No Firewire/1394 on newer laptops ?

[Movie-Maker]

Hi,
I was recently shopping around for a laptop for typical "home use" and was looking at most of the entry level or mid-range models and I was quite surprised that none of them have a Firewire/1394 port! Is this common ? They do have hdmi though. but my camcorder does not. It has firewire. Maybe the newer camcorders are now all hdmi too ?

So is firewire outdated ? because it is (was?) the primary interface for video transfer for digital video cameras for as long as I remember. But not anymore ? Maybe I am way behind times and out of touch but - What the heck happened ?!

Unfortunately the particular model that I am looking at does not even have a pcmcia slot otherwise I would have purchased a card for it but even thats not an option.

[edDV]

The lowest class laptops lack a PCMCIA slot and IEEE-1394. You find them in the second tier. They do this to force "multimedia", GSM wireless and business users into the next tier.

HDMI out is a new feature at the bottom. Until now, many but not all budget models did have HD YPbPr analog component out on the "TV port". None have HDMI as an input.

If you buy this model, you will have to capture your camcorder on a different computer. And before you ask, no there isn't a IEEE-1394 Firewire to USB2 converter that works properly.