Sony DVD Camcorder to iMac

I've been trying to figure out a way to import video from my Sony DVD camcorder. I've searched these forums and so far much of the advice is not to buy Sony DVD camcorders. While I understand the good intentions of this advice, I like all the other advantages which the Sony DVD camcorders offer.
That being said, I have two questions which will help me decide whether I really should return the Sony DCR-DVD 205 and/or use a Sony DCR-DVD 305 instead:
1) Some others have suggested exporting the A/V out from the DVD camcorder and feeding it into the analog port of a DV camcorder. I happen to have a DV camcorder (broken lens but fine for this purpose) which can record the analog input onto a DV tape. This allows me to use the firewire out from the DV camcorder to the iMac just fine. I have tried this technique and while it is a hassle it appears to work well. Here's my question: Am I losing a significant amount of quality or resolution by converting DVD to analog to DV to iMac? The picture quality seems OK so far but I'm wondering if I am missing something.
2) So my next question is thiis: Is it worth getting the 305 model instead? Unlike the 205, the 305 has a USB 2.0 port. But from everything I have seen, USB 2.0 ports are far from ideal when it comes to transferring digital quality video.
Thanks in advance. I am going a bit crazy trying to figure out what to do about this.
iMac g5    

welcome TeamIguana to the  board ...
you've done your research on this board about DVDcorders, so you do know, the iApps don't support such devices ... you miss the convenience of simply plug-in/hit import/done... and some others...
you have two options:
convert from dvd (please use the forum search for that popular issue), or, as you wrote, a playback-analoge-digital conversion...
the loss in pic quality happens while playback a dvd...- you record in a codec called mpeg2, which is a very, very effective compressor...- a standard iM project of 2h=~26GB gets compressed with mpeg2 to fit onto a 4.7Gb single-layer dvd-r...
to be so effective, mpeg uses different "tricks", e.g. it doesn't store every frame of the 30fps a video contains... dv (as on miniDV, or iM's native internal codec) does so... as you probably know: mpeg2 is a delivery format, no edit format...
so answer to 1): due to mpeg standards, you have a loss of pic quality. any miniDV would be ... better.- but it has to fullfill your tastes and standards, if it is ok to you.. just do it
ad 2) iMovie doesn't support the import via usb2.- when you're lucky, you get some Sony-made app with that device which allows to remotely control the corder via usb2 to force it to playback/stream the video to the Mac.. HardDrivecorders behave like some ordinary harddrive, easy to drag'n drop file from them to the Mac.. but a DVDcorder? even, when you hit manually "play"... how should your Mac know what to do with that stream of data coming via usb??
you guess it allready; I'm not convinced by DVDcorders
so, just to feed my personal curiosity:
I like all the other advantages which the Sony DVD camcorders offer.
... which one?

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