I just recently bought a digital camera and jumped the gun and bought Avid Xpress Pro because of a certain professional's advice. I've been using it for around a week now and I'm not impressed at all! On every other page of the manual I'm finding new things about the software that, at least in my mind, could have been implemented better.

Is it just me or is this software cheap? Wait, let me rephase that (I did give them 1.5 grand). Is it just me or is this software crap?

If you agree.. what would have been a wiser purchase?

most nle have demos..give them all a try...an nle is like an ice cream flavor, your never gonna know till you try it

Picking an NLE is a very personal thing. What works great for
others might not work that well for you. It also depends on your
experience level and working level. Avid is often recommended
since it IS the industry standard. If you can work with that it
will be a lot easier to work in editing somewhere else for example.

I always advice people to try out the demos of the various NLE's
and REALLY do some ACTUAL editing in them before buying one.

That should quickly give you a feel on what works for you or not.

It sounds like this is too late for you and you'll have to stick with
what you bought. Unless you can send it back or sell it to
someone else.

Then again, it IS JUST an application. You can (and will with enough
time) get used to it etc.

This is all good advice so I'll reiterate. Try before you buy! I went through Premiere, Avid, Vegas and all the others I could get my hands on before deciding.

Premiere - Piece of crap - Crashed all the time, slow as a slowthing running in the worlds slowest slowthing marathon.

Avid - While good for media management, the interface made me choke. It's industry standard and all for sure, but I didn't like it at all. Too oldschool and clunky for my likings. Not sure but I think AVID wasn't particularly realtime either when I was looking.

Vegas - Fast, good interface, good audio tools and CHEAP!

But for me price mattered..

Aaron