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[paulhawkridge] “It seems that my pc will only effectively run one firewire device at a time.”
Camcorders don’t have a setable device number, likewise with a ADVC, two of them connected to the same card can cause problems unless you have port addressable software like Scenalyzer which can address individual firewire ports, some firewire cards also can cause problems as they have a single port which fans out into an onboard hub to get 2or 3 connections on a card, this can also happens with MoBo firewire with two or more recept, harddrive enclosures can be setup by the system as descret addressable devices, but problems can occur when a camcorder and harddrive are connected as the system may treat them as the same device particularly if daisy chained or hubbed

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[mikescola] “the DVD’s burned but there were no chapters in them (when tried on the TV)”
How did you try on your dvd player? you use whats called the skip or next/previous buttons to advance chapters

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Here is the link for decrapifier, its a free download: https://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
Its supposed to work with Vista, carefully review what it going to remove it can be a bit frisky, there is some strange video software included with the HP which maybe giving you a problem plus a bunch of game crap.

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[rubix54] “imported all the files (about 45 in all) and any time i try to set an in or out point for the files,”

What kind of files, what format?

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What model cam??

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[Gochos] “Why would you whant to downconert from HDV to DVD?”
Alot of people shoot in HDV even if their product is going to be DV, one reason is that you have HDV footage for use later on, Second, downconverted DV tends to look a bit better than straight DV shot in the same cam

[Gochos] “Does it take more processing power and memory using dvd footage?”
When processing HDV natively it takes alot of processing power plus there can be problems with the long GOP, if editing HDV its better to use a intermediate codec like cineform or canopus HQ rather than native HDV(if on a PC)

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[three] “Say the shoot tape has talent mic’d on channel 1 and shotgun on channel 2,

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[Gochos] “Do you know how many minutes of footage you can save on a DVD tape on the HDV setting”
HDV is recorded at the same rate as DV

[Gochos] “- Is it worth recording in HDV rather than DV. Will their be much difference in quality”
Yes, you can always down convert to DV if needed and you have the footage for use as HDV, just use decent tapes to reduce dropouts

[Gochos] ” Is it beneficial to film in widescreen or will their be problem with people watching the finished product on a normal square TV?”
Its best to record in widescreen, if output to DVD most players letterbox it for 4:3

[Gochos] “If the finished product is NTSC, im presuming its bets to film in NTSC,”
Its always best to shoot in the format for the finished product.

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[three] ” we can only get channel 1 audio although there is audio on channel 2 as well.”

Are you refering to stereo chnl 1 with 2 tracks? if so thats all most NLEs capture the second stereo chnl isn’t recognized, if you want to import two stereo channels you have to use something like Scenalyzer

If you are refering to chnls as tracks you may have the audio set to mono

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AFX 5.5 predates Ppro 1.0