Use a digital camcorder to digitize/capture analog video

p>I have found out the hard way that analog video capture devices for laptops are an absolute joke. The USB ones digitized video of poor quality and some only worked with their own bundled inefficient crummy software. I finally splurged and tried a somewhat expensive PCMCIA card that seemed very promising, but it got extremely hot within about the first 15 minutes of use, then cooked both itself and my motherboard.

Since I’ve been wanting to finally upgrade to a digital camcorder anyway, I’ve come up with an idea to use the digital camcorder as the capture/digitizer device. I know my existing analog camcorder (Sony HandyCam Hi-8) can record from an external source when in VTR mode. I was wondering if digital camcorders allowed this also, but of course digitize the video in the process.

The young, incompetent clerks at a local electronics store (who wear blue shirts with small yellow logos on them) were rather cocky, refused to listen, and were very unhelpful, so they can be assured they’ll never do business me in the future. In the meantime, I’m here asking…

I’m not trying any more USB or PCMCIA analog video capture devices, and I’m not buying a desktop computer, so please don’t suggest those options. Also please don’t suggest services that turn tapes into DVDs, as I want to manually edit the content myself. After capture/digitization, I’m then wanting be able to easily transfer the video from the digital camcorder to my computer where I can edit the video with any program of my choosing.

My laptop motherboard has been replaced and I’m starting all over. I’m just wondering if my "connecting analog camcorder to digital camcorder and transfer to computer for editing" theory is possible, and if it is, may I have some suggestions on brands and models of digital camcorders?

I thank everybody in advance.