Hello,

Need some advise for purchase audio/video editing software. It must be able to convert from DVD-CAM and or standard AVI to compressed formats like DivX, MOV, FLV, MP4, MPEG, MP3 for sound. I have only 500/800 euro's to spend.

What would be a good choice?

You can get Adobe Premiere(THE ultimative tool for video/audio enditing) for very cheap prices at ebay at the moment (http://search.ebay.com/Adobe-Premiere_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQfromZR40)

Wish I had the money, tried it out at a good friends studio once(he is a video cutter for commercial films for local television broadcasters) and I was just amazed by the easy workflow and how easily you could export a video into just any format.

adobe premiere is total crap.
slow rendering and horrible chache files, wich won't be removed.
so after one projekt, your hard disk is complete full of cachecrap.

ulead video studio is ok for simple video editing.
media studio must be good (I only know the old version)
and I will test now magix video deluxe 2007/2008.
magix sound editing programs wanst bad so I hope video studio will be the same.

but adobe premiere = crap.
and yes, I got the full version.

Well if you just want to use it for some homevideos Magix Video Deluxe is a good software. Though it has two disadvantages: You might get some rare crashes although this got better with every version and I don't own the latest. But the other thing is that you have to register at Magix in order to get patches. This angers me as with the pc I'm using right now I can't make the damn program export MPGEGs and some AVI Codecs. This worked fine on my older PC and it might get fixed with a patch but I refuse to register there yet as you have to give them all your personal data and not just an E-Mail adress...

If you want to do this on a more professional level there's not much besides Adobe's Premiere although I also don't like it very much. I've also seen it in action and to my mind it was rather complicated and not very intuitive. But maybe that's just like with Blender - at first sight the Interface is pure horror but if you know how it works it turns out to be fine...

Enjoy your meal
Toast

I have never had a prob with Premier, so get rid of the cache, ensure you still have the actual projects that generated the cache in the first place in the right directory and then simply delete them.
Without the project files the cache remains.

Best suggestion is to search google or have you tried the Starving developers guide?

I know that's not what you are looking for, but let me plug Adobe After Effects. That program is just SOOOO amazing. Premiere is quite nice as well. How does Premiere Elements compare to Premiere Pro? Maybe that might be something in your price range.

http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

The link from Marco is very interesting. Power Director has a good amount of features compared to the competition (and is very affordable):
http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

too bad that exactly the PowerDirector doesnt support greenScreen.. or did i miss something?

I use Premiere too and I quite like it. However it is not really intuitive all the time, but there are nearly no limitations. You should try out the trial version, and if you are at school or a student, you can get the whole video editing suite (along with Photoshop, After Effects, Flash and others) for a ptetty low price (around 350€, depends on the country and where you buy it). This is only for non-commercial projects, but for commercial projects you can get the education version for 700-1000€).