Dude
If you're going to talk about someone's "disinformation" you need to have your own house in order before you attempt to disparage.

FYI - easiest way for someone without experience to transfer video from any camcorder to any recording/receiving device is with the tape rolling and a camcorder output used. This person is a BEGINNER.

FYI - the "documentation" I referred to about this camcorder's capability came from manufacturer specs - usually a good source for correct information - Ya think??????

This camcorder has:

• Connector Type: 1 x microphone ¦ 1 x composite video/audio output ¦ 1 x S-Video output ¦ 1 x USB ¦ 1 x DC power input.

BTW - typical for this type of camcorder.

Re the above spec info I DID mistype - NOT S-Video to USB - USB to USB was intended. My friend, there are ways to suggest someone is in error that are much more appropriate in a forum than being a jerk. Maybe you haven't seen camcorder usb to usb cable - do a google. A traditional USB plug for the PC usb port and a special (but industry standard) plug for the camcorder port.

IN case I wasn't clear there are a variety of relatively inexpensive video capture adapters for analog camcorder output that work perfectly well via usb2 pc port.

Of course, any experienced person knows that you need firewire for good transfer of miniDV. It simply ain't true for analog video transfer - maybe in the past but simply not true today.

This person isn't using a miniDV camcorder. Of course, any experienced person knows that digital to digital is better transfer method that an digital to analog to digital conversion. I've been doing video editing for quite a while.

However it is easier for an inexperienced person to simply plug a cable from their camcorder into their cqpture adapter to transfer their video to their PC. USB to USB with a $6.00 cable is - IMO - best and easiest for a beginner.

In my experience, I have transferred, so far, about 500 hours of analog video from VHS, Betamax, 8mm, Hi-8, Beta industrial and U-matic 3/4 inch with very little loss of VISIBLE image quality from the capture, editing and rendering/dvd creation steps using camera or player analog outputs.

BTW - current technology works quite well via USB2 for capture of analog MPEG2 type quality - tons of manufacturer's products support it.

So far as putting the mini-disc into the PC's dvd drive often those mini-Disc video files are in a finalized file format like .vob. A beginner is not going to find it easy going finding software that will transcode vob to mpeg2. YES, some editing programs have been written to recognize and support mini-Disc analog video files but MANY and specially some a year or two old or less expensive ones DON'T which can make things very confusing for a beginner.

I could have been more careful and thorough in my post - you could have been just a bit less toxic in your post. I have many times offered differering information in this sharing environment WITHOUT telling the other forum member they were full of mis-information.

We are all trying to help each other and talking across to people instead of talking down to them is usually a bit more helpful in a group situation.

If your gonna put someone down and ACT like a SME then please BE a SME.
regards