Just got a good camcorder now what?

The key is in the video transfer to the computer. Do you have a firewire output/input on your camera and PC? That's the only way to go. You should have also gotten some software with you camera to help in the captre/transfer.

For the actual software, I have had great success with MovieMaker, which is included in Windows. Very easy, and quality is decent.

I agree Firewire is the best way to down load and the latest version of Movie Maker is very good. Simple to use and easy to chop out unwanted footage. Have fun.

Also, if you shoot a lot of video don't 'skimp' on the computer side of things. I.e., moving to digital video editting on an older PC with limited memory, CPU speed, and disk space will try the patience of a saint. Also, data backup and recovery becomes a bigger issue because these video files are big. Think BIG hard drive times two ... one to hold your data files, the second to back it all up. Video files are just too big to backup onto DVD unless you are religious about burning each and every tape onto an unedited DVD one for one.

After loosing some treasured photos and video to a fatal hard disk crash, I now have a 250GB main media HD used only for music, photos, video data files that is automatically backed up onto a separate 300 GB backup drive that also has a mirror of a bootable Windows OS installation from my main system drive. In a worst case scenario of loosing both of my main drives, I can still boot off of the backup drive and recover everything. All three drives are in a quick-release cage I can pop out of the chasis in 30 seconds and store in a safe whenever we travel.

As for software, I use Pinnacle Studio. It is functionally very rich and relatively easy to use. The only issue I had was that new versions of the software typically had stability issues until they got the bugs worked out ... which I took as a management problem given my background in the software industry. Pinnacle was bought out last year so I'm hoping the new management team has/is straightening out the quality issues.

Its a canon zr300

It does come with a firewire /usb

Thanks for the advice guys.

Mine is a Canon as well.
The big advantage to movie maker is that it comes with windows XP. I cannot find any issues with it for business use and baseball.
i also have an external HD and use Acronis True Image software to create a mirror image of my main drive. Never lost anything on this computer.

I have a Sony DCR-DVD403 but didn't know to look for a Firewire when I purcased it last summer. This model doesn't have one. After researching online, I'm using a trial version of ULead's VideoStudio 9. So far so good I think. I have no software or tech experience. A Ulead user to user web board provided very quick answers to a question I had.

The suggestions and stories I have read on this site have been extremely helpful. Thank you so much to all the contributors!

I have the Canon ZR300 as well. I sent off for the free software bundle supplied by Canon for editing video (I think it's Pinnacle Studio), it works pretty well and is fairly easy to use. With this particular camera the only way to get video to the computer is via firewire, the usb is for transferring still photos (I'll bet that you'll need to buy and install a firewire card along with a cable, not a big deal) .

I'm debating whether or not to spend $50 on 'plug-ins' for the software that would allow me to do quasi slow-motion (along with numerous other effects I'll probably never use - it adds frames to make the motion appear to slow down).

Style you are right. You probably won't use the effects unless you are really into video making.
I have a few video editing programs and I like Movie maker the best. It comes free with XP and it has everything you need. One program even had a limit on the size of video you could record.
Movie maker breaks the video up into small clips and you can manually break them up even more to remove wasted footage. Move your wanted clips to a story bpard add some supplied effects if you want and save it in your video library. Record it to DVD/CD. I have another program that converts the video to play on your DVD/CD player.
I don't like effects if you are making a recruiting DVD. Move from one shot to the next quickly.
Effects to me are for making home movies which is very different than for coaches to view. They want to see the goods quickly.

Thanks for all the info guys. I know quite a few people with Canon's and I got mine from a good recommendation.

Appreciate all the assistance.

You can try V1 Home for free.

You can use the free version to analize swings, but you can't save the output without purchasing the product.

what kind of firewire cable is good and how much do they cost?

I believe there is only 1 kind. make sure you have plug in for computer and camera. Stoe should be able to help over the phone.