Citizens of ancient cultures made no multimedia records of their own birthday parties, weddings or babies’ first steps. How tragic and boring. When they sat down in front of the TV after dinner at family gatherings, what on earth did they watch?
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Stuart Goldenberg
Multimedia
Video
Taking Old Memories Into the Digital Age
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The Sony DVDirect VRD-MC3 converts video from various formats to DVDs, working by itself or with a PC.
Yet even in the most recorded, videotaped and photographed society in history, we have our own issues. For example, we insist upon upgrading our recording technologies every few years, each time orphaning millions of disks, reels and cassettes in older formats. All over the world, VHS and camcorder tapes from the 1980s and ’90s are slowly turning to dust. And it’s becoming harder and harder to find the equipment you need to play back some of those videos.
Even the DVD will one day turn out to have been a temporary format, but at least it has advantages over tapes. The video quality is terrific. You can skip around without rewinding or fast-forwarding. And homemade DVDs may last 100 years, if you believe the vendors of those gold-coated blanks.
Now, the technologically savvy computer nut thinks nothing of connecting an old camcorder or VCR to a well-equipped Mac or PC; hitting Play; waiting two hours for each tape to transfer in real time; editing and touching up the result on the computer screen; and then waiting another two hours for the resulting video burn onto a DVD.
But in Sony’s opinion (and many other people’s), this is much too laborious, expensive and time-consuming. Enter the Sony DVDirect VRD-MC3, a $218 box that converts old (and new) videotapes into shiny new DVDs with an emphasis on two extremely important attributes: simplicity and reproduction quality.
Under the hood of the cleanly designed, black-and-white plastic case (12.7 by 4.9 by 10.6 inches) is a DVD burner that accepts almost any format of blank disc: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and dual-layer (extra-capacity) versions of each. (There is one exception: the DVDirect doesn’t accept the dual-layer DVD-RW variety.)
The steps to follow, and the experience you’ll have, depend on what you’re copying to and from; this is an extraordinarily versatile machine. In every case, however, the 2.5-inch color screen provides simple instructions. You operate the whole affair with only four controls: Record, Stop, Return and a four-arrow navigation button.
OLD VIDEOS Suppose you’ve got a stash of VHS, 8-millimeter or Hi-8 videotapes. You can connect your old VCR or camcorder to the DVDirect using either an S-video cable (for best color) or using the usual set of three RCA cables (red, white and yellow). Once you hit Play on the VCR, the DVDirect auto-detects which jack is being used. Then you hit Record.
If you’re willing to baby-sit the transfer, you can press Stop on the DVDirect at any time, fast-forward or change the tape, and then hit Record again; doing so creates a new “title” on the DVD’s menu, complete with a thumbnail image of the scene. Hitting Pause instead creates a new, invisible “chapter” marker; later, you can use your DVD player’s Previous or Next button to skip among these markers during playback.
Alternatively, you can walk away and let the thing roll unattended. The Sony can add chapter markers every 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes for your convenience.
You have a choice of five quality settings. The HQ setting provides spectacular video quality — virtually indistinguishable from the source. At this setting, you get one hour of video per regular DVD, or two hours per dual-layer DVD.
Before you can use any finished DVD in a regular DVD player, you must “finalize” it — a software finishing process that takes two minutes.
DIGITAL VIDEOTAPES If you have a more recent camcorder — a MiniDV digital model — things are even simpler. You connect the camcorder to the Sony’s FireWire jack. The camcorder magically rewinds itself and then pours itself onto a blank DVD. Each scene on the tape is supposed to become a new title on the DVD automatically, although that feature didn’t work on my unit.
The Sony can even handle video from Sony high-definition camcorders, although it doesn’t burn high-def DVDs — just wide-screen, standard ones.
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