Hi all,

I'm looking to buy a camcorder. The one we have is about 20 years old, and I don't know how to use it, or how to get the movies off the tapes, so I'm going to buy a new one.

Are the mini DV format ones easy to get the movies off of and onto the computer? I don't want to reinvent the wheel each time I want to save or use what I've recorded. I know there are also hard drive formats and memory stick ones. It seems that the ones with the memory stick are going to be hard to use if you want to save a lot of movies on them at one time? Also, the 8gb chips are around $80 each.

I have a computer with the IEEE 1394 (firewire?) port. If the mini-DV is easy to use with the firewire would that be a good choice? The ones with the hard drive are quite a bit more money. I think I know which features I need except for the format.

I also take it that Sony has about the easiest to use.