How can I transfer videos fom my handycam to my computer?

Question

i have a sony handycam. I want to put videos on my computer so i can put them on youtube etc. how do i do this? do i need to buy a cord? if so which specific one THANK YOU :D

Answer 1

"Handycam" is Sony's name  for pretty much ALL their consumer camcorders... Which one are you talking about?

MiniDV tape based camcorders provide the best available video for ANY computer based editing. In addition to the camcorder, you will need a firewire cable to connect the DV port on the camcorder (4-pin) to the firewire port on your computer (6-pin). Firewire, IEEE1394a, DV and i.LINK are all the same thing. a Firewire cable is not normally included in the box.

Most hard drive and flash memory camcorder's files are copied over USB, but they are very highly compressed and need to be converted.

I hope you did not waste your money on a DVD based camcorder. If you did, your computer needs a drawer-loading DVD drive. You will rip the DVD using something like HandBrake.