I can convert it for you...LOL I do a lot of useless junk...

there are ways to do the hook ups and I still have them. But just whenever you are ready

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ewizabeth, good luck! Just try them all out, you might be surprised!

Ok, what a looongg afternoon!

I went to Wally World, they were sold out of most models. Nobody knew anything.

Best Buy was right next door. There were swarms of little techy salespeople. A little gal helped me. Basically, I told her what I wanted and confirmed tht my camcorder would work with Vista, etc... She tried to talk me into some of the others but I told her about the disadvantages of each for my situation.

They had two display models of the one I wanted. One of them was up high, not plugged in, and on close inspection, there were no fingerprints on the touchscreen. I bought that one with an additional 10% discount.

The girl had to round up all the accessories while I played Mahjong on a souped up laptop.

I got the Sony DCR-HC52 for $210.00, that's $40 less than any of the online prices I saw advertised. It's the mini-DV format.

I had to buy the tapes and the firewire cable as well. This has 40x optical zoom, night mode, etc... I was out the door for under $300.

We went to our son's bands performance tonight, and I recorded it all. Right now it's transferring to the computer. I need to work with it tomorrow and see how to format it for emailing out, etc...

So...... SUCCESS!!! DS was thrilled that we were able to be there and that Mom had a nice little camcorder to record them! They had a pretty big crowd watching and got some good applause as well! I was as proud as could be!

the most important thing is that YOU are happy with it. The feel, the handle, and if the rest goes well, then you should pat yourself on the back!

everyone will like something that others won't...LOLOL

I still won't get a Sony because of my experiences. Don't get me wrong. I have a sony dsc camera that I simply love, but I have fixed so many vaio laptops that I have a big headache whenever someone brings me a vaio laptop...and then I've seen their problems with the PS3 in the beginning, which btw, I would actually get a PS3 now. Which is where I think the problem is: they are concentrating too much on their PS3 and have let other techs suffered.

On top of that, they are trying to stay too ahead of the technologies. Their emerald technology is awesome. They new true hi-def tv's are awesome, but they are all out of price for below average joe like me and they are neglecting their everyday consumers...

oh well...but I think that'll change...tech is a unique thing...LOL no company is on top forever...

uh oh, I went off topic again...LMAO...

CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!

It even has an EASY button. LOL I admit, that's what I recorded with last night.

It remains to be seen if I can handily import, edit and share the videos. If not, back it goes for a different (and easier) model. DS expects to come over and watch the recordings today.

I hear you on the Sony computers. They aren't good quality. I used work in the computer business before Sony was into them. Today they are sort of like the Packard Bell of the mid 1990's.

sony's usually come with their own software programs to edit movies but I have to admit, I hate it. LOL

I know nappy loves Imovies and I have heard a lot of great things on them and it is really making me itching for a MAC, but all our puters are still running great cause I keep on fixing/updating/tweaking them...maybe I should tweak it so they'll break?? LOLOL

one of my brothers just graduated from Art/Design school with specialty in animation and he uses a lot of flash for the web and pinnacle for his movies.

my other brother has a degree in theatrical production with specialty in directing (I think that's how it is phrased) and he uses pinnacle and roxio.

I only play with the movies cause that isn't my strength and I am only scratching the surface. But the trick is to make a copy of the movie that you want to edit right after you've downloaded it to your puter. that way, you can keep on playing with the copy and mess with it all you want to.

as with everything else, it'll come with practice but once you've have fun with it, it might become addicting then I'll have to send you our movies and pay you to edit them...LOL

do they still make Packard Bell???

(just so you know why I think Gateway sucks these days, it was acquired by the same company that has acquired Packard Bell: Both are owned by Acer(major outstanding stock)LOL)

I got the movies saved to the computer, but I don't have a DVD writer. So I ordered an internal DVD-RW drive from newegg.com. I'll install that in a few days when it arrives.

Then I'll make DVD's of the video for all the guys in the band so they can see it and also use it for practice.

DS was critiqueing (sp?) as he watched. I have to say with all modesty, that DS had the best performance in the group, though they all did a good job.

try to use DVD- (negative) for the best bet to play on most of the DVD players.

just curious as to what kind of files these vids were saved in. MPEG2? If so, it should be a cake walk.

.WMV format and it wants a DVD to record to. Windows Vista default I suppose...

Thanks for the tip on the negative.