having just dicovered the base plate in oder to charge it up from the house move 18 months ago, i'm struggling now to figure out how to get the video onto the computer

the base has the following on the side of it:

slide button on/off
mini usb port (nothing seems to work here)
dv
dc (for the power)
a/v out

so i'm assuming i need teh a/v out connected to get it to work from the computer yes?

do i need some sort of software rigged up on the computer to get it to work or should i just be able to play the camcorder and record onto the computer?