Hi
I am posting on behalf of my mum who has recently bought a sony camcorder. I believe its the hc24 or similar.
The problem is with the software, I am aware that there are lots of problems with the sony software but I have not come across this in any forums.
Whenever we install the software it causes the system to crash nearly every time it's switched on. The camcorder connects fine through usb but it just screws everything else up. am I right in assuming that If I install a firewire card we won't need to use the software and drivers?
Any advice would be gratfully recieved.

That's right. Why would you need USB?

Thanks for the reply.
The only reason is that her pc doesn't have firewire and she just expected that it would work with usb like most people do. but having read the pros and cons I will buy her a firewire card.
cheers

Firewire is the recommended connection between a digital camcorder and computer. It may be slower in terms of data transfer than USB 2 but it has more benefits than what USB 2 can offer. It also transfers sound aswell. So you will need a Firewire card and a four pin to six pin connector, assuming it is a small connector on the Sony (I haven't used that model) and the firewire card will have the larger six pin connector.

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Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...

Sorry, just let me edit that last post, you need a cable with a four pin connector on one end (for the camcorder) and a six pin connector on the other end (for the Firewire card).

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Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...

My SONY DVD 203E will only connect to PC via USB. It will only copy DVD via my PC back to the same size DVD on the camera. How can I store my films onto full size DVDs? Is there a lead that converts from my camera to firewire on pc?

No, but you can rip the DVD's to edit them.

Thanks for the reply. What do you mean please. I'm a novice.

Make sure the disc is finalized in the camcorder, then take it out, place it in the DVD drive on your computer and open the contents using MyComputer. Look for files with a .vob extension, they are anything from 1Gb to 4Gb in size (hold the mouse pointer over them to check) and you need to highlight this file or files depending on how many and they need to be copied into a folder on your hard disk. Look up the guide on this process that I placed in the Guides section of this forum for more information. It's called .vob to .avi on the cheap.

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Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...

Thanks again.but sorry I cannot find the guide. There were 500 answers to my search on the title.vob to .avi