Rating: 
Summary: I wish there was better software
Review: I bought a dc3000 to dump several VHS and Hi-8 tapes to DVD. The installation went OK on my PC (USB 2.0, 1GB RAM, Windows XP Pro, AMD 1600+ CPU). The front buttons are backlit by a very bright blue LED and the unit has no ON/OFF button. The bad part is that I keep my PC in my bedroom. When I went to bed, the room had a blue glow to it. I thought I was being abducted by aliens... again... :-)Anyway, then I started playing with the software. The PowerDVD DVD viewer seems OK. There are 2 pieces of backup software from Veritas. I really, really, really wish HP had worked with Nero on this one. The Veritas software seems very limited (although I admit not playing with it very long). I haven't played with the muvee autoproducer but I'm not quite sure that it does. Then we come to ShowBiz 2. Like others I was shocked with the lack of documentation. I've played with other movie programs so I finally figured out most things, but I'd really like some better documentation on the whole package. It wanted to change the resolution on my screen and ended up changing other things (like the refresh rate) so beware those of you using 800x600. I have burned a CD using the transfer wizard. That worked just fine. The resulting DVD is almost as clear as the VHS tape I started with. After capturing the 1hr45min tape, my system spent 30 minutes chewing on it and 10 minutes burning the DVD. There was some nice CD/DVD case inserts that you can print as well that uses captured frames from your video. So far so good, but I think the software needs a little work.
Rating: 
Summary: FoolProof!
Review: This is the fist tool I have ever used that makes it foolproof and simple to transfer VHS to DVD. Simply plug your VCR into the Movie Writer then plug the movie Writer into your PC press two buttons and let it run. All my conversions have been error free. HP's use of the "+" format is a huge relief as whenever I have tried to accomplish this task using my "-" format drive I can never get the discs to play on my TV's DVD player. The "+" format is much better than "-" when it comes to compatibility with other DVD devices (TV's etc). When you're done with converting your VHS tapes it functions as a normal DVD Writer for data back-up's, photo, etc. Leave it to HP to provide a simple, honest solution. Highly recommend this product!
Rating:
Summary: Writing DVDs from VHS and hi8 Tapes
Review: I purchased this product as an early Christmas present for myself with the intention of taking all my home hi8 tapes and putting them on DVDs for presents for the Grandparents. The hook-up of the equipment and the installation of the software went beautifully. I did have to purhcase the Windows XP Home Update and a USB 2.0 card so that my system at home would meet the minimum requirements. I immediately plugged in my camcorder and began capturing the video right to my PC. It was working great. I was familiar with video editing tools so I wasn't terribly put off that the documentation for the ShowBiz software was lacking (I later found a PDF version on Lee Devlin's website, see his message). When I got to the step of writing the movie I had capture to DVD I ran into problems. The drive didn't seem to want to respond. I'm not a Windows guru so my first instinct was that I must not have a correct driver or I've installed something incorrectly. I talked with an HP technician by calling the Help number provided in the documentation and we spent over an hour and a half trying to trouble-shoot the problem. To make a LONG story short, I finally found Lee Devlin's DC3000 message board (again see his message posted here). It's a great site for getting help. After talking with Lee, we decided that I was having a hardware problem with the drive and he suggested I return it for another. I did that and when I brought the new drive home and plugged it in, it worked like a CHARM! It wrote the DVD without a problem and I went from that to plugging in a VCR to copy a VHS tape to DVD (using the editing tools provided by ShowBiz). This also worked perfectly and I'm now a VERY satisfied customer and my children's Grandparents are going to LOVE their Christmas presents!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Hewlett Packard MisInforms about this one...
Review: I was first intrigued when I read the Best Buy Sunday flier (11/09/03) that stated "PC-Free DVD Movie Writer"..."The fast, easy way to transfer videotapes to DVD without additional hardware or software. Just plug in your video source and press a single button." "HP Movie Writer - 1-touch DVD transfers from your camcorder or VCR." I was most intrigued with the $349.99 price. I thought, "Wow! they have finally made a simple method to convert VHS tapes into DVD... and inexpensively."
I called the Best Buy Store and was told it was a stand alone unit. I was told that the need for the P.C. was only for editing, if you chose to do that.
I called Hewlett Packard and heard from three different representatives who all told me that it stood alone and did not need a computer.
Then I bought it, brought it home only to find out that instruction number one tells you to install the software; then in troubling shoot is the instruction: must be connected to the personal computer.
I don't know that it would be proper for me to say that those who wanted my money lied to me, deceived me or slammed me, but I do know that what I was TOLD this product would do IS NOT what this product CAN do.
Initially I thought this would be a great gift idea for my elderly uncle who wants to transfer his VHS tapes onto DVD. The "1-touch DVD transfers" sounded simple enough, but this product requires too many steps to be called "simple."
As someone who has used an internal DVD burner for more than two years, I appreciate how difficult the conversion process can be (play tape into computer, edit, mpg conversion, burn DVD) and I know that all these steps would be too much for my elderly uncle.
Anyhow, I wasted an entire day today purchasing the product, bringing it home, finally talking to someone at HP technical support who confirmed that a computer was absolutely necessary (he said it's basically an external DVD burner)and then returning it.
Rating:
Summary: The 'best external video-conversion device'
Review: I have created a FAQ for this product where you can get help directly from HP. If you search Google with my name, you'll find a website and a link to the FAQ and user group that can help you overcome any difficulties you might experience with this product. Walt Mossberg wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "The DVD Movie Writer is the best external video-conversion device I've tested." We want to continue to live up to that claim and so if you're having any difficulties, please share them with the user group and we'll do our best to help you solve them. Lee Devlin
Rating:
Summary: Steer away
Review: If, and only if, you are only interested in capturing whatever is on your VHS tape to DVD then this product works fine. However, if you want to edit, add audio, etc. then you should NOT buy this product. Showbiz is not documented and technical support is extremely poor. (Actually, you cannot really get support from Showbiz, but you can get support from HP technical). Unfortunately, I have made nine calls to HP technical support for this product. I have uninstalled, installed, uninstalled, installed... to the point I thought I was going to wear out my CD player. And after all of that HP technical still could not figure out the problem(s). Please note that you can expect your phone calls to technical support to be dropped numerous times (HP informed me this was a known problem and they hoped to correct the situation soon). So, due to an average to below average product and extremely poor technical support I strongly advise that you steer away from this product if at all possible.
Rating:
Summary: Bad execution of a good idea
Review: This sounded like just what I needed to convert my stack of videotapes to DVD. Unfortunately the hardware does not install according to the very brief manual, and when I eventually got the thing working it produced a totally unusable DVD, with exceedingly poor image and sound quality on three DVD players. I returned it to the store where I bought it - what a waste of money for something that simply does not work as advertised! Incidentally, the two computers I tried it on both exceed the minimum requirements by a factor of 4 in all departments: speed, RAM, disk space ...
Rating: 
Summary: Great in theory but could use a little work...
Review:
I purchased this product with the idea of converting my old camcorder tapes to DVD. This product was promoted as being "the next best thing to sliced bread" and so easy to use. Well I am here to tell you, it was a long and painful process to finally get the project completed and here is why: The Showbiz software (used for the video editing) is mediocre at best and definitely has room for improvement. There is no instruction manual or resource available to guide you through editing for the first time. You are left to try and figure it out for yourself. HP support was another huge frustration. In my first attempts to deal with HP support I called to try and troubleshoot the errors by phone. After being redirected to wrong departments (even different countries!) and being on hold for more than 2 hours at a time, I decided to try the email method. I had better luck with that and also had a way to document my correspondence. After they determined that it was something one of their Quality Customer Care Reps would need to handle, I was assured that someone would call me. 3 weeks later and multiple email reminder messages from me, I still received no phone call from HP. I was also getting no help (or even a single return phone call) from CompUSA where I originally purchased the product. Talk about feeling frustrated! In the meantime, I upgraded my PC to USB2.0 and increates my RAM to 512MB. I wanted to be sure my system wasn't causing the program (Showbiz) to fail. This didn't change anything...program still failed. After 7 weeks and hours and hours of time spent trying to get this product to work, the problem was resolved by simply unchecking a box within the ShowBiz software. This setting is under Options / DVD Quality - uncheck the box that says ShowBiz Smart Rendering. Unfortunately, this box came checked by default (go figure!) when loading the software. If this information can help anyone having the same headaches and frustrations I had in getting this product to work, I will be happy. This is really my goal in publishing my review of the Movie Writer. Once you get the DVD Movie Writer and software all figured out, it does work and accomplish what it set out to do. Since I am not a beginner with computers I was not expecting to endure the pain and suffering I experienced. However, I did learn that I will think twice before buying another HP product as well as buying anything from CompUSA (products are great, service stinks) in the future. One more bit of info I wanted to pass along...HP has an updated driver available from their FTP site. I believe it is dated 10/31/03. This could help if you are using the prepackaged version and having trouble. Good luck!!
Rating:
Summary: Product shipped before its time
Review: I had great hopes for this product, being a fan of HP printers, but have been disappointed on all fronts. I purchased it to archive 8mm tapes to DVD, create backups to DVD and to create special DVDs of the kids to give to grandparents. I've had the unit for nearly 2 months and have had numerous problems. I have had some success in creating DVDs of entire tapes but have yet to successfully create a "project" using the Showbiz software (after numerous attempts and reinstalls of the software). Arcsoft provides NO support for the product (they never reply to email sent to their support group; the other contact option is US Mail). HP's support is also marginal. Documentation is very poor. There is a major bug with the integration between the drive and Showbiz that is documented on the HP site: "ShowBiz 2 encounters error during authoring stage while writing a disk with DC3000". Apparently a patch is in the works but "is not available at this time." I'd suggest that HP recall the unit, complete the testing process that they obviously did not complete the first time, and re-release. I would also suggest that HP consider bundling a different video editing software with the product. Arcsoft was a poor choice.
Rating:
Summary: copyright remover
Review: How about connecting a copygard remover between the vcr and recorder.I do this between vcr machines all the time and it works well.It should work -
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