New PV-GS300 owner here a bit confused

Hello everybody, wife and I had our 1st child and thought a camcorder was something we were definitely going to need, After some online research we decided to go with the GS300 from Panasonic. I love the camcorder but uploading the video to our computer is stumping me a bit.

I have a HP desktop and it seems it does not support usb 2.0 so trying to upload the video onto my computer seems to be impossible at this moment. My wife has a newer HP laptop with USB 2.0 and firewire compatibilities so I was successful in uploading some video to hers with the usb cord bundled with the camcorder but uploading to mine is something I really need.

OK enough about that I guess I have a few question so here they go.

1. Is there anyway to get video onto my system?
2. Will a firewire cord on my wife's system increase the speed in which video can be uploaded?
3. Is there any software out there other than the Panasonic bundled software(yuck!) to upload the video? Editing video isn't really important at this time.

Thank everybody in advance and we look forward to playing with the new camcorder :)

1. Get a OHCI compliant Firewire card for your system and cable. Price does not seem to be a factor. Here are some which seem to be popular. :Koutech PCI to 1394a Card Model IO-PFW310
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815104218

Q-Stor 3-Port FireWire PCI Board; with 1 x 6-4 pin Firewire cable. $12.84
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3942785

2. No, not with the GS300 if she has "High Speed" USB2.

3. Most software uses Firewire.

You might read this page:
http://www.pana3ccduser.com/article.php?filename=Firewire-and-the-Panasonic-3CCD-Camcorder


You may also want to read this thread: USB vs Firewire:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=124266




Rich

For a simple, free DV capture program that uses Firewire, download WinDV (Google it).

Thanks guys got everything up and running on both systems.