I would appreciate your knoweledgable insight(like the one by "hornswaggler502") on the following issues I am faced with:

1   What settings should I use (using Windows movie maker, or another       software for that matter) to transfer the best quality video from MiniDV       to a large capacity hard disk

2   My idea is to store the videos on the hard disk (space not an issue) first with the best  possible quality, and then transfer some of them to a    DVD- What settings should I use while transferring to a DVD to retain the    best quality?   
   
3   I want to retain the date/time stamp on the video that I transferto the       hard disk / DVD- how can I ensure that?

4   Why does Windows Movie maker create so many clips- what criteria does it       use, and how can I use the '"clips"?   

Thank you all for your help.