Budget AMV software help

[CosmosHeart]

Hi,

I have had WMM for ages and finally have decided to buy something better. My budget is £100. What program would you advise? I'm willing to learn to use new software, however would not like something too complicated. Is Sony Movie Studio any good?

Thanks.

[mirkosp]

Sony Movie Studio is quite limited, for that price you might be able to find a full Pro version of Vegas (even if it's a couple of version old, hardly any major features relevant to AMVers will be lacking).
Otherwise, a fine solution if you want to stay in a budget price range is to go with Magix products.

[AMVGuide]

According to the 2012 results of This Poll, Vegas or anything on that list should be fine.
It should be noted, as mirkosp said, that Sony Movie Studio(~$50-$100) is *NOT* Sony Vegas Pro (~$600) <---(that extra zero is not a typo)
The differences are in the features. Like Pro has Masktools to cut out characters frame-by-frame; IIRC, Studio does not.
More differences can be found here:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegassoftware

However, masking can always be done manually using PhotoShop or GIMP (free).

Now, if effects are not that important to you, almost any program will do.
I personally use Magix because I consider it to be a budget editor (~$50-$100).
There are tutorials on the page above explaining how to use it.
Of course, according to the poll, most AMVers use some flavor of Sony Vegas, so you may find more tutorials for Vegas online; albiet, probably for Vegas Pro... despite costing ~$600. Same with After Effects... despite costing $1250.

[mirkosp]

I'm pretty sure every now and then some online discount for vegas pro version surfaces if you dig well enough, though obviously not for the latest versions (I recall JaddziaDax linking to a sellout of Vegas Pro 6 at about 60 usd a couple of years ago or so).
And as far as I'm told by Vegas users, apparently the changes from 6.0 onwards in Vegas Pro are hardly of a concern to AMVers (it seems they were mostly on the technical side for industry standard formats as far as HD and BDs go, from my understanding). That might have changed though.

[CosmosHeart]

Thanks everyone for your helpful comments. I really like the look of Vegas, but the price has always put me off. If I could find a cheaper older one somewhere that would be amazing.