[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?

[pknowles]

Get the cable off of eBay for next to nothing, the cable shouldn't be anything special. My camcorder has the small firewire port which most people are not used to seeing, I'm guessing your does too. Windows XP does have a capture program and there are a ton of free ones on the web too, but if you want to cut out all the dead time in your video you are going to need some editting software. BTW, if your camcorder has an optional remote I suggest buying it. It is so nice to be able to wait till I get up to the line before I hit record. Plus, it really messes you up when you are all straped in and remember that you forgot to turn the camera on!

For video editing I use Ulead Video Studio 10, great software, but it's all I have ever used. I think there is a free trail of it on the web.