Hello DB6 Old Bean!
You don't want to be capturing the video, your digital camcorder has already done that for you. All you need is some way of getting the video out of the camera and into the PC.
You need a Firewire interface, aka IEEE1394. Belkin do a PC-Card adaptor for 63.99 & vat (www.action.co.uk, part no 49-56-97). Don't panic about PC-Cards, it's as painless as anything else to do with PC's (hmmm)
The other thing you need is sheds of disk space - full motion video is 3.6MB/s or 216MB/minute.
Software-wise there's lots around - Windows Movie Maker isn't bad if you have Windows ME or XP, otherwise the card will probaly come bundled with something like Videowave which is fine for most applications.
Performance wise your laptop will be fine, but the PC (is this the same one that was in the office last year?) will be struggling. If disk space is a problem you can always get a cheap ethernet hub (if you haven't already) and offload data to the desktop.
If your camera has DV-in then you can send the finished production back to the camera tape, and then output to VHS. Your laptop has TV-out, so you may be able to use that instead, never tried that.
I've had a JVC DV Camcorder for a couple of years, done a few weddings with it and so on. Any problems give me a call, you know the number.
[ 29 January 2002: Message edited by: Chocks Wahay ]</p>