I found it necessary to get the demos and actually work with the programs. They all spec out as having the basic features. Some have better tools than others, but... the interface makes it or breaks it for me. I'm sold on the dvgarage toolkit and for 200 bucks from www.universe3d.com you get the amorphium pro thrown in. Comes with video training on the cd's. You can get demos of version 4 and the dvgarage version 2.9 is almost identical.