'Could any of you recommend anything good and freeware?' This doesn't mean the it needs to be free. He should have expressed himself differently, but okay. I've always used Sony Vegas even if the project was a simple fix and render that takes a minute to complete.
Ok. If one is nitpicking then 'freeware' would include any time limited demo versions of the professional softwares aswell. You are right. And if they are full-featured he should try and use them.
On a sidenote: I just found out that Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 is available for free just like Photoshop CS 2. So that could be worth a look aswell. Though I don't know if 2.0 was HD resolution capable.
Here is a list of features:
Docking Workspaces
Multicam editing
Adobe Clip Notes
Dynamic Link with After Effects projects
DVD authoring from the timeline
Native HDV editing
Native SD and HD support
Enhanced color-correction tools
10-bit and 16-bit color resolution support
32-bit internal color processing
GPU-accelerated rendering
So according to this, it has HD support. He should definitely try it out.