The PC desktop computers in my school do not have a firewire port. I am having my students make digital video projects. I've used firewire with Macs, obviously can't with these PCs.

How will the transfer of video work with a USB cable? Never done it before. Is it really slow? Does the USB affect the quality of video?

Is it USB or USB 2.0... and what are they transferring the video to?

USB 2.0. They'll be uploading video clips and editing them in MovieMaker. Our school used to have Macs, so we used iMovie which is great. MovieMaker is terrible, but the best I have.

USB 2 might be a little faster than Firewire 400, but not as fast as Firewire 800.

USB won't affect quality. When USB 1 existed; Firewire was the only way to do video.