Capturing from camcorder?

[Roadgiant]

I know this is slightly off-topic, but hopefully someone can help.
I have been using VS for quite a few years firstly with VS6 and currently have X3 (depending on a few things I will probably upgrade to X4).
Up until the present time I have been capturing on my PC at home via fire-wire from my current camcorder (Canon MD 235 which of course uses mini DV)
I want to purchase a new laptop to give me some mobility and also be able to edit produce DVD's on the move, looking around virtually no current laptops (unless I go well beyond my budget (around £500)) have fire-wire or even an express port to use a expansion card with fire-wire.
I realise that I will probably have to step up and get a newer more up to date camcorder over the summer and what I am trying to understand is the difference in capture formats. I like the look of some of the low end Hard drive/flash/SD card camcorders around, but how do you import to PC, is all done by USB?
In what formats is the video imported and how easy in comparison to say Avi files and is it easy to edit video using VS and produce a DVD from the resulting files?
Many thanks
RG

[Black Lab]

Yes, with those types of camcorders the transfer is done via USB.

DV-AVI is quite simply the easiest file type to edit. Most of the new cams are HD, so now you are talking some variant of AVCHD, which is probably the most difficult to edit. You need a really powerful computer to edit and play these files smoothly. I don't know that a laptop could handle it.

[skier-hughes]

I'd put just a bit of the money you'd spend on updating your camcorder towards buying a better laptop.