DCR-HC18E Help me!!

Hello friendly camcorder people.

I was given the camcorder above as a gift, but am feeling a little lost.

I am thick, so bear with me!!

It appears that one can download the films onto the hard drive of a PC through either the USB cable or firewire, both of which I have.

However, I cannot work out the mechanics of this?

I thought that logically, you plug it in, go to the My Computer, select the utility and copy the files.

However, there are no files to copy

Whatdo you think I am doing wrong? OR am I just mistaken, and you can only copy the films onto a disk....

Help me wise sages, as this is, quite frankly, doing my nut in!!

Thanks all

Damian

It's a miniDV format camera...

There are no files because there is no file system (USB connection is for still photos stored on a memory card, not for video)

You use a firewire connection and capture software; set the camera to playback/VCR mode, and the capture software should be able to control it for rewind. Capture takes place in real-time (a one hour video will take one hour to capture).

If you are running WinXP, Windows Movie Maker should have a capture function; otherwise you will have to purchase a non-linear editing package that includes a capture function (Sony Vegas Movie Studio, Roxio Easy Media Creator/VideoWave, etc.).

You could also do a search for "WinDV" which is a small, free, standalone utility that specialises in capturing from DV cams such as yours.