Importing high quality video through a lower-quality camera

(Final Cut 5 in a G5, 10.5.8)
The camcorder I'm using to shoot video for my Final Cut projects is a Panasonic PV-GS400, a good 3-chip mini-DV camcorder that shoots high-quality DV (original price $1500).
I would prefer not to use this camera to play the video into Final Cut, to save wear and tear on its tape drive (with tape, of course, one hour of recorded video takes one hour to play into Final Cut).
I have an inexpensive little Canon Elura 100 Mini-DV camcorder (original price $400) that could be used to play the tapes from the Panasonic into Final Cut, but if I did that, would the higher quality of the Panasonic's video be degraded to the lower level of the Canon's video when passing through?
To put it another way, can a Mini-DV tape with high quality video on it be imported through a relatively low-quality camera into Final Cut and still retain its high quality?
Thanks for any help.
Tom

Thanks much, guys. Yes, I'm using firewire. Glad to hear there's no loss of quality when the video is strained through a lesser camcorder on its way into Final Cut.
So now I'll go ahead and use the little Canon Elura as my playback/ingest camera with no worries.
I appreciate the help!
Tom

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