Advice needed re software

[wornoutmumoftwo]

Hello,
This is my first post.

I am thinking of buying video editing software for my 8 year old. (He has aspergers/autism and is very very good with computers).

At the moment he is making movies with Windows movie maker, but for his 9th birthday I was going to buy him a good video editing software and thought I would ask for advice.

I'd like something with lots of effects, that isn't too complicated for him. He's been making some great movies in Windows movie maker and as it's a current obsession, I'd like to encourage him in this area.

I wondered if you had any preferences of software.
So far I'm looking into movie plus x3, pinnacle studio and corel pro x3.

Any hints and tips when looking as I'm clueless apart from basic conversion from camcorder to dvd.

Thank you in advance.

[Midnight Blue]

Pinnacle studio might be a good choice in this case but he might soon find it limiting, as it is limited to what you can do with it but is simple to use. I would add Sony Vegas Movie Studio to your list as at around £40 it is very flexible and powerful piece of software for the price. There are a lot of people on this forum who can offer assistance if he needs help with it. BUT there are very good tutorials that come with it. It's hard to know exactly what would be right for your son as I don't know his level of competence at his young age. I know my daughter, who is just turned 8, would be able to use Sony Vegas but only if I talked her through it step by step. She is not a gifted child.

Hope this helps.

[enc]

from personal experience pinnacle has stability issues (do a google search for problem with pinnacle) i really wouldn't recommend it.

i have had good results with premiere elements latest version is 9 i believe. PE9 supports most current file formats including the now common AVCHD.

[Midnight Blue]

I agree about the stability issues with Pinnacle although I haven't used it for a couple of years now. I was just thinking of software that would be intuitive to use for a young child.

[TimStannard]

As a Vegas user and ex Pinnacle user I'd concur, but it tends to be strong on effects that might be of use to a "serious" user but less so on the effects that kids might like but which can become annoying. In particular it is very limited in terms of fancy titles (though I think they've upped the stakes here in version 11). Again, look at "proper" productions and you won't find fancy titles - look at kids productions or fun productions and you'll find loads of them.

(As an aside, if he wants to play with 3D titles, I can thoroughly recommend Bluff Titles - about £25-£30, I think. With loads of parameters to play with I can imagine someone with aspergers really getting the most out of it).

I do some work at a school and they use Serif Movie Plus X3 for editing (to GCSE) and are very happy with it - I've not played with it for more than 10 mins (other than to install and test) but the ICT teacher is very happywith both it and the work students are producing. I'd suggest it has a bt more of a "fun" interface than Vegas. I'm not sure if there's a free trial, but there certainly is for Vegas Movie Studio.