Your DCR-TRV8 has an "i.Link" port on it ? what the rest of the world calls FireWire.

You can plug this camera into an Apple iMac, Power Mac, PowerBook etc. with Apple iMovie installed, using a 4-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable.

Apple iMovie will let you easily transfer the video from the camcorder to the computer. Apple iDVD will let you easily make a DVD from the footage collected within iMovie.

For the PC:

There are two ways I know how to do this. Both go through a conversion process.

Option 1. The camcorder will likely have some output of video - RCA jacks most likely. You need another piece of hardware here: an analog to digital converter. Something like the Canopus converter. The RCA jacks from the camcorder would go into the converter and then you would take a firewire cable out of the converter and go into your computer. If you're using a Mac, you can then import into iMovie or Final Cut Pro. If you're on PC, you'd need to check to see if you have a Firewire port and then you'd need a program like Pinnacle or Adobe Premiere to digitize the footage.

The one other possibility that I can think of - I've seen VHS/DVD player/recorders. If your camera is a VHS camera, you might be able to get a hold of a machine that will allow you to real-time play/record from VHS to DVD.

Either way, it's not an "easy" thing to do. It takes a bit of time, energy and equipment.

Last update: 09:46 PM Monday, October 17, 2005