SONY VRD-VC10 DVDirect External DVD Recorder

Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile investment
Review: I didn't purchase this product at Amazon, but commonly rely on others' recommendations at this site, so here's my take. THIS PRODUCT IS A GREAT INVESTMENT. The primary reason that I didn't give it a 5 star rating, is because the packaging doesn't clearly state which brands of blank DVD's are compatible. I bought a 100 pack of memorex DVD+R & the disks wouldn't finalize. I contacted sony support & learned that there's a list of approved brands.

DVD+R DL (Double Layer)
Verbatim/Mitsubishi 2.4x speed

DVD+R
Sony 4x & 8x
Ricoh 8x
Verbatim/Mitsubishi 4x & 8x
Taiyo Yuden Co. 4x & 8x
Hitachi Maxell 8x

DVD+RW
Sony 4x
Ricoh 4x

(The support person also said TDK works - but it wasn't on the list)"The list" goes on for other types of Media (ie. DVD-R etc.) Visit sony.storagesupport.com for more info.
I have used only Sony disks without difficulty.

Note: the Double Layer disks are priced about 10 times the single layer disks, so you'd better have a good reason to use that feature.

Also, if you have an older DVD player, be aware that some will not read/play burned DVDs. I've lived this problem. It's frustrating, but I found a new, very inexpensive DVD player that works well.

One drawback... using the stand-alone option with a Digital Video Camera requires the signal to be converted to analog, then back to digital & there's certain to be loss of picture resolution - whether it's noticable may be a matter of opinion. Fortunately, you can hook up your Digital Video Camera to your computer via firewire and utilize the Video Capture software by Nero, that I found to be very straightforward. I recommend using the DVD+VR software feature that allows you to insert your latest video footage into a previously burned DVD+RW disk that works in most all newer DVD players.

I didn't commit to converting my old VHS to digital until I found an older VHS tape whose image quality had detiorated so much as to be useless. What a loss! I had been intimidated by peers who'd told me to plan on spending upwards of 10 hours to edit a single hour of finished tape. The standalone operation & the quality Nero software bundled with the software make this Sony product a less-intimidating, worthwhile investment.

Rating:
Summary: Do not waste your money
Review: I have trusted quality of Sony products. No more.
I purchased this DVDirect for a single purpose of
converting old video tapes in which I archived my
favorite sports programs in the past to DVD-Video.
Sony miserably failed me on this.
Physical connections among TV, VCR, and DVDirect all went
well. But a titanic frustration got me when
Sony DVDirect keeps registering "Recording Prohibited"
in the small LCD monitor while I was converting the tapes which
shouldn't be copy-protected. This nuisance happens
more than half of my tapes thus far. During this
coversion process, I have to sit and gaze at
the LCD monitor on DVDirect since "Recocording Prohibited"
warning shows up at random.
Since there is no remote with DVDirect, you need to
stay nearby and be alert all the way until you complete a
conversion process.

When "Recording Prohibited" warning shows up, I learned that
I could enable recording by pushing "Pause" button twice.
But you lose bits and pieces of valuable digital information
and continuity of the recorded program is completely destroyed.


What do I get after this conversion process? It is a DVD disc
that contains old TV programs that were patched up and
disconnected. I am so dissatisfied with this gadget.
So much so that I ended up buying ILO DVDR04 which was
cheaper and reliable than Sony DVDirect. ILO DVDR04 never fails to convert my very old VCR tapes to DVD.
Now I can do whatever I want with a remote in my hand
while my old tapes are being converted to DVD-Video using ILO DVDR04.

Now I am using DVDirect as a bookend.


Rating:
Summary: Does what I need it to do
Review: My urgent need is to move VHS to DVD. I plugged this puppy in and by following the Quick Start Guide had it working soon. It's best to read bits and pieces of the users guide, though. The copying can stop on a video with spaces between the segments, so I babysit this while it's copying to DVD. I doubt I'll use this for anything more elaborate (we already have enough editing software), but for transferring VHS to DVD fairly cheaply for the sake of permanence, it works fine.

Rating:
Summary: Tries to be two gadgets at once - does neither job well
Review: Sony has apparently tried making a great hybrid product, but missed the mark. This product is NOT ready for primetime.

First the good stuff - it looks nice; is solidly built; and if you simply want to record TV programs, old VHS or 8mm tapes, or download a program from TiVO, it will do the job. In the "stand-alone" mode it is easy to use.

Now the problems:

1. In the "stand-alone" mode there is no way to monitor what you're recording - not as far as this drive is concerned. You would have to run another output from the source device (VCR, Tivo, etc.) to the TV. This may be easy for you, or it may not. It cost me a $50 gadget to do it.

2. Unlike the true entertainment center DVD Recorders, there is no remote control for this drive. A real annoyance if you try to start and stop while converting home movie tapes to DVD - as I was.

3. There is no way for you to name the titles that you record in the "stand-alone" mode. The drive just names them TITLE1, TITLE2, and so on. And the DVD navigation menu is pretty poor too.

4. In the "computer" mode, problems get worse. My Windows XP computer does not recognize this device as a DVD drive. It is seen as a CD drive that is "inaccessible"! The Nero software that is supplied with the Sony drive DOES recognize the device and will record to it. But this means that you're stuck with using the Nero. Sorry, but Nero is not nearly as good as Adobe Premiere Elements that I'm using. And Adobe Premiere Elements (only the top selling DVD production software) does not recognize this drive. So you cannot simply play a DVD from this device on your computer, nor record one unless you use the Nero software.

5. Sony user guide has next to nothing about the Nero software. They expect you to read the Nero documents. And the Nero documents are not very well written. You get this? There is no way to playback or record to this device in the compuer mode without using Nero, but Sony wants you to go deal with Nero to figure out this software!!

6. Since the device has just been released, Sony website and their technical support people are not much use.

Conclusion - Not Ready For Primetime. I'll be returning mine and will buy two separate drives - one for the entertainment center and one for the computer. Yes, it will cost about $100 - $150 more, but at least they will work today. This drive will be a good product when Sony fixes the above-mentioned problems.

Rating:
Summary: Supplemental use I discovered
Review: This is a handy gadget. One use I have found for it is to connect the component inputs on the Sony to the component output jacks(red, white & yellow) from my Panasonic LCD TV and use it as a replacement for VHS recording of TV programs. It suffers some loss of clarity, since it is analog, but it sure beats VHS tapes by using DVD+RW that can be recorded over up to 1000 times. It records in 1, 2 or 6 hour mode to a 4.7 gb DVDRW which can be played back in modern home DVD players.

I don't believe SONY advertises this feature but it works great.

Rating:
Summary: Nice buy!
Review: Unfortunately, I was expecting a bit more- this coming from Sony, but feel let down by mainly one major issue. Keep in mind that this may not matter much to you; but to me it is bothersome. Other issues are a nuisance but clearly less grave than the main one.

I waited for Amazon to carry this burner but needed this product before it showed up on their pages. So, I mail ordered it from Dell.

First the good stuff- great packaging. Looks cool out of the box and next to your computer or video equipment. The buttons are easy to use and moderately intuitive. Still, I needed to refer to the Quick Start cheat sheet. Yes, this is not an Apple :).

OK, here goes....I really wanted to get the computer out of the way and this product caught my eye. Its nice to be able to hook up a DVD burner directly to your camcorder. I was foolish enough to think that my MiniDVs, which are digitally recorded on tape, would be copied over loss-free to a DVD. Not! I do not know much about recording formats (call me ignoramus, if you will), but if I have a stream of digitized bits on tape, then can't these be captured as a stream of bits on DVD? That will ensure no loss of information. Isn't that what "digital" is all about? But unfortunately, the camcorder must output analog for the DVD to burn. This does not sound good when you have a USB on both ends of the wire, and Sony (which is in the business of making MiniDV camcorders) undertands the MiniDV format. Even if Sony was not able to burn the same exact bits on the DVD as were on the MiniDV tape (due to file format issues on different recording mediums, say), the least I expected was software that read my MiniDV digitally, and then used some software that did the conversion. Why they took the easy route and allowed only RGBY style output (the red, white and yellow jacks, 1 video and two audio) is non-intuitive for me to understand. Wish it was better. The current scheme is good when you have analog camcorders (I guess I can digitize my old Hi8 tapes and feel good), but not otherwise. This has been a big disappointment for me.

Now for some lesser but still painful problems. I stuck in a Memorex DVD+R and copied over a tape from my MiniDV camcorder- no issues. Things just work as they should. I don't expect to do any fancy editing/catologing/chapters, etc. This is strictly my tool for backing up "life as it used to be." Like I have said before, I seem to have lost some bits of past lives already. Maybe the eye can't tell the difference in quality, but I have a mental block that I can't get over.

I hooked over the USB cable to the Sony burner and backed up some files from the computer over CD-R. That went smooth but for one coaster (it complained of verification failure at the end of the copy). About 8 other CDs went though smoothly with the same procedure.

Copying over 4.3 GB of data onto a Memorex DVD+R failed in a different fashion. It said that the operation completed successfully, but neither the burner nor my local DVD drive on my laptop can read back what was written. I used the backup/restore feature of Nero.

I don't like the UI of the Nero software. Its probably much better than most stuff out there, but I expected more. To copy photographs (4 GB on my laptop's hard drive), I sat painfully going through 30 folders and selecting every photograph to be copied over. Once this repository was created, the copy onto DVD started and eventually failed due for reasons I cannot remember. It would've been nice if I could've pointed to a directory hierarchy and said- Copy the damn files (there was nothing in there but jpegs). But the software does not believe that you have anything better to do than baby-sit this thing.

Until, there's something better on the market this may still be your best option. I think I am going to keep this product for exactly that single reason. 3 stars because this is not a lemon, but a step forward in helping consumers not get bogged down by the confusing space of DVD standards that Sony sems to have simplified by hiding the details from you. I really don't want to know if I am adding R's or subtracting R's from DVD's or CD, or make that R/W/RW/DL, etc.

Copyrighted media cannot be copied, and rightly so. But once I have a my own (home video)DVD created (by hooking a camcorder to the Sony burner directly), I expect to be successful in making a copy of that DVD using my computer as the playback. I placed the newly burned home video DVD in my computer and used the Nero software to play it back; that worked (keep in mind that the Nero MPEG4 player is quirky- it can hang and you'll have to kill it from time to time using the taskbar; it can show the first frame and not play, the play buttons on the DVD console on your screen may not always work, but sometimes double clicking on the movie screen seems to start the process.) But I have not had any luck in making a copy of my newly burned DVD by playing it on the computer and using the DVD copy feature of Nero software. Given that there are no copyright issues this should be a breeze for a home video, but I guess not. It is possible I am missing something and I'll update this review as I discover the workarounds, if any. I plan to call Sony (that itself should cost a Sony a few brownie points because I have read the manual, not just the cheat sheets, and most of the features in Nero software do not even bear a mention)to find out what the hell is supported. I could not use a two step imaging process either where you copy the DVD from the computer's DVD ROM to hard disk and then burn the image. BTW, I am using an 8 month old Dell laptop running XP; that is, a fairly up-to-date computer with tons of memory (2GB) and hard disk space (~100GB available). I do not wish to speculate what other problems people with standard configurations may face (like being out of memory or not having enough disk for temporary files).

I checked on the Sony product page- there is no mention of the specific media vendors they support. The previous reviewer has been kind to share his findings; but picking up the phone to find out what kind of bread my toaster can toast seems like a headache, at a minumum.