Right, that's called a video card with native TV-out.

But you're talking about a laptop. And they don't make PCMCIA video cards, not enough bandwidth on the PCMCIA slot.

Dunno about how firewire would work, I suppose that feature would exist on some video-editing-station thingamajigs, you know like the "snap" thingys... Perhaps that's the tree you should be barking up.