The comments we made about supporting the increasing number of digital video recording devices in today's consumer electronics marketplace goes double for video playback devices. Whether it's a video iPod, a cell phone, a Sony PSP game console or some other yet-to-be device, the ability to output video to today's video viewing technology is an important area of video editing functionality. Adobe's support of these devices via MPEG-4 output and multiple input interfaces is a testament to the company's ability to look into the future.

Version 3.0 also includes dozens of new DVD menu templates, which can be simply dropped into the monitor window to quickly author a DVD of your video. The quality of the template designs ranges from elegant and sophisticated to shoddy and just plain ugly; it seems that in many cases Adobe was clearly going for quantity over quality. On the plus side, the ability to easily create your own DVD menus in Photoshop Elements (sold separately or in a bundled option) is a fantastic advantage.

Bottom line: in the under-$100 category, it's hard to imagine a more completely satisfying solution than Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0, for both raw beginners and for the more sophisticated hobbyist.

One of the best video editing products for beginning and intermediate editors.

Harold Johnson is a video producer and history buff.

• Integration with Photoshop Elements
• Timeline, Storyboard and Monitor interfaces
• Room to grow for serious hobbyists

• Renders slowly
• No HD DVD or Blu-ray support

OS: Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2
Minimum Display: 16-bit color; 1024x768 resolution
Minimum CPU: Intel Pentium 4 or Intel Celeron 1.3GHz processor (or compatible processor with SSE2 support); Pentium 4 3.2GHz for HDV
Minimum RAM: 512MB (1GB for HDV)
Capture Formats: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DV, AVI, Windows Media, QuickTime, JVC Everio MOD (import only), 3GP, ASF (import only), WAV, WMA import only Dolby Digital Stereo, PSD (import only), JPEG, PNG (import only), DVD
Batch Capture: no
User Interface: timeline, sceneline, monitor
Number of Video: Tracks unlimited
Number of Audio: Tracks 99
Audio/Video Level Envelopes: yes
Audio Scrub: yes
Music Creation Software Included: no
Scopes: no
Keyframe Animation: yes
Background Rendering: no
Realtime Software Previews: yes
Optimized for Dual Processor/HyperThreading: yes
Third-party Plug-in Support: yes
Batch Render: no
DVD Authoring Software Included: yes

$100 ($150 bundled with Photoshop Elements 5.0)
Adobe Systems
345 Park Ave.
San Jose, CA 94110
www.adobe.com