What Economical PC Video Editor Does the Job Now?

[Gerome]

What's up friends? What are the best economically priced video editors for PC that are fun to edit video with today?

tl;dr version:
So between say, 2005 through 2010 I took plenty of handycam footage of skiing and kayaking, and produced some mildly entertaining videos. Windows Movie Maker, and later, Vegas 7 worked well transferring handycam tapes to my hard drive and editing. Then the stupid GoPro came along in 2010. I started recording more crap, which was also nearly impossible to edit since the pre-rendered video wouldn't play on Vegas 7. My laptop got old. I got bored of editing video.

Today, I have new hardware, a new HP laptop, and a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, both running Intel core i5, quad on the laptop, dual on the Surface. I downloaded Windows Movie Maker and as far as I can tell, its been dumbed down to less features than what I used in 2005. I can't even tell if there is a way to overlay sound from one video over a video from another.

Now, I know that scanning through hours of crap footage to find a few gems like some huge hucks or powder shots will be like panning for gold, but it would make the process much more fun if I had a useable editor. What's out there for a reasonable price that would be acceptable or great?

[bornincolorado]

I use the free gopro studio for trimming, coloring and most framing, then use Vegas 10 for setting to music, title/credits and final rendering. The older version of Vegas is relatively cheap, my only complaint is the image stabilization function bug was never fixed, no patch offered.

[Gerome]

I have previously used the gopro studio, and it is good for editing the gopro video. It should work better on my new PC too. Sony Movie Studio 13 is reasonably priced at $100. I did really enjoy working on the Vegas program so it should be essentially the same. Thanks for the suggestion.

Anyone else like other programs available?

[bornincolorado]

Think I spent something like $40 on Vegas 10 last year to replace a pirated copy of the same that I had previously been using. My machine is old and slow, so 1080@30 is the best I can work with. I am still using my 5yo gopro HD, thing is bomb proof.

[SUPERIOR]

I'd say Adobe Premiere is pretty fun, and you can buy a monthly license from 50 - 70 bucks depending on Creative Cloud options ... Not the best solution for everyone, but it comes with access to a huge tutorial library.

[Plainview]

$50-$70/month??? Or is that annual?

[Gerome]

My buddy that lives nearby and edits kayak videos uses Premiere. He says it is really good quality and has a lot of features, but I probably wouldn't get value out of a $50-70 monthly subscription. Could be worthwhile to try it for a month though. I'm still liking the Sony home studio 13 for about $100. Yeah, not willing to risk my new computers with pirated stuff.

[LeeC]

I am not a video guy, but I tried VLC media player, and it helped me edit the video I needed to edit.
and it was free, don't know about now.

[SUPERIOR]

If you go Mac, Final Cut Pro is a great value -- check out the prices, but I've seen copies for a couple hundred bones

[grskier]

The latest go pro app does 80% of what I was doing with final cut express back in the day.... And it's free

As far as hardware, I have no idea on the pc side anymore.