Ah sorry my bad.
Powerdirector is also the stripped down version?

No need to apologize.. Powerdirector isn't a stripped down version hehehe. The difference between Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Premiere is huge though.. (no wonder since you get Elements for free with certain hardware)

Cheers

Thanks Jostie and Toast for the hints. So I might go with Powerdirector as well.

I already heard from others to choose MiniDV for price and flexibility. Maybe I choose this one, just have to find a good camera now. My current idea is: Panasonic NV-GS320.

With camcorders keep in mind that all of them will give you moderately good results outdoors during the daytime. It's indoor or night time recording where they differ wildly.
A 3CCD camera like the GS320 you picked is a good idea. Here's an interesting article:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/d/Reviews&level_b=Camcorder&level_c=HD.htm

i am not much into video anymore but i know that i always hated tapes. tapes are so cumbersome. you always have to wait for winding back and forth and capturing only works in realtime.

i would go for a harddisk or flash memory. what i don't like about the current hd consumer cameras is that they still only work in interlaced mode. i don't get it. no new hd tv works like that. crts are gone.

Thanks for all response. One mistake though it should have read €50.- to €80.- euros and not hundreds ^^ Anyways i'm trying Powerdirector and Ulead Videostudio. It's for making a wedding video from the footage. Adobe Premiere is nice, but I can't afford for just making a few video's.

A bit late, but @Marco: Yes I think you're right. It looks like there isn't a cheeper Adobe edition for students that allows commercial use :S

For the video editing programs, you can pick up "MGI video wave 5" for pretty cheap on ebay. Its a really simplistic program, but its easy to use and gets the job done most of the time. Its definitely not a 'pro' application though. Later versions of the program just got clunkier and slower, while removing features.

Also there is a program I tried the demo of once, called edit studio from puremotion. I don't remember the price, but it wasn't too expensive and had a decent feature set.

Good luck.