Hard drive camcorder or mini dv camcorder? HELP me understand, please!!!!!

[peasoup]

Does anyone have experience of these? I had a Mini Dv camcorder which has now broken and is far too expensive to bother fixing. Meanwhile I now have a load of Mini Dv discs with all the footage of PFB's first three years, family hols, etc. I can't think how I will ever be able to access this footage unless I buy another Mini Dv camera, as I never transferred them to the laptop or burned DVDs of them. But now it seems as if Mini Dv cameras are slightly going out the window and Hard Drive cameras are the new thing.
I have lots of questions:

1. If I buy another Mini Dv camcorder I've heard my old mini DV discs may not be compatible with the new camera, so I still might not be able to view my old footage; is this true?

2.Even if they are compatible, is it possible to transfer the footage from th mini DV tapes onto my laptop and burn it onto DVD to make it more durable in the long run? If so, how?

3.If it isn't compatible, are there places that will transfer your mini DV tapes to DVD for you?

4.If I get a Hard dive camcorder, how do I store the footage from it? Do I tranfer it onto the laptop then burn it onto DVD? If so, is this easy? What would i need to do it?

It's such a minefield; I wish it was just good old fashioned video cameras that weighed a ton but at least you just slipped the video tape out of the camera and watched them on your video player and stacked them in a drawer forever (or until the machine mangled them!)
HELP!!!!

bump

i'm not a technical person so this may be garbled!

have just yesterday purchased a sony hard drive camcorder on advice from bil who is in the know about technical things had said that dvds would be obsolete in a few years.

i think you download your footage straight onto your laptop like you would pictures from your digital camera and then you burn them onto a cd or dvd in the case of film. you then store it on a website (i quess like flickr so you have two back ups)

re your old footage on mini dv discs...if you can get cine film put on a dvd surely you can have it transferred by a company?

Hi, Thanks Widerat.
I'll be interested to hear how you get on with it. I had heard they are not such great quality as Mini DV, but if they make it easier to manage the footage then I'll be happy. I didn't know that DVDs were also going to die out!
I hope it's easy for you to download onto the PC and burn onto DVD. If you do it, then please let me know how it goes. I find it all so bloody complicated but am so keen to have footage of PFB that I am willing to learn!

will let you know in about 10 days time! dh and ds1 have gone off skiing and i wanted it all on camera as i couldn't go. the one we got was tiny and quite cheap so hopefully the footage wont be too ropey.

our old camcorder is a tape one and we have moved over footage of the children on to dvd too.

definately have a look on the web for companies who can transfer stuff for you

I think Snappy Snaps will transfer/burn it to DVD for you

Thanks both of you. I guess I may go for the Hard drive option. Just hope I'm able to transfer the footage onto the pc and burn the DVDs. It always seems to involve alot of faffing and failure!

best thing is to get a dvd recorder and put them straight onto a disc whether from a miniDV or a hdd, i have a hdd great space on it and never have to worry about having a blank tape

Glittery, does that involve transferring them from the HDD (I assume that means a Hard Drive camcorder, am I right?) to your PC, then burning them onto a DVD from the pc; or playing them on a TV while recording them onto a DVD? (Confused emoticon)

yeah hdd is hard drive camcorder, you'll get a lead with it that'll plug straight into you tv or dvd recorder, dont need to go thru the pc at all.