Canon dvd camcorder and dvd-rw

[celtic13]

Hi Guys

My 72 year old Father has just returned from a trip to Oz where en route he bought a Canon MC50(?) dvd camcorder in HK. Everything seems hunky dory and he is delighted with the results seen through his camcorder.

I have two queries: Is there a very simple editing programme that he could use to add captions, music, fades & commentary? He is adventurous but far from computer literate. He has a one year old pc running XP. I'm useless with PC's as I have always used mac's for editing, and don't know whats out there i n the Windows world.

Second query is when he takes the dvd from the camcorder and try's to play it on his Toshiba dvd it won't recognize the disc - is this because it is -RW and the Tosh only plays +RW? If this is the case then please recommend a cheap dvd player for him.

Many thanks in advance, any advice would be fantastic.

Paul

[glesgaguyav]

Pinnacle Studio or Ulead Video Studio are both decent and fairly User Friendly also Nero8 has a basic Editing program and you get other usefull utility's as well.
Your assumption about the DVD is correct, I believe that the disks have to be Finalized to play in a DVD player ,of course the player has to be able to read +/- disks, almost all new players are capable, just check the specs.

[celtic13]

Many thanks for your quick reply. He has finalized the discs and I have just tried one on my daughters cheapo Matsui - doesnt play, but will on my Sony dvd/hdd recorder.

I think he has a version of Nero, I must check, but how complex are the other prog's you mentioned?

Paul

[glesgaguyav]

Personally, I would say that Nero8 is the simplest to use if your Dad is not going to progress in his interest, complexity is a matter of opinion but the others are fairly easy to use and there's plenty of "How to" around on their web sites.

[celtic13]

He's a very good photographer but has always been more interested in what a piece of equipment can do rather than something with the latest bangs and whistles. He is interested in editing but not that interested.

I will investigate Nero, but what about windows movie maker? Is this any good?

Paul

[glesgaguyav]

To be honest I've never even opened it in all my years tinkering in the hobby, but I understand that it's more of a toy than anything else, IMO.
Still it's worth checking it out