Video Editing software

I have been a dyed in the wool Adobe Premiere fan for a really long time. I cut my teeth on Premiere 4.0 and have been there all the way up to Premiere Pro (7).. I refused to upgrade past Adobe's last software releases where they call home for authorization.. But I still loved the software. seeing that the new version of Premiere and other tools will require Windows Vista, I started to look elsewhere for my editing and creation needs. I started looking at Final Cut. It's great but has a gigantic cost to get into it. $1500.00 for the Suite and another $2500.00 for the computer. Granted this gets me away from the garbage that is Microsoft operating systems, but has an entry cost I am unwilling to accept. In the windows/Intel realm You have Canopus, Avid and Sony Vegas as alternatives for real video editing (sorry but the other apps out there are toys compared to this stuff.) Canopus is a buy it and see application, no way to try it out, so they are not even getting a look. Avid has a free download, I used it for a while and found it O.K. but certainly not easy. It actually takes more steps to do things in Avid Express than Premiere... Sony Vegas though... it peaked my interest. I have played with it for 2 hours now and have already discovered that it has a far more rapid design cycle than anything else. The only thing I do not like is it's tools for clip trimming. you have to create a new clip in the trimmer instead of taking the razor to the clip on the time line and cutting the cruft off. But adding an animated lower third, a crawl or other text and other effects are incredibly trivial. finally there is one aspect that blew me away...

you can write effects or scripts in a javascript like language that makes it easy to create your own effects and transitions. Something impossible in Premiere.

Vegas will allow me to stick with XP and my incredibly old 3Ghz hardware for a few years, has the lowest cost of entry and comes with a DVD authoring tool that is almost as good as Scenarist.

The siren song of leaving Microsoft behind is a tempting one, but at nearly $4000.00 more than switching to Vegas... It's not that tempting.

I'll be playing with Vegas all month... I'll post more if I find a showstopper or major bugger in it.... but so far it's a premiere replacement and a after effects replacement rolled together.