does anyone own one of those sony camcorders that write directly to a dvd?

[BooGiMaN]

i been wanting to replace my minidv camcorder and thought about one of these...

i would think it be easier to record straight to dvd and drop it in a dvd player for viewing and making multiple copies to give out to family after a b-day party for example should be a snap.

anyone who owns one or has used one please let me know you thoughts

 

[suse920]

i thought that it was big and bulky, but that was just from trying them in store. Also i dont know how good the battery life is.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: BooGiMaN
i been wanting to replace my minidv camcorder and thought about one of these...

i would think it be easier to record straight to dvd and drop it in a dvd player for viewing and making multiple copies to give out to family after a b-day party for example should be a snap.

anyone who owns one or has used one please let me know you thoughts

The video quality of them is not as good as MiniDV.

 

[Shawn]

How is it readable in regular DVD players? Do dvd players support muitisession discs? Also what happens if the battery dies while recording. Is the disc ruined?

 

[mzkhadir]

media is expensive. I bought a 10 pack to give to my cousin who was going to India, 10 pack for 40 dollars for the 3in dvd. 6 pack for 30.

 

[Tifababy]

I bought one when they first came out. It's pretty easy to use. It's not that big...although I've definitely seen miniDV cameras that are much smaller. I've rarely dropped the dvd into the dvd player, because 1. You have to finalize the disc which can be a pain...and if you only record a little bit on the disc, it can take up to 10 min to finalize the disc (if the disc is full, finalizing takes less than 30 sec). 2. Most of my family has crappy sony dvd players which don't read the discs (even though it's a sony camcorder). I have a more expensive toshiba dvd player and it works fine on my dvd player. But I usually just transfer the movies to my PC and store them there and then I can burn my own DVD from there. It's kind of nice because the movies are already in MPEG2 format, so you don't have to worry about converting them, but at the same time, they are already MPEG2, so you can't improve the quality...already less than miniDV quality (like 91TTZ said). Overall, I really like my camcorder and I don't regret buying it, I only wish I waited later, because I ended up paying way too much (the price has dropped in half for better dvd camcorders today).

 

[MrBond]

What about buying a used mac and iMovie? I was talking to a friend of mine who's a mac fan for life and he pointed me to PowerMax.com (they sell "certified pre-owned mac's"). You could get a G4 tower for ~$400 (only a 10GB drive, but they're cheap now), put in a DVDRW drive, then just dump your miniDV camera to the mac and edit DVD's there. He said iMovie is VERY easy to use (I was actually talking to him about getting a setup like that for my parents). I haven't made a decision if I want to get them a setup like that or not - I've never owned a mac in my life and they both are diehard PC users.

The systems appear to come without an OS loaded - I have no idea what OSX and iMovie cost.