You go and buy a brand-new camcorder—one that records to both SD card and Mini-DV tape.
The camcorder itself is great! Recording to SD card works fine, though the quality is a little low, but the Mini-DV footage looks fantastic.
Now here’s the annoying part…
It comes with all the usual accessories—including a USB cable. But guess what’s missing? A FireWire cable!
FireWire is the only practical way to transfer Mini-DV footage directly to a computer, so why don’t they supply one? It’s arguably far more useful than the USB cable they included.
It’s just a frustrating little detail that makes no sense. Of course, the solution is simple: go buy a FireWire cable—which I have now done. But still… why not just include it in the first place?
Bah!