Hello all, I am new to this video editing and would like to know if it is best to use Adobe Premiere 6 LE or Windows movie maker ? Both came with my laptop. I have treid to use Premiere, but the user guide doesnt seem too helpful and am struggling with it.

Does Premiere 6 LE have all the tools I would need to edit video and add text an that kind of stuff, or is it like a basic version of something better If you know what I mean. Is it worth sticking with (6 LE) and trying to figure out how it all works or would an upgrade be better (If there is one ). Hope this makes sense..

Thanks in advance..AJ

I don't know Premiere 6 LE but I know a little of WMM. You have two completely different options. I found WMM entirely intuitive and was productive with it within minutes. However, it's very, very short on clever stuff - you rapidly reach the end of what it will do. My guess is that Premiere 6 LE will give you far more flexibility down the track to do real editing - but, like you, I found Premiere far from intuitive. It took me much longer to get up and running with it - but i think my patience has paid off in terms of the things I can now do. My guess is that even the LE version of Premiere 6 will do way, way more than WMM (but, like I said, I know neither P6 nor what limitations LE might have - I just have experience of e.g. Photoshop LE, and that has just about everything a committed amateur could want in terms of stills editing). So, much depends on what you want to do. If you just want some basic trimming of clips, joining clips together, putting on titles and transitions and you want to do it as soon/fast as possible, go for WMM. If you see yourself wanting to do more sophsiticated stuff, it's almost certainly worth investing the time in Premiere. Even if 6LE only does what WMM does - which I doubt - the learning experience will almost certainly be worthwhile if you then decide that a fuller edition of Premiere is what you need.

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Hey Angus,

I would agree with what Ian has written although I will say this-

Premiere LE is a near-full version of Premiere 6 given away with some Sony (and others) computers. It's really good to learn the ins-and-outs of the software but you will find it will not do some of the more advanced stuff. I found that out after I had created a movie and wanted to export it in MPEG format. It would only allow me to export it as an AVI file, which is OK but didn't suit my purpose.

As far as Movie Maker goes, it's real simple to use but very basic and the end quality of the movie isn't too good. Generally I'd stay away from it, as I have done ever since!

Hope this helps!