Laptops, firewires and DV camcorders

[David Gwilliam]

I am about to join the 21st century and give up my thoroughly out of date desktop PC (Word 2000 etc) and get a laptop.
One of the important uses for my laptop would be to put video footage from a miniDV camcorder onto the hard drive. My understanding has always been that this would be done by a firewire.
However, it seems that only the more expensive laptops have firewires these days.

Do I need to get one of the laptops with a firewire or is there an alternative way of downloading miniDV tapes?
Are there leads available with firewire on one end and USB on the other?

I realise that the answer may be obvious but my understanding of computers is similar to DJs understanding of the offside law,

 

[LCFCmonkey]

Actually, I'd quite like to know of a response to this as I have my 2008 Florida trip on Mini DV and would like to sort it out properly.

 

[Jeff]

Assuming your new laptop has a PC card socket, you could get one of these

 

[Matt_B]

Or something like this to plug it into your USB, though I don't know what speed you would get

 

[Durham Fox]

Firewire is just quicker than USB, or at least it was. I don't think theres a great deal of difference anymore.

 

[SJN-Fox]

Many notebooks have a mini DV socket on them.