I’m interested, too. I use Corel Ulead 11, but I’m not that impressed. I want something that’s easy, quick to learn and can do everything a major movie studio can.
The Muvee products are really easy to use and produce great results. They aren’t free but are very reasonable.Heres 2 youTube vids I made with Muvee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER0VFEC79yk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JGVylD56pY
please keep in mind I’m using nothing but a Flip camera, if you use a better cam you’ll have better images to work with.
Try Sony "Las Vegas" package, I believe it would satisfy your last criteria, however it nether "quick" nor "easy" and it's certainly not free. I bought a copy to turn some family VHS tapes into DVDs and got lost in the details of using the editor. It's way more program then I need and I got frustrated with the human interface (their documentation is rather weak). I solved the problem with hardware. There is a "junk" catalog (Heartland) which carries a lot of overruns, last years models, and inventory reduction tecno-gadgets at discount prices. I bought a $600+ Sony deck for about $100 w/S&H. It works just fine for what I needed.
Don't misunderstand, the Sony suite of media editing/authoring software is very good (professional grade) and if that's your idea of what you need, go for it.
Regards,
GtG