is there such a thing as a dual minidv player, where it has two mini dv slots so i can make a direct copy?

Wow, good question, Jason. I've never seen one, but that doesn't mean it's not out there.

Jay

yeah so how do people usally make copies then, do they use 2 decks?

I usually use two DV decks or a deck and a camera and connect them with a 4-pin to 4-pin firewire cable. I like your dual deck idea much better.

cameras are like $300 on eBay though.

Possibly an advantage of a deck is that you can control how the timecode gets copies (i.e. make new continuous timecode, or copy the timecode exactly so two people can edit off the same timecodes).