Camcorders: Digitizing from HD cameras

HDV format video is digital.

The "DV" in miniDV tape = Digital Video.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDV#MiniDV

The zeroes and ones on digital tape are the same zeroes and ones on a hard disc drive, flash memory or even DVD based camcorder - just arranged differently. It is not analog just because it is on tape. The same DV/HDV formats are used in the prosumer and professional environments recorded to tape, flash memory or specially made external hard drives. DV and HDV are not as compressed as consumer hard disc drive or flash memory MOD, MPG, TOD or MTS files.

As for importing HDV, you will connect a firewire cable to the camcorder's DV port and the computer's firewire port; power up the camcorder and put it in "Play" mode, then the video editor will import or capture the video. Firewire, DV, IEEE1394 and i.LINK are all essentially the same thing.

USB won't work. USB-to-firewire cable/converter/adapter/hub things won't work.

This assumes your Adobe Premiere CS3 is installed to support HDV and your computer (CPU, RAM, available hard disc space) meets - preferably, exceeds - the requirements for HDV importing and editing, the computer's firewire port is working properly and you have a working firewire cable.