Imjay brought up some good points.

First of all, Adobe Premiere Pro (the tool I am using) takes about a week to learn, assuming you are already familiar with video editing. Hence it is not a good choice if you are starting out. It is also not cheap.

The Ulead offering is an excellent choice -- you can be up and running and making some simple edits within a few hours. If I was a beginner, I would choose Final Cut Express or Adobe Premiere Elements but these products are all in the same league (powerful yet easy to use). I have also taken a close look at Pinnacle Studio but it doesn't seem to like my PC (frequent crashes), so I can't really say much about it. I understand that Sony Vegas is good also, but I have not used it so I can't say either way.

I think we need to find out what format you receive the files in. If you get miniDV tapes, for example, then you will need a camcorder to import the footage to your PC or Mac. If you get a DVD, then you will need to convert the VOB files to MPEG2 so you can start editing (unless your editor recognizes files with a .VOB extension). We can all try to lend a hand, but the first step is to find out "what you've got". It could even be HD.

Zam
my blog: Digital Video and Film