Can this be done? I was about to pull the trigger to get this oldie but goodie. after hearing conflicting information and not finding a suitible answer in the userguide provided online by JVC, Can I bypass the DV VTR and provide a live feed via firewire to my pc.

thank you

Mine work fine - a 500 and a 5000 - there is delay in the video and audio, which depending on what you're planning may/may not be a snag, but it works fine. Be aware that depending on what you plug it into, sometimes weird things can happen - I sometimes go out to a stand alone DVD recorder, and hitting the wrong button can sometimes put the camera suddenly into replay mode when you didn't expect it.

So that is confirmed that I can bypass the built in dv vtr and import directly to a PC or Mac. On a side note I shall assume that color sampling remains 4:1:1 even if recorded directly to drive?

Thank you again...

Not sure about the 4:1:1 bit - but to be honest, all the cameras I have here that have firewire out can be used live, or recorded externally. I even used a consumer handycam old JVC as a web video input, via the firewire in on the front panel of a permanently wired VT machine. For one regular archive job that has a running time of 2 and a half hours I record direct to a DVD machine in quite low res - works perfectly.