I have right here a digital video camera. How do I get the footage off the tape and onto the computer?

I've been taping onto tape rather than the memory card, so I can't use the USB cable that came with it to take the video off. It's a sony mini DV digital handycam, model # DCR-TRV33.

You have to buy a video capture divice USB in any computer store or electronics sales and then you connect it to the usb port on your computer then in the divice you connect the 3 cables: yellow , red and white on it.
the divice would cost you like 50 dollars no more and the mayority of divice bring it own program to edit , then you press (capture) and then press play in your camera and it will record it on you computer .
The USB cable that the camera brings is only for pictures .
The one that I telling you is for video capture.

I hope this can help you .
Have a great day !

whats on the tape? I would like to know.

Update, Since i now know what is on the tape, I would suggest buying a video in device for your computer you can then use it to play the movie into your computer and record it on to the pc's harddrive. Sony make cables for alot of there cameras that may do just that without for a good device it would cost about 100bucks but you can get them as low as 20..

If you have a firewire port on the camera and a port on your computer as well as a firewire cable, you can use that to transfer your video. If you taped it on tape, I think you may still be able to transfer onto the computer with the USB, you just have to use software to capture images from your camera. Check your user's manual: it will have more specific instructions.