I have some questions for the knowledgeable folks I see on this forum. I have searched and reviewed much of the forum, and reviewed the Guides, but it is all pretty overwhelming. I just need to see if I'm on the right track.

Our Sony CCD-TR65 Video8 camcorder stopped working. I have about a dozen 2-hour 8mm tapes from it.

I want to buy a digital camcorder. I reviewed the formats, and my first thought was D8, to be able to play our old tapes, but after reading about analog passthrough, I don't want the size of a D8 camcorder just to play a dozen tapes once (I will borrow a friend's 8mm camcorder to play the tapes). After many hours reviewing what's available, I have homed in on the Sony DCR-TRV22 MiniDV. I don't want to spend the money for MicroDV or 3" DVD.

I want to archive my dozen old 8mm tapes to DVD. I have downloaded and read the TRV22 manual on this. They talk about an i.LINK (IEEE 1394) cable. I have two laptops. The one I will use is a Dell Inspiron 8100 with a P4-1.6, 384MB RAM, and a 1394 port, running WinXP (yechh). I believe I can get the drivers to work for the 1394 port, so that would complete the physical connection. (If not, I have USB, but Sony warns about the low speed of USB1.) Here is my first question:

1. I've read about various software packages to do the transfer to the PC. Why is software needed? Isn't the i.LINK device available at the operating system level?

And then this:

2. I've read about people converting video formats. I am familiar with VirtualDub. Is the MiniDV format the same format that is written to DVD-R? I'm just not clear on the MiniDV and DVD-R file formats.

I kind of understand the concept of authoring, although I haven't done it yet. I have Nero 5 which I can try.

Now, still on the old 8mm tapes, I am confused about quality and the file formats required. I understand that the video from an 8mm tape is of much lower resolution than one from a modern MiniDV camcorder. So:

3. Once the 8mm analog signal is converted via passthrough to MiniDV format and stored on the PC, what format does it need to be to be burned onto a DVD-R, while fitting as much video as possible on the disc, and still making it playable on generic DVD player hardware? Should these videos be converted to one of the older file formats, and then burned to the disc (to fit more video and still be playable)? And I've read that I could use CD-R, but will these play in a DVD player?

Finally:

4. What will I do differently to archive my new MiniDV tapes to DVD?

Thank you very much in advance. With the answers to these questions, I think I can actually make some progress on this.

Steve