How does miniDV camcorders work?

do they run on tape, dvd, or internal memory. Does it easily hook pu to the computer and would i be able to edit it on the computer. i have been looking at this camera

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorde...

MiniDV tape based camcorder work great... which is why most professionals use them - While the camcorder you linked us to is not a pro-grade cam, it uses the same miniDV tape that stores the least compressed digital footage (DV format) to the tape as compare to all the highly compressed MPEG2 consumer internal hard drive and flash memory camcorders. DVD based camcorder store to VOB or VRO files and are the most compressed (hence worst quality for editing).

More compression = discarded data = reduced video quality.

ALL miniDV tape based camcorders connect their DV port to the firewire400 port of a computer with a firewire cable to transfer DV format video. USB will not work. Firewire cards for yur computer (if it does not have a firewire port) are generally cheap - and easy to install if you have an available PCI port. Macintoshes have had firewire 400 ports for 7+ years (the only exception is the new Mac Air).

1) Shoot video.
2) Connect camcorder to computer with firewire. Camcorder in "Play" mode.
3) Launch video editor and "Capture" (Microsoft MovieMaker for Windows) or "Import" (Apple iMovieHD for Macintosh).
4 Edit.
5) Save as... different formats for uploading or burn to DVD for playback. (Presumes your computer has a DVD burner.)

So yeah... Very simple.

miniDV camera are horrible and I own one. Since they run on tape it really cuts down on quality and time. Especially when transferring to computer (and transferring isn't easy). I suggest a camcorder that uses some form of digital memory like a memory card or, dvd, anything other than boring, old , useless tape.

It's a mini dv tape, and is connected to your PC via a firewire connection.