coldspace,
Once sorta simple way i have advised in past threads is to use a MinDV camera that has a AV bridge. So you can plug your video through this to a firewire port on your PC. The MiniDV camera wild to the A/D conversion and give you a fairly high quality output (Read large file) on your PC.
The quality of the A/D converter in the MiniDV camera's may not be the best though. But if you already have a Minidv camera then this is a quick solution. Other alternative is to get a Canopus or similar ADVC device, reccomend you look at ebay as cheap used ones often turn up.
http://www.videohelp.com/
Is a good site to find information on ADVC devices and other capture devices.
I would also advise speaking with Malincam for there advise on this, as they probably get asked this quiet a bit.
Regards
Fahim