hi, I just purchased the HV20 this weekend. I'm having trouble figuring out how to download the video to my computer (running vista) given that the canon manual states "video recordings on the tape cannot be transferred to the computer using the software included with the supplied CDROM."

Am I missing something?

When I connect my firewire cable to both the Computer & Camcorder, it's seeing the connection, but not the camera. I haven't tried connecting directly to the TV yet.

Obviously, I'm a newbie and would appreciate any tips you have on getting this up and running.

expo

Do you have any video editing software on your pc? If so, try connecting the camera to the pc, then opening up the editing software, and use the "capture" command in the program and see if you can communicate with the camera inside the editing software.

Does Vista come with any basic video editing tools?

I asked same question, here are the answers I got:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=838591

BTW, you will need a 1394/firewire card and cable.