I regularly run a 6' firewire from my camera to a laptop and capture direct and only use the tapes as backup in case the firewire disconnects. saves a lot of time
I wasn't going to record live. I was going to record all scenes then later transfer it to Vegas. So it sounds like I'm good to go with everything, thanks guys.
Yah, I have noticed that if you pull down lightly on the firewire and tape it to a chair leg ( i set the laptop on a wire shelf above the cushion of a chair to airate it) i get a better connect. otherwise sometimes it drops the connection. good thing to have backup tape rolling just incase you need to splice it in.
Thanks Andrue, I'm going to import later though because doing it "live" would be way too much trouble for me, since I have to film alot of things outside, etc.