I have used a lot of video editing programmes throughout the years, chiefly Ulead Movie Maker, Adobe Premiere and the rather dire Windows Movie Maker. I was looking for a more complex and intuitive video editing system, and having heard that MAGIX's non-linear Movie Edit Pro was very good for more complicated editing, I decided to give it a go (given that I don't own a Mac and so can't use Avid). It is without a doubt one of the best editing programmes I have ever used; maybe the best.

The first thing to praise is just how damn simple it is to use. Everything is laid out very simply for you, which is more than can be said for some of the Prosumer suites out there. There are tonnes of audio and video tracks, making complex editing very easy as long as you've got a decent amount of RAM. Also, the system can juggle plenty while not crashing much, which is refreshing given how little Windows Movie Maker can withstand, for instance.

There are tonnes of great features, my favourite of which is the Chroma Key, where you can use green (or any colour) screen technology to edit yourself into whatever background you want, and the results are surprisingly convincing. Also it supports a lot of formats overall, although I wish there was greater compatibility with Flash files, as you can do some great things with them in other programmes.

If you want to get to grips with a complex but user-friendly editing system, I recommend this one, because it's unpretentious, non-elitist, and very easy to use for the average Joe. Just make sure you've got a lot of RAM if you don't want to wait forever for a render.