Many thanks to all of you for valuable comments. I liked very much the look of the Panasonic NV-EX3B and its specification - it's the successor to the NV-EX1. The Web price was as low as £899.
Given that I have a Sony Laptop with the Memory Stick socket and all the other Bells and Whistles that match the camera and that the software is already there, I took a look at their products. The PC110E won my heart with its USB port, IEEE 1394 DV in and out, stills (sorry Squid!) because I may not take my still camera, and the mega-pixel CCD.
The best bit was the price. Listed all over at £1495, it was on sale at the local London Camera Exchange for £1399. The
http://www.askelectronics.co.uk price was £1299. John Lewis is my favourite shop for kit like this as they offer extended warranty at not extra cost - in this case two years. Their price, however was £1495. So I asked whether they would match the price of askelectronics and they did!
So I'm a very happy bunny with new kit that has lots of buttons to press and wires to plug in and it goes together with the laptop like cheese and pickles. I take the points about an IEEE 1394 card for the big main PC and a larger dedicated HDD. More paper rounds to do before I can get those though.
I'll catch up with all the technical stuff later, but I've already uploaded an "avi" clip to the Web as a trial, but it's much too big and slow to use. Slimmed down MPEG is probably what'll have to be used. Thanks again.