Anyone know about elemental video editing?

[evil^milk]

I'm trying to import video from an old camera which has these small cassettes. It can interface with the computer through a Firewire cable. What I wanna do is import video using software other than Windows Live Movie Maker, which will import the video in ridiculous sizes (20+ gigs) without a notable increase in audiovisual fidelity (size and quality tradeoff is undesirable at best).

Anyone have any recommendations?