This is all true, but SONY have seen to it that you cannot really link up their mmv digital format to Pinnacle, since they want us to follow the VAIO way of life. Version 8 of Studio DV+ does support the micromv format, but only for download and editing to pc, not back to the camcorder.

Simply connect..HA! Sony's Movie Shaker was clunky and tedious in extremis on both a new NEC 1.7 Ghz Athlon laptop with Nvidia 32MB card and 512mb of RAM and a new Athlon 2.2 Ghz PC with 4600 Ti card and 512Mb of RAM.

As a result of all this, my daughter's A level project was wrecked and she was stressed beyond belief.

The firewire also isn't true firewire on the Sony, but their version of it. My advice to everyone now is to buy an iMAC! We have been completely unable to use the camera properly, since the Movieshaker crashes both computers on a regular basis and takes AGES to convert the files once edited.

None of this is down to Pinnacle in my view, but to Trough (aka Sony) who make lovely and beautiful kit but DEMAND loyalty..truly a leviathan global monopoly?