Transfering hi8 from camcorder to PC

Hi There,

I have an old-school Sony DCR-TRV103 camera that has digital recording on hi8 tapes. I'm trying to transfer the videos from the tapes to my laptop. One laptop is running Windows XP with a firewire port and the other is an ultrabook running Windows 7 (usb ports only).

I'm looking for the most inexpensive way to be able to transfer videos to the laptop. As far as I can tell, the video camera only has a firewire out. I have tried connecting the camcorder directly to my windows XP laptop, and am able to see the camcorder, but I am unable to get the video playing.

Is there someone who can tell me step by step how to transfer the video and what the best laptop to use for this?