I just bought hp laptop with vista. I am completely lost.
I have a camcorder (digital tapes) I would like to record my all family tapes to hard drive media player. This devise works directly with TV but any file has to be recorded from computer. How to record my digital tapes from my camcorder to my laptop using vista. Later I have to transfer files to media player hard drive. I would like to get answer point by point:))

You need a video capture device. Pinnacle is a top maker of them. Generally you connect the capture device to your PC using a USB port. You connect the Camcorder to the device similarly to how you connect to a TV. You can then use Windows Movie Maker or the software that comes with the device to capture the video and turn it into files that you can save to another drive or burn to DVD.

Agree with Scottgem. But first a few specifics about your devices.
a) What camcorder (ie mini DV or Hi8 or others)
b) What connectivity does the camcorder offer besides the composite output- usb, firewire (IEEE 1394)
c) What connections you have on your laptop - does it have firewire?
d) What is the configuration of your lap top and the amount of footage that you need to import.
e) What hard disk media player you are using and the format of digital videos stored on it I s necessary so that you can configure the video capture of your tapes.