As with any new gadget, there is always one guarentee never mentioned by the manufacturer: The severity of your headache! Opened up my JVC MiniDV D270 and found thatfirewire was "optional" After reading the forums, it's pretty much needed for transferring to DVD. Optional my bum. Here's the problem. 1) I thought I could just use USB. Apparently not. The cable needed, according to JVC is what they call "DV cable" but I have a strong suspicion this is a disguise, as it is`only firewire, but especially made for JVC thus, proprietary. 2) Does anyone still have a JVC that can confirm my suspicion? 3) Either way, I have to purchase something. I know what the firewire for the cam's Cam's end looks like, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out where it would plug in to the PC to transfer. This is understandeable on my laptop, it's older, but my desktop is newer, and as I read the forums should not need a capture card, so where the heck is the connection most normally found? 4) I started on AD trying to burn my first DVD. I can do them with my eyes closed now thanks to all the awesome people here. However, I have also learned that even the BEST DVD media still sucks as a storage device. One smudge, one ruined night. So this got me to thinking. 5) I always said I would purchase a DVD recorder for the TV as soon as prices fell below $100 and they have. BUT, I hate DVD media, and in all likelyhood, simple flash media carried around in a 1 X 1 plastic storage box is where I would like to see this industry go. Any thoughts? I'm not listed as a newbie anymore, but they can never take "stupid" away from me 6) So I have to spend "some" money on either firwewire, a DVD recorder, or one of those Tivo type things that have HDDs to store the movies. I see the higher end camcorders now come with built in HDD's and that may signal some kind of a change or no? The Regular DVD size media written from the camcorder directly to the inserted DVD seemed to be the logical way to go, but consumers have shunned that idea. Would that be because of the "DVD poor media syndrome"? I don't care if they make 30 GB HD DVDs, they are still DVDs, and a terrible storage medium. 7) What would you much smarter and wiser guys and gals do in my situation? Buy the firewire, (I swear I won't if I find out it will only work for JVC cameras) buy a 88.00 DVD recorder, or go with the Tivo like recorder with an internal HDD? Thanks for any replies... Mike
Long story and I am not sure if I understand what you are asking, but nevertheless here's my advice. From miniDV, ALWAYS go through Firewire to your PC. If your PC hasn't got it, buy a Firewire card (costs only $15 these days). After editing, burn your result to good quality DVD (I personlly ise Verbatim and have good experience with it). But also store your edited video back to miniDV tape as backup!! Of course you can also decide to buy a 250Gig external harddrive (costs $120 or so). This will allow you to store around 20 hours of video in DV-AVI quality (or a whole lot more in MPEG-2). If you spend long hours making your own movies, a good back up strategy is certainly worth some money.. Maybe this answers your question?
Hi, thank you, I see me sarcasm confused you. Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden were being discussed as the best dvd media here a few months ago; I chose Taiyo Yuden and am not impressed. (No better than Memorex) I think what I'm trying to say is: 1) how much longer will consumers put up with this horrible storage media, regardless of who makes the best, it is still a sucky way to store stuff. 2) I figured why by the firewire when I have to use the same crappy DVD media even if I chose a DVD recorder and recorded directly from cam to DVD with no PC or software involved. 3) Then I was thinking better yet, why not by one of those DVD recorders with hard drives (like TIVO) and store all my video there, fill up the HDD, and THEN burn to DVD the video I no longer need from the HDD inside the recorder (TIVO like device)when I need more space. I'm just saying that DVD media cannot possibly be the future. A DVD recorder with a HUGE HDD 1 tera, should be the future. "Should be, not necesarily gonna be." I'll go to the store and see what's on sale...
