I bought the Sharp DV Cam VL-Z7E in Singapore without knowing that it only output PAL format ! Now I can only watch my videos on its LCD screen ! I wish to watch them on TV and transfer them to DVDs . My plan is as followed : _ I can buy a Digital recorder with Firewire input that can handle both PAL and NTSC formats . _After a brief research on the NET, I think I would settle on the Lite-On LVW-5005 ( available cheaply at Walmart !! ) . Please comment on my plan : _ Is it the best approach ? _ How do you feel about the Lite-On LVW-5005 ? _ Are there other schemes to achieve my objective ? Thanks
If you're not interested in any editing, this could be a good game plan. I don't know the recorder taht you mention so I cannot comment on that. Another easy way is go through your PC. Simply transfer the footage over Firewire to PC. You can simply encode the video to MPEG-2 using NTSC settings and burn a DVD. Advantage is that you can edit and do anything you like with it. You may also get better quality (at least you can choose a good encoder and use the highest quality settings).
Thanks for your comment ! I haven't thought about the PC angle yet. But you did raise an important issue . That meams my PC must have a Firewire connection, fast enough for video editing and a software to carry out the transferring process , I guess . What program would you recommend for this job ? Many thanks again...
If you're PC doesn't have Firewire you can buy a simple and cheap card for that. If your PC is not older than say 5 years or so, you will not have a problem with the speed. There are several freeware program to transfer video over Firewire. For editing and DVD authoring there is a lot of choice. Here's a list of well known suppliers: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/siteinfo/suppliers.php
