| I'm not too sure how the DVD (i.e. your taken footage is burnt straight onto a DVD disc) cameras work in terms of being able to 'extract' the footage off the camera into your PC in order to edit it. As such I can't really advice on this aspect if you are keen to do your own editing.
With MiniDV it's fairly simple. You'll need appropriate video editing software on your PC that is compatible with your camcorder. You'll also need a firewire card on your laptop/PC. With MiniDV you just 'play' the footage on your tape via your camcorder down the firewire cable and into the software on your PC. You 're-record' the segments of the tape footage you want with the software (i.e. into the chunks you want to keep or piece togther into a proper edited video).
I'm not sure if you can do this stage with the DVD cameras. I'm guessing you can but it's worth checking before you buy.
The good thing about the MiniDV tapes is that you can then record your final edited video back onto your MiniDV tape from your PC via the firewire cable
without losing any of the digital quality.
As already said, AV-in is importrant if you want to use bullet cams or record off the TV.  |