[Bob in St. Louis]

Hey all,
The wife and I are looking for a replacement DVD burner to save our home movies. We also torture our parents with burnt DVD's of their Grandchildren. So it's not so much an archive issue (otherwise I'd simply use a HDD), but a distribution issue as well.

HD would be nice, but saving and burning HD from our Panny camcorder (HDMI equipped) isn't something we've done before, and not something I'm framiliar with.

The wife is in charge of saving the video treasures we've captured so I'll be out of the equation when it comes to actually using the device.
She did a bit of research and found a >> Sony VRDMC6  <<.

Anybody know about this one, or have any other recommendations?

Thanks folks!
Bob

[randytsuch]

Why not a PC with SW?
I haven't looked into DVD software in a while, but last time I looked there was sw that would read in a video from a camcorder, and write it to a DVD.  If you want to, it will let you add menus and other stuff.
For my camcorder, I just needed to buy a firewire card for my PC.


Randy

[Bob in St. Louis]

Hmm...Why didn't I think of that? 

Good idea, I'll look into that. As long as the UI isn't too bad she can deal with it.
Although, I'll have to see if her old machine even has a DVD burner.

Bob

[randytsuch]

Hi
One more thing to think about (if you didn't already find sw) is that not all video sw is equal, so do a better job of rendering (converting to mpg) then others.

I haven't played with software for a few years, but I am just restarting it now.  I actually use a bunch of different programs, because it gives me better output and the ability to make any menu structure I want.

As with most things, it depends how picky you are, versus how much effort you expend.

Randy

[Bob in St. Louis]

Good advice, thank you Randy.

The only product I know of is JRiver Media. Is there anything else?
{of course there's "else", but....you know what I mean} 

Bob

[randytsuch]

I was thinking more of this type of SW
http://www.pcmag.com/products.aspx/products/?action=defaultadvancedquery&cid=25545&sid=25545&gridtitle=Recent Product Reviews&googlequery=q%3d%26mt823%3d21166%26sort%3decho%26dir%3ddesc

I tried powerproducer and DVD Movie Factory long ago, and each had advantages and disadvantages.

Like I said, I went with seperate programs that do a better job, and give more flexibility, but are much hard to use.

For ease of use, and reasonable results, I would stick with one of these packages from a known company.

I think most of these guys will let you download, and do a trial of their software, so I recommend trying 1 or 2 out, and see how it goes

Randy

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok good deal Randy, thank you.
I'll run those past the wifey and see what she says. Not sure she's got her head wrapped around the idea of a PC based solution. Her PC is so antiquated it may not enjoy manipulating video. 

Bob