Woah! I completely missed this – Avid are discontinuing their FreeDV offering, which provided a limited version of Xpress for free. It was great for people learning to use Avid, and all the tools it offers. However:
Effective September 1, 2007, Avid is discontinuing the Avid Free DV application offer, and has no immediate plans to make an updated version available.
Get it while you can. From September, this leaves Liquid as Avid’s cheapest solution (£500), and Xpress Pro as the cheapest ‘proper’ Avid (£1245). Good education pricing, but still – Premiere Pro ($800) is back with a vengeance. Apple, meanwhile, really needs to update Final Cut Express ($300) to serve all the people abandoned by iMovie’08, though it’s still a stonkingly good package.