Hi all, I'm new to video so please forgive my ignorance. I bought my wife a minidv camera(Samsung vp-d323).when I play back through the tv quality is fine but when I transfer to the computer by firewire the quality is awfull, even when burnt to dvd. Any tips,comments or help of any form would be much appreciated.

"awfull" is not too precise. could you describe what exactly is awfull about your resulting videos (colors, interlacing, contrast, artifacts etc.) ?

I mean the picture is not focused well,something like an old diy movie of thirty years ago

first, make sure that you're using the firewire connection (i'm not kidding, some people use usb and they're surprised it's not working). then, in the editing stage, keep the conversions at a minimum. even if you're doing a big project, don't transcode the material too much. keep it all dv avi. after your editing is done (including transitions, titles, effects, dvd menus) compress it to mpeg-2 (the dvd format) at a vbr of 6000 kbps or more (you're probably using a lower vbr) and burn it. that's all there is to it.

I am using firewire but even gefore any editing the playback on my computer is poor quality.As I said I am a newcomer to video so most of your comments are over my head

Ok. Are you capturing in standard DV AVI? What software do you use for capturing?

I've tried Windows movie maker and Nero express.I tried a free edition of Avid but that cofigured the dv device to ntsc and wouldn't capture

well windows movie maker is just fine for what you need (except the lack of dvd authoring features) but probably captures in windows media video format (wmv) as default.
make sure it's dv avi, the video input source is firewire (digital camera) and the resolution (under video settings) is 720x576 (pal). read the help file, i've just opened it and it says everything there.

Thanks ,I'll try all that and see how I go

Yep, dv files did the trick,thanks a lot