Firewire on digital camcorder to laptop

Bobbo wrote:
I have a digital camcorder with a firewire output and want to download the video to my laptop computer to burn to DVD. The computer does not have a firewire port, a PCIe slot, or an expresscard slot.

What are my options?

What camera are you using? The firewire port might not be as useful as you hope... on my Hi-8 Sony Handycam, the firewire port only outputs video in real-time. It was intended to interface the camera with an editing deck, so the tape transport controls, video and audio were over a single cable.

My JVC FHD harddrive camera is the same way, video over the firewire is real-time but the USB port provides both real-time streaming and mass-storage mode, for faster downloads.