I did some research, the software got some good reviews and it is within my budget. Sadly, Adobe Premier is astronomically WAY out of the budget. The freeware thing got to start looking like a rabbit-hole I couldn't get out of just to save some bucks. I find it hard to get computer help in Japan, so I decided to get what was likely most dependable.
I looked up some stuff on the Pixela software that came with my sony video camera. Most of the posts were about people who couldn't get it to work. I don't doubt that for one minute. I'm going to have to do a blog about the customer service i recieved from Sony when I was trying to get help for that program and why my computer was acting wonky with it. I was told that Pixela wasn't a sony product so they didn't provide any support for it.
As far as I'm concerned, if you are going to throw it in the box with your product, you should be able to provide some help or at least point people where to get some help. Which sony did not do. I probably could have found some info on the net (and i did search) but for someone new to this hobby, I could have used any pointers rather than slogging out my frustrations. I"m not so sure that I don't wish I had bought a cannon instead.
The software problem certainly took away from my joy in the product. The customer service certainly didn't encourage me (whereas previously, I had only had excellent help from sony).