Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects (Vol. 1)

If you are new to Adobe After Effects, check out Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects (Volume 1: Essentials) by Trish & Chris Meyer. The book comes with a 30 day trial so you can see if this is the program for you.

You can think of Adobe After Effects as Flash centered around video. It's used to create things like the animated motion graphics that you see introducing football games and movies of the week. You can use it to add animated titles to video, special effects, compositing, etc. You do this by adding layers, very much in the way you edit Flash. But it is especially geared to working with video files, where Flash is not.