How do I transfer MiniDV to computer and back?

My mom is going to be returning her MiniDV camera this weekend and getting another one because the TDK tapes she used gunked up the heads. She doesn't want to put these crappy tapes in her new camera so I told her we can use my FireWire equipped laptop as an intermediary to do a lossless transfer of the video.

The problem is I have no idea how to do this. I was hoping to use the bundled Windows Movie Maker in XP. The "Record" feature appears to be what I need to do but it has various quality options so I'm guessing that it's going to recompress the video into some .wmv format. That is definitely not what I want.

I thought this process would be simple. Can someone help me? Thanks.

-Dylan

I've got a JVC MiniDV camera and it works fine with TDK tapes

Windows Movie Maker does seem to reencode the video and I never bothered to work out how to disable that. I use Ulead VideoStudio SE to grab the video as it came free with my desktop FireWire card. Works quite well with my Dell laptop as well. There may be some free software but I haven't really looked.

- Trevor

You should ne able to set the Windows Movie Maker to record an AVI at 25M/s for the best quality.
I've been trying different software to capture and create miniDVDs (DVD format on a CDR) I've tried these so far for capture and DVD creation:

DVD Complete by Dazzle
VideoSuite 6 by Ulead
MGI VideoWave 5
Studio version 7 by Pinnacle

They all have free trials, and all have their pros and cons, I still haven't decided which one I want...

Also check out the vcdhelp.com message forum.

I've been using Adobe Premiere 6 and Roxio VideoPack 5 for a while now, they do everything I can think of and I haven't had any problems. Yeah, I know they are both pretty expensive, but when it comes down to getting professional results you need the correct tools to get the job done. Cost can't be an issue For the people that demand professional quality.

I've used Pinnacle Studio 7 and VideoWave 5 and they are great products as well.

come on now did u really buy them?

Between Adobe Premiere and Roxio VideoPack 5, which one did you like better?
I like the feature to build chapters, and only DVD Complete had that in the lower $ programs. (I haven't tried Pinnacle yet, so I don't know if they have it.) I also want scene transitions, which all but DVD Complete have,,,

Ricin, do you recommend any resources for learning how to use Premiere? I've messed around with it, but it's not nearly as intuitive as Studio 7. I've purchased Studio 7 (after week of learning on a pirate copy) and am currently going through the same process with the Adobe product.

Justin -- for the record, I no longer buy software until I try a fully functional copy. Sometimes that means a limited-time eval, sometimes it means easynews.com.

Originally, yes. Then the company I was working for bought the upgrades to the current version.

For editing video, adding effects, etc - definitely Premiere. For building menu's and structuring the DVD/VCD VideoPack 5 (if they ever put these kinds of features into Premiere I'll be set :P)

It's mainly been a lot of searching on the web for tips and tricks and basic messing with it. Nothing like learning hands-on by screwing up a whole bunch of stuff first. I have seen places that offer classes though, like this one.