0 bby, right after the first movie A New Hope. Do you start your campaign here? And does story continuity from the movies, general canon or EU count after this point(or the starting point you use)?

I'm starting my campaign a week after the Battle of Yavin. Alderaan is gone, but only a handful of people have actually been there to verify. People in the galaxy mostly think there was some kind of natural disaster that knocked out the Holonet and disrupted travel. Few would believe that the planet blew up. Fewer still would believe that some Imperial super weapon did it. Especially since that supposed super weapon is gone, blown up by plucky Rebels in snub fighters. I mean seriously, who would believe that? It's ridiculous.

The rest of the Star Wars canon story is and will happen, but the PCs won't interact with it. They might come across random probe droids looking for Rebel bases. If they meta game it and choose to go to Hoth for some reason they'll probably get chased off by Rebels, possibly get their ship taken and then get dropped off somewhere close by a shuttle with their clothes and base weapons.

The PCs aren't going to meet Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, or the other iconic characters. They might hear of somebody smaller from the EU (like Talon Karrde), but won't get to directly influence them (maybe, just maybe, they could do a mission for somebody that knows somebody that knows a Rebel that might know one of the movie characters).

They key idea that I'm pushing is that for most of the galaxy, the Rebellion doesn't mean anything and doesn't impact their lives. To be brutally honest, even the death of the Emperor took years to affect the day-to-day lives of most Imperial citizens. In the Outer Rim, where Hutts dominate, the entire Galactic Civil War is mostly just a business opportunity.

Our AoR game started a bit before Yavin. We heard about Alderaan during a mission (we were not based on Yavin) and that the Empire had found the base. It was pretty tense, but we were already in the middle of stealing an Imperial supply convoy so we couldn't immediately detour or anything. We then heard about the Imperial weapon being destroyed at Yavin and we were all pretty thrilled about it.

We're ABY now - actually, our first real ABY mission was extracting some Alliance Intelligence forces from another Yavin pyramid while Fleet was mixing it up with the Star Destroyers in orbit trying to buy us time before the inevitable TIEs and landing forces hit. I am pretty sure our GM is going to put us on Hoth at the time of the invasion a few missions down the line.

Our first AOR campaign started a few years pre-Yavin shortly before the Alliance formed. Our EOE campaigns have started both before and after Yavin, sometimes years afterwards.

i've run the beginner's box and long arm of the Hutt to introduce some of my first time players to rpgs in general and everyone to the system, and I've got 6 sessions of my first ffg star wars campaign done, it's got the default starting time, but it's a fringe bounty hunting Hutt intrigue story, I don't plan for the galactic civil war to impact the campaign other than as background and a business opportunity. So as much of NOT VONG RELATED cannon EU as has happened up until yavin (including background of characters who featured prominently in the EU after rotj) has happened so Moff Sarne from the WEG darkstryder, campaign is governor of the Kathol sector but I doubt that the new cannon will leave the 8 ABY state of the EU/new republic/background of darkstryder untouched so that may not happen at all, or maybe the context might change.

For Edge, no, I didn't specify a year other then "post Yavin."

But I also had a kind of rule to my campaign: The players are not to join the Alliance and their interaction with Alliance is to be neutral at best.

When you don't have your players joining the Alliance, what year it is doesn't matter that much because the major events of the films don't effect them in the same way. Yavin was a big news event, but it didn't eliminate anyones debt... If you were running spice the day before Hoth, you'll probably be running it the day after, and if you've got a price on your head for that thing involving the hutt's daughter/son/whatever before Endor, you better believe it's still there after....

The crawl I wrote for the beginning of my game starts:

"Rumors have reached the Outer Rim of the destruction of an Imperial battle station by Rebel terrorists, threatening to escalate the Galactic Civil War further.

In the far flung reaches on the Edge of the Empire, little has changed. Beings still need to eat, still need to make credits, some even seeking adventure and opportunity in this uncertain galaxy."

So yeah, my game is set soon after the Battle of Yavin but the only real effect on the group is that I use it as a justification why Imperial military and customs are that bit more jumpy and suspicious than usual.

All my games, so far, have been started just after the Battle of Yavin. I find it easiest to maintain the right feel for the game. I would have to exercise more mental muscles, were I to set a campaign in the Dark Times or Legacy Era. And I kinda like that I don't have to think so hard as a GM in this system

For most of your question, I answered here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/137020-so-whats-in-your-universe/?p=1496710

As for date/year, I use the following calculator to tell players which day they are in-universe: http://www.filedropper.com/starwarsin-universecalendarcalculator

It's a homemade Excel file I've put together from the most "canon" notes on the in-universe Star Wars calendar I could muster. It has a "Legends" status, but it's compliant with the most well established dating practices. The notes explain how to get it working for your game.

I started the game 10 days after the Battle of Yavin, which I calculated to be on the 35:4:31 GrS (Year 35:Month 4:Day 31): Between 35:3:5 and 35:3:21 according to Wikipedia + 10 days.

The following article helps explain it: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Standard_Calendar

Edit: I may have made a slight mistake in my calculator (easily fixed): I added ten days to the original Battle of Yavin and again to the start of our game, meaning that by default the file should put the BoY at the 132nd day of the Year 35 instead of the 142nd.