the wishlist goes like this:

Handle AVCHD format video from my TZ7
Have image stabilisation
Good sound/music editing- my favourite bit probably
Good range and flexibility of titles and credits
Oh, and not too expensive!

Any recommendations? I've been using WMM and it's OK as far as it goes but it's so limited in formats and the credit/text functions are very basic.

Adobe Premiere Pro is very easy to use. Not sure how it copes with AVCHD though. Guess you don't have a Mac but Final Cut Studio is probably the cheapest "good" bit of software.

I think there's a really cheap version of Avid that might be worth a look, can't remember what it's called right now.

edit – here we go. http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+Ultimate+14.htm

Seems to work with AVCHD. Looking at it now it doesnt actually look anything like Avid!

iMovie 😛

+1 for final cut if you're running a mac or adobe premier if you're on PC

pinnacle studio ultimate is a really good place to step up from WMM into something thats a bit more professional.It handles my AVCHD from smy Sony perfectly, and outputs in decent quality formats.

Its about £100 for the ultimate version, and includes a good array of effects. One of the good features I like about it is the magic bullet looks which can really transform the feel of the movies. It also has the stabilisation which is OK, but personally I've never really needed it.

Maybe a little weak on the music side of things, but I use audacity to trim music clips together and do sound effects etc ( remove voice ) , then lay that into the timeline. That being said, adjusting the volume for bits of the audio is dead simple.

Give it a look, there is a 15 day trial you can download from the US version of the site if you go looking for it.

A couple of vids I've done with it recently … the colour styles are direct from the magic bullet looks effect plugin.

Craufaudland MTB
Irvine MTB

I'm really pleased with it so far.

I'm not sure about pinnacle, they may have updated since, but when we looked last year, premiere was the only thing that natively edited avchd. That means you can get straight down to working with the clips without having to do some import / conversion stage.

In final cut / imovie, when you open avchd it imports it, which takes about twice the time of the video clip, ie if you have an hour of video, you will have to wait 2 hours before working with it, whereas in premiere cs4, you can edit hours of footage straight away.

So in short – if you could afford it premiere cs4 or later is the ideal software. Very nice, very fast, and extremely powerful. I have a feeling cs 5 is out now or soon, maybe cs 4 will be cheap.

Joe

CS4 in general is quite buggy IME, CS3 is alright though. Looking forward to CS5 😀

I've been teaching myself Sony Vegas Pro, which seems pretty full-on but isn't too hard to use.
You can get a free trial for their website.

OK, £100 is a lot more than I want to spend here, sub £50 definately so that does look to rule out quite a few.

I find all the PC based editors have a really steep initial learning curve. If you're going to do a lot and it handy for other reasons, getting a mac might be a good idea.
Having said that, I always like to stick to industry standard software, so for PC I tend to use Adobe Premier Pro. Still winds me up every time I use it though.

pinnacle studio hd edits avchd native, no coversion.

there are cheaper versions of it – same core software just without fancy plugins

I don't think you're going to get good software for under £100..

The cheapest option would actually be to install ubuntu studio and use the video editing stuff on that.. but it means installing and learning a new OS..

I found Magix realy easy to use and it was less than £30 from memory. I now use a mac so can't use it anymore but after a few hours tinkering, I produced a fairly good job from 26 gig of Morzine footage, ended up being just under 45 minutes long, in time with the music with lots of titles and edits.