Damn, til. I've owned different ones for 5+ yrs and every time i've tried going directly into the files to get the vids nothing shows in the folders. Thats why i originally looked for 3rd party software other than itunes.

You can't transfer pics / vid directly from an iphone to pc without 3rd party software (or itunes), but you can turn off icloud backup. I use a little lightweight freeware program called Mobimover to transfer all my vids