I just bought a new digital camcorder (Canon Optura Xi), and I want to transfer movies from the camera to my computer to do lots of movie editing.
In the instruction manual, it says I need either one of these:
DV (IEEE1394) Terminal, or
DV (IEEE1394) Capture Card
What is the difference?
I plan to do a lot of editing, so how does that matter in the kind or brand that I buy? (For my editing software, I plan to buy Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0, based on a recommendation from another thread.
Can you recommend a specific brand or type,
or if I just walk into Best Buy will they sell me the correct thing?
BTW, I have a Dell computer having Windows XP, 512M of ram, and a 120G hard drive.
“DV (IEEE1394) Terminal” simply means that the computer already has the DV connector built in. This is common with new computers these days.
“DV (IEEE1394) Capture Card” means that the DV connector is provided on a separate card. This is an add-in for computers that don’t already have it.
In other words, if your computer already has the IEEE1394 connector, great; if not, you will have to get it on an add-in card. These cards are not expensive.
For an overview on video editing, see Sunspace’s quick guide to video editing (as posted to another thread). The linked post deals with DVD authoring as well, but that process starts with importing video into the computer and editing it, so much of the information is applicable to your question.
A 120-gigabyte drive is the bare minimum for editing. One hour of video taken from a DV tape will consume about 20 GB. You will need at least triple that for working space. I highly recommend getting at least one other drive so that your video data can be on one and your working space can be on the other. Things will work a lot faster that way. (At home I have 240 GB for video storage alone, and it’s 60% full…)
When I get home, I’ll have to dig up more video-editing-specific resources (I’m concentrating on learning DVD authoring these days). VideoHelp, while oriented towards DVD authoring, does have a lot of video editng info.
Best Buy? For advice? No. 
Any store that handles a wide variety of equipment probably won’t have the depth of knowledge you’d need in any one area. Your best bet for advice from a store is to go to a specialised digital video store or a high-end camera store that handles a full range of video equipment. An example in my area is Vistek.