the upgrade version is the same program as the non-upgrade version. so if it's a better deal to get VF and then upgrade to VV3, then go for it. when i bought Vegas 2, i bought VA2 then upgraded it to VV2 because it was cheaper to do it that way. then i gave the VA2 to my dad who's into recording. oops... no, i didn't. that was in a movie i saw.

I started with Video Factory. I think its an excellent program, especially for the money. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it has what you need, especially if you are editing for hobby versus earning income.

I had major problems with the mpeg 2 encoding (it would crash my system every time). I think they have since fixed that problem. I have Vegas now because there was an attactive price to upgrade and the mpeg 2 problems are no more.

Someone previously mentioned VV3 being available for around $250. If I remember right it's a special offer that's in the February issue of Computer VideoMaker. I can't vouch for the accuracy of that but it might be worth picking up a copy and looking through for the ad. The original post even had the page number that the ad was on but my memory is not that good.

David_DSS

I just did the upgrade route since it is cheaper and you get two programs instead of one (even though you will never need VF if you have VV, but a friend may). It is US $59.97 for VF 2.0, and $199.95 to upgrade to VV 3.0 (boxed or downloadable). If I recall, you don't even need to install VF 2.0 to do the upgrade. You just install VV 3.0 and enter your VF 2.0 serial number as proof. You may actually want to install VF after VV since it has a newer version of the MainConcept MPEG2 encoder and is supposed to fix some problems found in VV's encoder.