The software

I've been trying out various editing packages. My Panasonic camera came with some basic editing software, but seemed more gimicky than useable. I did some reading of online reviews and Cyberlink PowerDirector and Roxio Easy Media Creator seemed to come out well. I wasn't impressed with either. I couldn't get Roxio to download from my camera at all, and it was a real pain using CPD. I couldn't get the control I wanted over editing. Now it may be possible, of course, but I am at the beginning of a big learning curve here, so it's no good to me if it is difficult.

I've finally settled on Adobe Premiere Pro. Unfortunately it's the most expensive one too, but it seems to me to be the biz. I've laid down the basics of a whole 78 seconds. I hope I get quicker at it, or I'll be here until I'm 90.

One of the things I'm having to get used to is the size of the files - they are huge. This clip, when rendered to DV AVI format is a whopping 280mb. Even in Windows AVI at a 50% quality setting it's still 2.5mb. For anyone interested, this is what it looks like at the moment .