I had doubts about the possibility of using my Canon XL1s with my computer.
I always used my (now old) Pinnacle MiroDC30p video editing board. It only has analogic inputs and outputs (RCAs and S-Video) and what was even worse, don't work at all with Windows XP, and on Win2k you can use it (as I do) to render and record using onlytheir propietary application, it was a product designed for Win98 as their support says. Some days ago I found some offer for Firewire card at only $11.99 USD. My plan was to capture directly with it (and being recognized as a capture device I could make some stop-motion, you see where I'm going to) More people I asked about it being possible, more people told me it shouldn't be possible. I searched for video capture cards and I found the cheapest at $100 give or take. It looked too suspicious. So I boughted anyway. And worked. It is recognized, it works with Adobe Premiere 6 and VirtualDub, it serves as a very expensive webcam, and it makes me happy.

What you're seeing here is a reduced frame of the test footage I took earlier today of the hoodfellow. I can manually set diaf, shutter, aspect ratio (yes, widescreen 16:9 hoodfellows to come), color, contrast, etc, etc, all in-camera. It also has a luxurious zoom, of course. So this is for you to get a peek at the look of the future hoodfellows' episode I'm planning to make. Wish me luck.