Never got this unit to work properly.

I had high hopes for this burner, as I had used a VC20 unit at work, and never had a problem with it. The additional quality setting and PAL standard were all plusses for me when purchasing the VC30, HOWEVER, I never got a SINGLE video disc burned on the unit to play properly on my DVD player. I tried a dozen different brands of DVD media, in all formats...+/-R, +/-RW, DL, made no difference. Even with SONY brand discs...all became coasters. Huge disapointment.

Sadly, the Amazon Marketplace vendor from whom I bought it WOULD NOT replace it or refund my money, saying it was SONY's responsibility, and SONY wouldn't be responsible for it either, telling me to return it to the vendor for a replacement...(buyer beware, read into every Marketplace vendor's return policies CLOSELY!), so I was stuck selling it to somebody with whom I work, who uses it for PC only.

Not what I had expected.

NO THAT GOOD

NOT AS GREAT AS I EXPECTED.AFTER ALL I HOPED THAT BECAUSE IT WAS SONY IT SHOULD BE TOP OF THE LINE. THIS UNIT IS SLOW AND YOU CANNOT SEE WHAT YOU ARE RECORDING UNTILL IT IS FINISHED. HENCE IF THERE ARE ANY ERRORS YOU JUST WASTED A WHOLE 2 HRS OF YOUR TIME. ALSO OLD VHS TAPES MAY NOT RECORD PROPERLLY IF THEY HAVE ANY GLTCHES IN THEM.

Great DVD Recorder

Worked exactly as advertized...no connection to a computer! I used it to transfer from a VHF tape to make a DVD to take to a family reunion. I want to try more things but haven't had the time. Very reasonable price for a great product! I'd recommend it to everyone who wants an "easy-friendly" way to make a DVD.

Simple to use for a simple guy

I started to buy this recorder 10 weeks ago but read all the negative stuff about it and so...I ordered another brand. Fortunately for me, the other item never arrived and so, I went ahead and bought this item. I received it 3 days ago and have converted all my old family VHS stuff to DVD. I haven't had a problem yet. I'm sure that there are requirements that other people have that the unit doesn't meet, but for simple ole' me it has been great. Simple to use.

Transfer home video to DVD

I transfered video directly to the DVD with 15 minutes of reading the manual and hooking up the device. It was easy, with clear instructions. The DVDs paly on any DVD player. I don't see how it could be any easier. Video and audio came through great. I'm very happy with the DVDirect.

Great product, but . . .

I bought this expecting that it would serve both as a capture device and a DVD recorder. In the stand-alone mode (not connected to a computer), it is amazingly simple and effective. I was able to convert all of my old home videos to DVD at the push of a button. Of course, it took as long as the length of each VHS tape to convert the files, but it was very simple.

My problems came when I wanted to use it as a normal external DVD-RW drive. The only way to accomplish this is to do it through the included Nero software. Even though that software is very complete and effective, I was disappointed that I could not use any other software to run the DVDirect hardware. That even includes Windows Explorer! If you want to copy files to this drive, you need to use Nero. If you want to delete files from this drive (assuming you are using a DVD-RW disk), you have to use Nero. Windows Explorer treats any disks in the drive as "formatted in a manner not recognized by Windows."

Why Sony chose  more

I love this!

I bought this to go with my Sony DCR-SR40 camcorder. It was so easy to burn the dvd's! I just hooked the usb cord up between the camcoder and the DVDirect and pressed burn dvd. It was so simple & easy.