ALDI DVD BURNER (external)

Smag

ALDI DVD (external) burner £59.99

In store from 3rd March

Looks impressive, but what do I know.

It says that firewire is supported. Does this mean that I could just plug in my dv-camcorder and burn straight to dvd without having to go through the pain of downloading - editing then burning?

Any advice would be appreciated before I go buy it.

HWallace

Nice idea, in theory yes, but in practice no.
The firewire mentioned is for actually connecting to your computer, the files on the camera are in the wrong format and the burner wouldn't know what to do with them, added to which, your camera wouldn't know what commands to send the burner to make it "burn"
Firewire, (unlike USB) is a "hostless" protocol which means that basically it doesn't need a computer in the middle to control what goes on, however, devices do need to know how to talk to one another
(P.S. this isn't Hayley, but her dad, helping out)
HTH
Brian

Fairwinds

Hi Hayley's dad or anyone else - I have a similar question as I would like to use this DVD recorder to copy all my Kids videos,which are starting to show signs of age, to DVD. How easy would that be - any other products required?. What effect does macrovision have?

I suppose this is taking the thread down the techie route appologies for that.

HWallace

Simple answer, - https://www.doom9.org - an excellent resource.
To answer more directly, Macrovision probably will be a problem, though it <may> be worth playing around with settings on your Video recorder, - some DVD players for example don't seem to output Macrovision on RGB setting, maybe some VCR's have this problem too?.
You will need some means to get the pictures and sound into the computer, (some video cards can do this, as can some TV cards, otherwise, there are dedicated video capture devices, however, thay will detect the Macrovision and (probably) refuse to co-operate) then programs to convert it to a format suitable to burn to DVD, - TMPegenc is excellent, or Nero 6 does a competent job of this- and of course a program to actually do the burning (Personally would recomend Nero above anthing else for this, but you will probably get <something> bundled with your burner.)
Loads more info on the site at the beginning of this message
Alternatively can your Camcorder take an input (composite or RGB)? then output to the computer as DV, via Firewire (better) or USB2 (don't try USB1 - it's far too slow) Firewire cards are available now for around 12-20 GBP - I got mine for 17GBP complete with a connecting cable. Well worth it.
HTH
Brian

Fairwinds

Wow, that sights scared me - looks like I'll save myself £60 quid and not bother buying.

Thanks for the help though

dfarry

I think this is a good buy....though I know nothing about the Gericom branded DVD drive.....I assume it will be something like a NEC, Sony, Liteon... one of the big name manufacturers though.

A similar spec'd internal drive can be had for around £40 so the extra £20 you pay is for the external case, USB, Fireware and power socket... which I think is reasonable.

I don't need one myself but a work colleague wants me to buy one for her.... so I'll have a chance to see what it's like then.