Alright. I'll share my experiences with what's out there for video editing software.
If you don't want to pay any money you're choices are limited. There are a couple of open source video editing tools like Cinerella but most only work in Linux and I've never had any good luck with them.
If you have a little programming experience you might be able to use
Avisynth. It's a little clunky because all your editing is done with a script, but it is very powerful for what it does. There's a guide on the SA forums that explains how to use Avisynth very well:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?action=showpost&postid=385216691&forumid=191The other option is
Windows Movie Maker. I used to recommend it to people who didn't want to pay money, but the most recent version
really sucks. WMM will force you to save your movies as *.wmv files which aren't ideal at all. Even at the highest saving quality the movies still don't look as good as if you saved them as an h.264 mp4. Other then those downfalls, the program does do the job.
If you have a Mac, it does come with a solid video editor on the computer,
iMovie. I've never used it though.
If you are willing to pay for the program you're options really do open up. Unless you want to do serious cinematic work, you'll probably want
Vegas Movie Studio. You can get a copy of it for less than $100, and it's what I currently use. It's a solid non-linear video editor that will do everything you'll need for Let's Plays.
All the other options are expensive. There's
Adobe Premier and
Final Cut Pro, but they cost more than I would be willing to pay for the software. However, I'm certain that they would work perfectly and do everything you would need if you did buy one.
One final note. If you purchase
Camtasia it comes with a simple video editor that works fantastic. The only downside is that Camtasia is $300.
