HP DVD Movie dc4000
Ready for a one-stop platform for organizing, editing, and burning digital media? HP's DVD Movie Writer dc4000 is an external 8x DVD writer with built-in analog video capturing abilities to let you quickly and easily transfer your treasured home videos directly from tape (via camcorder or VCR) to both your PC and to recordable DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, and CD-R/-RW media. But it's not just for video--the drive's full suite of video-editing software also includes dedicated applications for photo, music, and data.
Write speeds are 8x DVD+R, 8x DVD-R, 4x DVD+RW, and 4x DVD-RW, with up to 24x CD-R and 16x CD-RW. Connected to a desktop or notebook PC through its USB 1.1 port, the dc4000 is designed to digitally encode VHS and other analog sources and create digital negatives on long-life DVD discs. It converts video from a variety of formats, including VHS, Hi8, Digital 8, and BetaMax--essentially any format from any component offering analog video outputs. The dc4000 is also designed to function as a standard DVD/CD writer to burn music, photos, and data to both DVD and CD.
After the dc4000 converts analog tapes to the digital MPEG-2 format--the same format all commercially available DVDs are written to--you'll be able to edit and share your DVD masterpieces with friends and family. And you can get as detailed as you want in editing your DVDs--the dc4000 includes ArcSoft ShowBiz 2.1, a full editing package, and muvee autoProducer, a simple music-oriented video-editing application. Amazon.com Product Description
HP DVD Movie dc4000
ShowBiz 2.1 lets you add or delete scenes, add music or special effects, and create slideshows set to music. Easy-to-use screens let you drag and drop video clips, digital photos, and music files in either storyboard or simple timeline-editing formats. autoProducer is a fun and easy editing package that quickly turns digital movies into music videos with a few clicks of a mouse.
The dc4000 also includes an enhanced video-transfer wizard that simplifies batch loading of multiple tapes or clips to a single DVD and permits time-saving background processing. Other software updates include the 6.5 version of RecordNow and ArcSoft PhotoBase 4.5 to help you create, organize, and burn photo slideshows.
Veritas RecordNow and Simple Backup help you save data, video, or music on DVDs and CDs. Simple Backup reliably backs up, protects, and restores individual files or folders and can also help restore an entire PC hard drive. Additionally, Cyberlink PowerDVD software makes it easy to play DVD movies on a PC.
What's in the Box
HP DVD movie writer dc4000, software CD (including electronic user's guide, quick-start installation guide, and getting-help support guide), a USB cable, a composite-video/stereo analog audio cable, an audio splitter cable, and 1 blank recordable DVD.
From the Manufacturer
The HP DVD Movie Writer dc4000 is an external DVD writer with built-in built-in analog video capture. It lets you quickly and easily transfer transfer home video directly from tape (via camcorder or VCR) to digital digital format on your PC and to DVD± R/± RW discs. It provides a a full suite of software to enable video editing along with photo, music music and data applications, and it lets you write and read CD-R and and CD-RW discs as well as DVD± R/± RW.
HP DVD Movie dc4000
Test Report
HP DVD Movie dc4000
Laserdisc collectors note - So far, so good, June 4, 2004 Reviewer: Robert Scharba "rjscharb" (Chicago, IL USA) - The Pinnacle Systems video capture device I bought last year was totally useless from day one - a dead loss. This HP unit, once it was hooked up and the software loaded, worked from the start. Eureka! Of particular interest to people who, like me, have rare or unusual items on laserdisc that may never show up on DVD, is that it will indeed capture video from a laserdisc player. I used the S-video connection for the picture and RCA connectors for the audio. This is important to know because I called HP customer support before buying mine specifically to find this out. After talking to a couple of people in what I assume is some country in the far East, and being on hold for a total of about 25 minutes, I was told that the DC4000 wouldn't work on laserdisc transfers. But something about the way they explained it suggested to me that they weren't really sure, and I suspect that the info HP supplied them to parrot back to inquiring customers didn't address the question at all and they had to improvise their (wrong) answer. Way to go, HP! Anyway, for those who are interested in this application, I can tell you that it does work. I won't suggest that a transfer of a 2 hour film is going to look quite as good as the original laserdisc source, but it does look noticeably better than a VHS copy. Also I'd say that the DC4000 is particularly worthwhile for transferring old VHS tapes, as they tend to deteriorate a little more every year that you keep them, and the two or three that I've copied look reasonably close to the original source. As I understand it, commercially produced DVDs have dual layers for twice the data capacity, as opposed to the one recording surface that recordable DVDs have, which is why they never look as good as the professionally produced product. Nevertheless, this is a very cool item to have, and I'd say that the few discs I've produced so far look better than most homebrewed discs you'd get from eBay sellers or internet entrepreneurs.
Works sometimes, Arcsoft software not good, July 18, 2004 Reviewer: Rednim (CA United States) - I bought this recently and I am not too happy with this product. It is easy to setup and works most of the time (with XP). However, it may decide to stop working by giving this error - No video signal detected. Powering it off/on and restarting the Arcsoft software (which is pathetic) makes it work again. I called HP tech support (somewhere in India), they asked me to re-install the driver. I re-installed the Arcsoft software since the USB 2.0 driver is already part of XP. No luck.
Also, using the S-Video cable makes the device or the arcsoft software not too friendly (video signal not detected problems)
I also upgraded to a USB 2.0 PC card but burning a DVD takes the same time as using USB 1.1. Not sure what else needs to be done.
In short, buy it if you just want to capture video from your old camcorder and burn straight to DVD. Forget editing the captured video
Mini DV to DVD made easy, April 27, 2004 Reviewer: "raabrr" (mountain view, ca United States) - If you are new to the DVD movie making process using a PC, like myself, the HP dc4000 is a godsend. As advertised, I was able to make a movie, albeit an unprofessional looking one, on the very first try.
This was my second attempt trying to convert my Sony Mini DV TRV-22 home movies to DVD. I initially bought a generic DVD-+RW recorded and used the USB out of the Sony to make a DVD. The quality was really bad. I did some research and it turns out that the data/signal coming out of the USB port is compressed and only suitable for VCD. The Sony does have a DV port, but my PC didn't have a DV (firewire?) input. Rather than waste more time buying additional hardware, I read a review for the dc3000 and went shopping.
For movies to be played back on a home system, HP recommends DVD+R discs. I burned my movies on DVD-R discs and they played fine on my really old DVD player (Onkyo DV-C601) with a single laser pickup and my newer JVC multi-player. From what I read online, 95% of all home DVD players should be able to play DVD-R?
Here are the pros and cons of the HP dc4000:
PRO: Easy to use and has good quality analog/digital converters (RCA style and S-Video input). Use S-Video if you have it.
PRO: Nice bundled software. I've only used Arcsoft's ShowBiz 2 for editing and burning, but I really like the product. Much better than the Sonic bundle offered with most other DVD burners.
PRO: Quite.
PRO: Works with both USB 1.1 and 2.0.
CON: The external case is painted silver and parts of it are missing some paint.
CON: Unit is heavy.
CON: Made in Malaysia.
HP DVD Movie dc4000
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