Mini-DV to DVD

S

scook17

Guest
I have a digital camcorder and wish to put the output onto a DVD-R type format. I picked DVD-R because it appears to be the cheapest at around £0.50 per disk when bought in lots of 100. The alternative, DVD+R seems to be around £4-£5 a disk.

What DVD recorders are available to do this? I've seen the Panasonic E30 and it looks really nice, but doesn't have a DV-input even though the previous version, the E20, does. Is there another DVD recorder I could use?

Kind Regards,
Shane Cook.
 
Have you thought of using your PC (assuming you have one) with a DVD writer and DV in card. This would add the benefit of non linear editing on a hardisk prior to burning a DVD. If your PC is powerful enough and you know where to get the software from this may be more cost effective (although not as quick).
 
Shane,

It's worth having a look at the new philips range of +RW/+R machines, the 880 and 890. The 890 is about £500, and has DV in. I think if you look now - like a day later - +RW/+R media costs are falling all the time. Someone posted a site here selling 10 infiniti +RW for around £40, and +R are cheaper than that.

The pioneer DVR7000 is a -RW/-R machine, but at a grand it's looking ripe for a large price reduction, no matter how cheap the media is.

As nunew33 says, if you have a PC you can go down the PC DVD writer + software route, which arguably allows you to edit in more detail, have fancy menus e.t.c. But editing using DV raw needs loads of hard disk space, and the conversion to MPEG2 (for DVDs) can take a while, even on a relatively fast machine. It's a tricky choice for now, but personally for now I think the standalone machine would make simple DVDs quicker, and easier.
 
Another option of course is wait a bit as several companies are integrating HDD and DVD recorders allowing non linear editing of home video (as well as all the other TV video benefits). SO far Panasonic and Toshiba are the only 2 with machines in the market (HS-2 for panny and RDX2 for Toshiba both in the £1000 area and both DVD RAM/DVD-R, but then so were DVD recorders last year that are now at £500) but all the other manufacturers have an intention to follow (meaning you will still have DVD-RW/DVD+RW/DVD-RAM choice) and when that happens the prices will drop. There will be a lot of convergence of digital media in this area, these machines I think even allow incorporation of memrycards for including jpegs on DVDs.

I think the recorder will end up being an MP3 bank, video editor, photo album creator, DVD authorer, PVR and tea maid. Im sure that given two years you will find a DVD Multi (RAM and -RW)/HDD/CDRW combi that does everything (with sony producing one with a MD on it) and Phillips still trying to flaunt DVD+RW (didnt they learn from their CDi experience)

The HD DVD-R combi would be the best allround option with realtime conversion of DV to mpeg2 and the ability to do nonlinear editing prior to burning a DVD. I know that you can get round this without a HD by putting a whole camcorded sequence on a DVD-R and then linking scenes so that duff bits are missed, but it means that the duff bits are still there taking up valuable space.

This is the route I intend to take, despite the temptation to dive in now and get a standalone DVD recorder.
 

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