Hello,
My father in law bought this Lumix DMC LX3.
It has HD 720 MOV files.
Now he is converting them to MPEG to be able to work with them, because his editor (powerdirector) and neither WindowsMovieMaker accept the MOV files.
Is there a simple and cheap editor available that accepts MOV directly, and which is not too demading on the pc?
Thanks,
Rob

It may look daunting when compared to Windows Movie Maker, but you can download a free trial of the consumer versions of Sony Vegas. They handle MOV files (depending on some recent oddities with which version of iTunes you may also have loaded on your computer, all fixable though), and are around $50 and $95 US for the two lowest versions. If he likes the free trial, get on the mailing list for sale prices that come out periodically to buy or upgrade.

Many thanks for your recommendations. I have downloaded Vegas and that works like a charm. He's very happy now, though there is some stuttering, probably because he doesn't have the strongest notebook or maybe because of videocard. Anyway thanks.

You're welcome!
It is true that newer, highly-compressed HD file formats generated by cameras take a lot of computer horsepower to play smoothly in preview during the editing process.
There is substantial activity in the Vegas forum here on this board, he should check out the threads there regarding this issue. Converting the camera files to an intermediate codec is usually the best solution for smoothness if you don't have a really fast computer, but there are other benefits to this workflow as well.
Don't be discouraged though by the claims that you absolutely must have the latest i7 processor and huge amount of RAM if he wants to use the files directly. That would certainly be ideal, but I routinely edit with Vegas on an i3 notebook with 4 Gb of RAM and I make do just fine with 1440x1080i AVCHD files. My Canon camera records all footage as 1080i, I shoot at 30p.