Hi,

I have a PC109 and do most of my recording in 16:9. I have been looking at these stand alone dvd recorder that have the fire-wire port. So many of them no sure which one to get that would work best with my camera. Any suggestions?

The question you want you want to answer right away about DVD recorder for a camcorder use is whether or not you need one with a hard drive. 1.If you like to do some basic editing such as shortning videos, moving video segments or combining video clips or adding photos, you should look for a hard drive model and it's very versatile; however, it's more expensive. 2. Whether it's a firewire, S-video, or composite connection in many cases do not seem matter for picuture quality, if you use to record in a highest resolution and a bit rate. 3. The picture quality depend on the type of electronics and alogrithm that is used used to convert from mini DV tape to MPEG 2 of DVD. 4. Some cheaper model have only use monophonic conversion for audio so be aware of that fact. 5. Burning capability of different models should be noted.

I have a Panasonic Hard Drive model with a firewire input. I'm very satisfied with this particular model not only for camcorder use but mostly for video recording in general; it's laden with many useful features. And then if you're budget is tight you can go seek a bare minimum Chinese made DVD recorder in places likeWalmart for under $100. I mostly use my computer for my NLE editing, authoring of mini DV projects. What I like about the DVD recorder is the simplicity and quickness. The result is very reliable and dependable; no long encoding process, no dropped frames, no software/hardware conflicts.

All in all, it's a nice compliment for your video tool. BTW, here is a forum dedicated to DVD recording at this site:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=106

TS