I'm about to purchase my first digital video camera and am leaning towards at Mini DV camera at present. However, my laptop computer has 512 MB RAM, 30 GB HD, 1 CD burner - so I would need to get an external dvd burner to make dvds. It only has two USB 1.0 ports so is it capable of transferring the data 1. between camera and computer and 2. between computer and DVD burner? Can anyone advise on reasonably priced editing software?
Also, are there any recommendations for a camera - I'm currently looking at either a Sony DCRHC48 or DCRHC96 for no other reason than I'm happy with my cybershot.

Regards
Cameron665

For software.....Sony Vegas is a product for under $150 or even less when a rebate is applicable.

If you want something even easier to use, Adobe Premier Elements is inexpensive and user friendly. I've tested both.

USB 1.0 is really slow. You may get a message on your computer warning you of the slow USB transfer rate.

You can buy a notebook PC card for $50 that is a USB 2.0 hub. It may solve all your concerns with speed.

Also, laptop harddrives are terribly slow. It's rare to finde a 7200 or 5400 RPM harddrive in a laptop depending on how old it is.

If you get the USB PCCARD, consider getting a USB external harddrive with a 7200RPM drive in it. It will out perform your laptop harddrive.

When you connect the video camera to your laptop hopefully you have a firewire port on the both devices. Firewire is better for video over USB. My old Toshiba Laptop had firewire. Hopefully, your will also.

I'm not familiar with the cameras you selected so I can't comment there.

Good luck and have fun!

A couiple of suggestions. First, you will be much happier if you can boost your RAM to at least 1 gig, preferably two. The latest software editing programs are notorious processor and RAM hogs. Second, both the cameras you picked shoot vey nice video, but need a firewire connection to successfully transfer video to a computer. The onboard USB connection is usually for using the camera as a webcam and or to transfer still pictures from the camera that you shoot on the memory stick. Your 30 gig drive will be a good place to install and run your program from You will be dissappointed if you try to save video on the same drive, the playback will be jerky because the program will be addressing the HD for system calls, and the small HD size will sacrifice how much stuff you can store. 5 minutes of DV video with a stereo stream of audio usually takes up a gig of HD. Check to see if you already have a firewire port, if so get a PCMCIA card for USB 2.0 for a 7200 RPM external drive. If you don't have the firewire port, you will probably need a new machine to edit on. Most laptops have 1 or 2 PCMCIA card slots that plug into the same bus or pathway. The problem is, if your firewire device is on the same bus as your external drive, you can't capture from the external firewire to the external drive, it won't work. Even if you have one card that has the two adapters, they will try to use the same bus or pathway and bump into each other.

This may be a bit confusing if your not up on your geekspeak, so let us know how things workout.

Thanks for the advice. I do have an 80GB external hard drive but is only 5400rpm and is powered off one of my two USB ports. I don't appear to have a firewire connection. The laptop is 4 yo so am I better off getting a dedicated PC for editing or trying to upgrade this one?
Thanks

welcome to the forums!
laptops are a little tricky to upgrade, so i would strongly recommend looking for a new one. the days when you needed the latest and greatest are long gone, the bare basics are a nice fast processor, a firewire port and a big (fastish hard drive) having more ram, a graphics card and second hard drive are highly desirable but not essential unless you plan to run one of the higher end editing applications like adobe premier. I can recomend a few places in sydney that you might want to look at, but unfortunately the only places I know in Melbourne are pro video places that are likely to sell gear far more expensive that what most people need.

Suppliers in Sydney may be useful as I will be up there later on this year.
Regards

In that case it might be worthwhile checking out
<a href="http://www.digitalstar.com.au/">www.digitalstar.com.au</a> they specialise in made to order so you can really sort out what you want, and there prices are fairly competitive. Incidentally they tend to have cheaper prices over the phone or instore than they do on the website as they are allowing for the extra charges incurred if someone pays by amex or diners etc.