I have been reading a bunch of the posts on the component out on the HD100. From what I have read it seems like the best way to video out is component. Is this a correct assumption? I thought that firewire was the best signal.
Kevin

The component outputs can bypass the HDV (or DV) encoding, and so preserve more of the data if you capture "live" to a computer (or any recording device) from the camera.

If you have already recorded to tape I am not aware of any advantage there would be in capturing via component as the signal has already been encoded. Via firewire you can simply move the data from the tape to the hard drive.

Is there a firewire device that can capture directly from the camera?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=60

Try the forum here on tapeless recording soolutions - there's a few HDV compatible devices out there