Hello,

After several days of research on a mini-DVD camcorder, I chose to buy a DZ-MV580A. I like it a lot. But it sure is a piece of work to get a movie burned on a regular DVD-R or DVD+R disc. First of all, I did not realize that my other Roxio, Ulead, etc. programs were competing against the Hitachi DVD-Movie album SE program. Took me several emails and phone calls to sort that out. And then after I burned it on a disc, I did not like the MyDVD software that much. It was rather amateurish. It has very limited options for title, transition, etc.

Sooooo... I've been using the Ulead DVD Factory 3, the Winproducer 3, and finally the Pinnacle Studio 9 SE. AND guess what: They all suck! all programs froze so many times, and I got really flustered. Here I am, I built for myself a powerful computer: Pentium 4 hyperthread 3 gig processor, 2 gig of RAM, almost one terabite of hardrive memory, and for the life of PETE, I could not get it to burn me a decent 45 minutes movie.

Thus let me ask y'all this, what is the best software out there? Anybody know? Give give a life line. Thanks a bunch!

Just a thought, but I've been looking into it...
Lots of DVD-RAM players on E-Bay. Also DVD-RAM for camcorders are pretty reasonable too.
I might just forget about burning from RAM to DVD-R and just replace my current DVD player and just pop the DVD RAM into it.

[Bobio, Like the post from btv268 above, I can't get the Hitachi software and Roxio to co-exist. You state that you were able to accomplish this, but ommitted the details. How did you do it?

I'm sort of lazy and want the easy way out. I have the Hitachi MV-580A DVD camcorder. I buy Panasonic RAM discs on E-bay for around 4-5 $ each. Instead of trying to burn on DVD-R so it will play on any DVD player, I just bought a cheap Panasonic DVD player on E-bay. Playback is just fine. Sure the RAM discs will not play on other DVD players, but if you look hard enough you can find Maxell DVD-R at a price reasonable enough to re-record without worring about $'s.

Editing on Hitachi's cheap included software is good enough for my uses. Most likely many on this forum will consider me a Phillistine, but, for my purposes, what I've described suits me fine. Hope this helps.

don't know if you got an answer yet. But I've done it this way.

first bite the bullet and uninstall Roxio or any other CD burning software.

Shut down and reboot your computer.

Install the Hitachi software that came with your camera, including the USB driver software. It's best if you upgrade to a usb 2.0 card. Turn off your computer.

Plug in your USB cable, reboot your computer, Make sure your computer "sees" the camera by turning it on to play and have a dvd in the camera.

Once you verify your computer can see your camera and the hitachi software will capture images from a dvd-ram disc, then reinstall roxio or whatever dvd writing software you really want to use (BUT DO NOT INSTALL DRAG TO DISC OR ITS EQUIVALENT). And you should be up and running.

As I have said elsewhere, make sure data transfer works because you want to capture your dvd-r images before you finalize the disc in your camera. If you don't and you have any kind of a glitch happen in your camera, you have a frisbee and all your memories are gone.

FYI I use Video Studio 8 to make my movies.

Chuck

The softwware I like most so far to handle my MV-580A video is NERO "nerovision express 3". I can combine several DVD-RAM .VRO files into one DVD-vedio and easily do editing ( delete, merge, chapter creation etc). One thing I notice though is that the video quality affected slightly because of the transcoding. Here is what I do:
First copy .VRO file to my PC ( can be several from different DVD-RAMs so to combine to 4GB DVD); then use DVD-video creation in NEROviison express and input .VRO files directly ( have to use "all file" instead of "supported file"to browse the .VRO file). After the .VRO files are added, the rest is straightforward.

zqwjohn How do you transfer the vro files to your PC? Do you just use explorer and copy them? There are other files besides vro files are they needed? This appeals to me as I suspect that when MovieAlbum creates the mpeg 2 files some quality is lost. Then when Nero Vision or MyDvd work on the mpegs and rewrite them more is lost again.

Anyone know if when using DVD MovieAlbum software what you get transferred if you check the box "simple export" under export mode. Have been meaning to try this.

I have been editing and burning the mpg files created by MovieAlbum using NeroVision Express 2.0 seems to be better than Mydvd unless all you are doing is burning the files and no merging, editing.

I am pretty new to this stuff and find that editing out parts of the files to be complicated. Is there any simple software where you just say highlight the section by time or something and hit delete that does that. I recently used TMPGEnc and found it pretty easy but am concerned that each time you do something that the file gets transcoded and some quality is lost.

On quality has anyone noticed any major difference between Xtra fine and fine?

gthorley: I use simple explorer copy to copy all directories in DVD-RAM to my PC for archive. But I only add VRO file(s) as I am using Nero Visionexpress 3 to create full-size DVD-video. VRO file has all I need except the 16:9 ratio infomation, which I have to use "ifoedit" to add in after the video_ts is created. As you mensioned TMPGenc, did you mean TMPGenc DVD Author? I heard this tool gives more control for not encoding the mpeg files.

Someone once asked whether 16:9 ratio is true or just software enhanced, do you know the answer to this?

When you use Nero do you first save the file to your hard drive then use this ifoedit on the file. Is the file that nero creates a vob file automatically in a video_ts folder?

I just used TMPGenc plus which is the basic version. It has an mpeg tools part which I used in the past for merging and cutting of files. I like the software and plan to try and get the DVD author to see what is does.

I need help ...

you said........ make sure data transfer works because you want to capture your dvd-r images before you finalize the disc in your camera.

I have the DZ-MV580A, and it the computer only can see the Camcorder DVD when it is a DVR-RAM, not DVD-R. How can I get it to see DVD-R

I've downloaded the trial versions of Ulead Video Studio 9, Cyberlink PowerProducer, Nero Expresss and none of them see the Data on a DVD-R. I don't want to pay for anything until I know it works and so far these don't.

Even finalised DVD-Rs don't seem to be downloadable with any of this software.

So what do I do to get the computer to see the DVD-R, what do I do to get it so I can download/copy from DVD-R to Hard Drive so that I don't lose anything on finalising.

Any help or advice appreciated