am i in the wrong forum!?

i'm looking at buying a DV camera soon and i'm gonna need (obviously) a DV/firewall/IEEE1394 (is that the number!?)card.

i have a P4 1.5 w/ 256 RDRAM and i just want to know is any old generic firewire card good enough, or do i have to buy some "Pinnacle" card or some "Dazzle" box (just things i have read around here and heard but dunno what it is!)

i am looking at various Sony models, DCR-PC9, DCR-PC100, DCR-PC110, DCR-PC120, and TRV-30. any opinions on a good miniDV camera for a decent price that can take decent stills?

LOL... i used to do video editing with a 13 GB on a PIII, 192MB RAM... using an AVerMedia TV98 to analog capture through s-video off of hi-8 cameras!

DV/Fire Wire/IEEE1394 is the same thing.
With this computer any generic card will do,
Still you will probably want to look for a combo of a card and software like the Pinnacle Studio DV version 7.

About camera It's not my area (Unless you have $8K to spend on one).
Just make sure to have a MiniDV one and not the new Mpg2 based.

Intel / AMD - <A HREF="http://www.llnl.gov/asci/news/white_news.html" target="_new">IBM are still the best</A>

actually i already have adobe premiere because we learn non-linear editing in school.
so i guess any Firewire card will do? does it matter that some have 2 ports and some have 3?

no it doesn't matter, just make sure you get the right cable. cameras have the small 4 pin ieee port. while most cards have the 6 pin, there are a few cards though that have the 4 pin ports. for cameras, what is you're price range specifically (if you have one). for sony's if you're going to want quality stills look for the camcorders that have "megapixel" technology. those will give the best results/resolution for still images and with decent video quality. if you want let me know what you are looking to spend and i could suggest a few different ones. and can recommend a few good places online that i buy from if you choose to buy online (buying online can save at least a few hundred compared to local shops, something to think about). sony's are a big among electronic stores (best buy, circuit city, etc). even if you don't want to purchase from them i'd suggest going there and messing with all the cameras that you might be interested in. it will give you a lot more basis to go on.

happiness is finding a stick of ram in your mail.

actually, i'm from canada! but i have relatives in the states.

well i'm looking to spend anywhere from $800 - $1300 (US). for digital stills, i'm looking sheerly for a camera that will have decent ones that i can post on the net, etc. i'm not looking at one that will replace a normal camera (i have a nikon f60 already), and i probably won't buy a full fledged digital still camera until it's as easy (and cheap!) as getting good ol' film developed.

i'm looking at the DCR-PC9 (it has had good reviews i hear), however that has "poor" microphone pickup, 2.5 screen and no flash. the TRV17 has a flash, and a 3.5 screen but it's big. the most expensive, the DCR-PC110 has a flash and it's small too. any ideas on which is best?
or perhaps to recommend another camera?

i think i'm going to stick with sony though, because of the analog pass-through.

I think you can buy a "hot" Canon XL1-S for around $1,300. Although I don't know anyone selling, I'm interested if you have one for sale.

if you were to purchase online i'd recommend this site:
<A HREF="http://www.bhphotovideo.com" target="_new">b&h photo</A>
i buy most of my stuff from there, they have good prices, service and are rated highly on resellerratings.com.

from that place the trv17 can be had for $879.95(USD) and the dcr-pc110 for $1229.95(USD).

i would take the trv17 over the dcr-pc9, the pc9 is a smaller design and i think a bit newer. if you go with the pc110, it depends how much the extra features are to you. it has a built-in flash where the trv17 you'd have to buy one, but you could get one for just under $100(USD). the pc110 has sony's megapixel tech that'll give you more of a crisp picture for stills. personally i would go with the trv17 w/the addon on flash if need be. but if the few extra features that the pc110 offers sounds good to you, it's not a bad choice at all either.

happiness is finding a stick of ram in your mail.

yes and half the time they come w/out any lens! not to mention no warranty, take it in for a ccd repair or something, there just went all your savings.

happiness is finding a stick of ram in your mail.

I played around for a while with a friends Sony DCR-PC100.
very nice camera I have to say, liked it, would buy it if I had the money right now. have to say that I only used the video part as I have a good digital still camera.

video quality on the PC100 is very good. the image stabilyzer really works and the display can be used outdoors, though direct sunlight makes it hard to see something on it.

a very nice feature is that the PC100 actually has analog input (that is for the european PAL model, but I think the NTSC models will feature the same. check with Sony). my friend didn't even know about that but I tried it and it works great. this way I recorded some old VHS tapes using the PC100 and transfered them to the PC via IEEE1394.
the A/D chip in the PC100 works very well. VHS that I transfered this way to my PC looks classes better than the stuff I tried using my ATI All-In-Wonder card.

my IEEE1394 card (Firewire is the name Apple gave it and Sony calls it "iLink" but it all means the same) is a cheap generic one that didn't even had drivers in the box. but Win2k installed it with it's own generic drivers and it works w/o problems.
I used adobe Premiere 6.0. no problems there either. PC100 connected to the IEEE1394 port and the camera is recognised and the camera functions can be controlled via Premiere.

respect!