If you want to shoot video and then edit it to take out wasted scenes, add titles and music, etc., you're taking a hit in video quality by shooting native with a DVD camera. This is because the video on DVDs is encoded to MPEG2, a compressed format. It's great as an end of the line format, but not for shooting source footage. Likewise, hard drive based camcorders, while convenient, tend to record in MPEG2 (only JVC gives you an option to record in AVI). This gives you the same problem. Additionally, if your editor doesn't import MPEG2 footage, you will have to "re-encode" (also called demuxing) the footage into an editable format. It's a hassle for those of us who wish to edit our videos as a hobby.

As for capture, I recommend the same firewire port and WinDV. It's free. And not only can you capture with it without dropping a frame, but thanks to the firewire interface, you can control your camcorder directly!

That's the way I would do it. Then import it into your editor.

JD
http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com