Cheapest Final Cut Express?

Hi all,
After doing a little bit of video editing on PC with Windows Movie Maker/Pinnacle, iMovie '08 is a huge let down! I'm downloading iMovie '06 as that's apparently better (effects-wise) but I have a feeling I'll need something like FCE.

With student discount, I get less than £10 off FCE, coming to £118...which is out of my budget! I have however found some third party websites selling it for around £60 through Google Product Search.
Link: http://www.morecomputers.com/TechDesc.asp?pn=D3073ZM/A

Does this look like the real thing?

Where did you guys get your FCE's from and how much did you have to pay for them?

Cheers!

That link looks like it's showing the education version of FCE 3.5. That version has more media and an additional application in comparison to the new version (4.0). 4.0, however, will work with AVCHD...a big plus if you plan on doing any work with an HDD based camcorder.

I vote for buying the 4.0 upgrade disk and upgrading from FCE 3.5.

Why?

With 3.5 you get Soundtrack (a VERY helpful audio application with a TON of free media and a lot of helpful features). You also get a TON more media for Livetypes (active text generating application). These 3 apps work together seamlessly.

I picked up FCE 3.5 on ebay for $80US. Then I bought the FCE 4.0 upgrade disk from the Apple store for $99US. Under $200US and it gave me the best of both worlds...all the media that 3.5 came with, Soundtrack, and FCE 4, which can deal with AVCHD (what I needed).


However, if you're on a budget, know 2 things:
1) FCE 3.5 is just fine if you don't need to deal with AVCHD.
2) You can pick up the 4.0 upgrade disk for $99US and upgrade from ANY previous version of FCE. Ie. you can find an older version on eBay for pretty cheap and upgrade from that.

Hope that helps.

-Nick

P.S. iMovie 6 is a decent application. But FCE is worlds more powerful. It's a FANTASTIC video editing application, IMO.

Thanks for the help, Nick.

I've got exams on at the moment but will look into this when after they finish. Some pretty useful advice there, really appreciate it!

Most academics aren't upgradeable so buying a 3.5 academic version might not work to well to upgrade.