converting miniDV to computer

[elopomorph]

Please excuse me. I am very new to working with video.

I have a dozen miniDV tapes of my 3 year old son and I want to download them to my computer to both back them up and also start creating videos. I purchased a rather cheap video recorder and it did not come with a transfer cable (Panasonic PV-GS80). I have been unable to purchase the transfer cable from Panasonic and my internet attempts have given me the wrong cable. I am now considering getting the video to my computer another way since my cable search has been fruitless. Can someone recommend a device that I can hook up to my computer to transfer the miniDV to my computer. There must be other options then using the video recorder to transfer the tapes, right?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[julitomg]

First you need a firewire port in your computer (if it doesn´t have one, you´ll need to buy and install a PCI firewire card), then you need a firewire (also known as IEEE 1394 or I-Link cable). You connect your camcorder to your computer using that cable and capture with a software like WinDV (freeware, you can find it here, in the Tools section), edit with Windows Movie Maker or the editing program of your choice, export edited video to AVI DV format and load AVI file into a DVD authoring program (you can also find some free such programs here), then burn the resulting TS_VIDEO and TS_AUDIO folders using the burning software you prefer (there are also some good free ones, just make sure you select a video or movie disc and you should be able to play it back with any DVD or bluray player)