[BigEnos]

So for my Birthday my girlfriend gave me a Samsung mini-dv camcorder. She went with the bare-bones model which is fine with me as it'll probably see most of its use in the car recording autocross runs. The camcorder came with a firewire port, but no cable or software. I think compusa has decent prices on 1394 cables (looks like both ends are 4-pin), but once I have the cable then what? If I want to tweak around with the video or even compress it I'll need some video editing software right? Anyone with a PC find anything they like?

[rushman]

If you don't have a firewire card get that first, and then get the cable (since firewire cable is about all the same price, but cards can very based on 4 or 6 pin. I would recommend getting a 6 pin card, then get a 4 to 6 pin cable since the 6 pin card can be used with all firewire accessories, while 4 pin can only be used with 4 pin.

as for capture software, I use adobe premier, but pinacle studio works very well, and beleive it or not, windows move maker makes it super simple. My recomendation is start with windows movie maker (included with windows XP, (start->programs->accssories->entertainment))
If that doesn't do it for you, pinacle is affordable, or if you have 'sources' premier is very powerfull, but very expensive.