I am thinking of getting a Sony camcorder, model HC22. I have read that transfers to PC work best with Firewire rather than USB. I don't have firewire on my PC, as far as I know. Would i have to open up my PC to install it, or is there an external link which would do the job?

You can get PCI firewire cards for a tenner or so that work fine - most current motherboards have onboard firewire, but I guess you've looked :) (I guess it could just have header pins for connecting to a front port, but it would be unlikely not to have the interface). It's about as easy a hardware installation job as you can get to be honest, give it a go...

Thanks Rich. No, I haven't looked, but for some reason I didn't tihnk I have it (my PC is a Dell Pentium4, bought last year, so perhaps its there somewhere).

Check out Ebuyer. I just purchased a twin port firewire card for £7.50 inc delivery.

Slots straight into a spare PCI slot. Opened the parcel, within 10 minutes I was transferring stuff to my iPod via Firewire! No software or drivers needed, no soldering, cutting of cases or anything.