I'll have to check when I get home later today. Sure appreciate the guidance.
It is actually not that hard at all and kind of fun to do. If you have access to a Sony Vaio computer, they often come bundled with what is called a Vaio Camera Capture Utility to make this easier. But you can do it with any computer. I’m assuming you have a PC.
You first need a hard drive with lots of free space. Then connect the firewire cable from the camera to the computer. Then transfer using WinDV with the camera in playback mode. Once on the computer you can use another free program called Windows Movie Maker (google for it) and then you can edit your scenes and add text and dissolves and special effects. You can also adjust the audio tracks.
When you are happy with it, you then can record to a master file to keep on you hard drive as well as make copies onto DVDs. You will have options for quality and the format and you specify what you want. I assume you want it so you can play it back on a TV DVD player and you can specify that.
I’ve made many 30 to 60 minute DVD videos of my vacations using all free software with added music tracks and it comes out looking great.