Microsoft Movie Maker Vs' Cyberlink Power Director

This week we needed to use a free yet relatively easy video editing program. I unfortunately have the world most unreliable laptop could not at first download movie maker, which is among the highest rated and easiest rated free programs. So I chose to download for my free 30 day trial Cyberlink's Power Director. The download was easy, i looked at reviews from cnet.com and they gave this program 4 stars. After downloading the program I think this was highly overrated. At first glance everything seems very easy, their icons are all pictures that can set things such as blending effects, artistic washes to your video as well as the normal attributes of a video editing program. The most basic program is that it has so many bells and whistles that it turns out to be too busy to navigate and the sequence editor is very touchy, you will end up clicking on 30 things before the portion of video you need. Frustrated, I ended up at my parents home using their already installed but yet lovely Microsoft Movie Maker. This program is free in most Windows Vista-7. It was incredibly easy to use, drag down menu, easy addition of music and the splitting feature was very nice. For the basics this is the best. I can see my students using this as a entry level video editing program, a start so to speak. In later courses such as multimedia or animation I can see where adobe's suite can come in mighty handy. For fancy fade outs and artistically overdone effects other programs may suit your better but for basic editing that ANYONE can do, Movie maker is gold!