StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I have a some questions for those of you that do video editing on your computers for work, fun, school, etc. I am a video hobbyist, my main interest is the creation of AMVs and other short projects involving the editing of pre-existing and original footage. Because this is a hobby, and I am poor and in college, I'm hoping to spend a minimal amount of money, or find a free alternative. I was hoping someone could recommend a solid, relatively low demand piece of editing software. I mainly need to edit time lines and create clips, with a few audio options. Nothing fancy.

I've tried dozens of free downloads and trials over the years and I have run into a few frequent problems. Many of the programs severely degrade the quality of the clips during the editing process. I know degradation is expected when making a copy of a copy, but these clips degrade in quality over time through the editing process, even though they aren't being copied anymore. With various trial versions, water-marking is an obvious problem.

Now obviously I don't have the money to buy any high end software and buying a mac for their built in bundles is completely out of the question due to my current financial status. Any suggestions?

The only thing that I can think of off the top of my head is AVID Free DV. Just be warned, it has a bit of a steep learning curve to it. There is no watermarking, but you are limited to 2 audio and 2 video tracks, and it is limited to the DV format.

Cinelerra is supposed to do quite a bit, but very resource intensive and Linux-only.