I'm trying to find software that will join two avi's together. I've used a program called "Alive Video Joiner" but i would like to find something better.
I would like to get more into editing and encoding so if anyone can recommend software that is easy to learn it would be a big help.

Thanks

Ulead VideoStudio 10+

Any video editing software should be capable of that. It all depends on what you want to do, how often you will do it, and the level of control that you want. If all you are doing is joining avi's and rendering and authoring them, there are lots of softwares which will do a good job. If you want to get fancy with motion menu's, and have good tools to fix minor problems with your video, there are programs like Ulead Studio 10, Adobe Premiere Elements, and Vegas Movie Studio. If you want a little of both, and have the ability to use a wizard to assist you, or bypass the wizard for more control, Ulead Studio 10 is a pretty good candidate.

Easy Video oiner Best one

My vote goes to Ulead also, easy to use and great results. My son also uses Sony Vegas 8 but Ulead 10 is his fav.

I use Nero 8 most of the time, with the fancy stuff (requires image adjustment) going into Pinnacle Studio 11+. I'm not too happy with Premiere Elements 3 — and I use Ashampoo & ImgBurn for most of the burning.

I am using Sony Movie Studio Platinum, it is good.

AVI DeMux and VirtualDub are both free if all you need to do is cut or join or transcode or encode video (they both have lots of options)...

quote olyteddy,
I second that, for the freeware, but
would add that the user interface for AviDemux takes a little time to get used to.

quote AlonsoF,
It's relatively "easy to learn" but don't expect miracles overnight.
Experiment a bit with small files and if they don't turn out quite the way you want them, search for help files or tutorials to correct whatever is not just the way you want it.