HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000

I purchased this product with the idea of converting my old camcorder tapes to DVD. This product was promoted as being "the next best thing to sliced bread" and so easy to use. Well I am here to tell you, it was a long and painful process to finally get the project completed and here is why:

The Showbiz software (used for the video editing) is mediocre at best and definitely has room for improvement. There is no instruction manual or resource available to guide you through editing for the first time. You are left to try and figure it out for yourself.

HP support was another huge frustration. In my first attempts to deal with HP support I called and try to trouble shoot the errors by phone. After being redirected to wrong departments (even different countries!) and being on hold for more than 2 hours at a time I decided to try the email method. I had better luck with that and also a way to document my correspondence. After they determined that it was something one of their Quality Customer Care reps would need to handle, I was assured that someone would call me. 3 weeks later and my multiple email reminder messages from me, still no phone call from HP. I was also getting no help (or even a single return phone call) from CompUSA where I originally purchased the product. Talk about feeling frustrated!

In the meantime, I upgraded my PC to USB2.0 and upgraded to 512MB RAM. I wanted to be sure my system wasn't causing the program (Showbiz) to fail. This didn't change anything...program still failed.

After 7 weeks and hours and hours of time spent trying to get this product to work, the problem was resolved by simply unchecking a box within the ShowBiz software. This setting is under Options / DVD Quality uncheck the box that says ShowBiz Smart Rendering. Unfortunately, this box came checked by default (go figure!) when loading the software.

If this information can help anyone having the same headaches and frustrations I had in getting this product to work, I will be happy. This is really my goal in publishing my review of the Movie Writer. Once you get the DVD Movie Writer and software all figured out, it does work and accomplish what it set out to do. Since I am not a beginner with computers I was not expecting to endure the pain and suffering I experienced. However, I did learn that I will think twice before buying another HP product as well as buying anything from CompUSA (products are great, service stinks) in the future.

One more bit of info I wanted to pass along...HP has an updated driver available from their FTP site. I believe it is dated 10/31/03. This could help if you are using the prepackaged version and having trouble.

Good luck!!

I am a very satisfied customer of HP's. And this is a pretty good product; but not a great one.

Why is it good?

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Well, obviously, it can be used to record, transfer and burn movies into DVDs. It substitutes for the costly DVD Recorders from Philips; but ofcourse, you need a PC with lots of HardDisk space and RAM to do the same job. Please note that in dc3000 the burning of the DVD and the capture are two separate process in time. This is not a real-time or a standalone recorder and always needs a PC. I guess that it is still value for the money.

Ofcourse, you would also be able to convert your VHS tapes into the DVDs. You might have to play a few tricks on some VHS tapes (read movies) to get them burnt into the DVD. Remember that it does not have many ways finding that a material is copyrighted. I don't want to dwell deep into this.

The ShowBiz2 software packaged is pretty powerful; but is also resource hungry. Remember we are dealing with files of Gigabytes in size. So, if you want to edit the movie into a DVD using the software, pump in more memory > 512MB (may be 1GB). The 384MB in my machine was definitely insufficient. To create a DVD, it would need 13-14GB of free hard-disk space just like any other DVD authoring software.

The QuickDVD option is pretty neat with just the minimum steps to create a DVD.

Why is it incomplete?

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1. Lack of firewire/i.Link/1394 port.

2. Support for an external USB storage device like a "portable USB hard-disk" which can be used to store the MPEG2 file instead of the need for the PC. This would make the system pretty much a standalone recorder. The R&D and manufacturing cost should not increase beyond a few dollars for this I guess; but I bet any company would charge $50-$100 more for this feature.

3. Though not designed for this purpose, it would have been nicer if HP also included a timed DVD recording software or a feature in their software package.

Value for money? : I would think so.

Buy HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000 Now

I bought myself a DC3000 as a birthday present and instead got hours of frustration from a product that does not work. The drive is simply "not recognized" by my brand new Dell with USB 2.0 and oceans of RAM memory and disk space. Having read other reviews before purchasing, I was ready to accept that not all the high-tech editing functions worked smoothly, but at least (I thought) I will be able to copy home videos to DVD. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I am persistent and reasonably knowledgable about installation and debugging. I followed every piece of advice, restarted my machine "clean" with no background softwate to interfere, tried and re-tried the HP-recommended steps with the help of a tech. I can only conclude that that there is a bug in the installation software. After several tedious debugging routines, the HP tech finally conceded that there was a defect, but he couldn't solve the problem. This is not yet consumer-ready -if you want something that works out of the box, look elsewhere.

Read Best Reviews of HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000 Here

I had hoped to use the dc3000 to finally transfer my aging VHS collection onto more stable and long-lasting media. Simply, I wanted to keep on watching my old movies (which in some cases, are not even available on DVD) without having to worry that I was degrading the quality of the video.

Well, I must have been day-dreaming when I bought this product, or maybe I'm just niave since I have no intention of starting my own pirate DVD production shop, using just this one DVD-writing product, to cheat Hollywood out of billions of their just-deserved royalties. I really only wanted to put my VHS tapes (including movies I have already paid for) onto the DVD format...

The set-up and configuration of this product was a breeze, the software suite installed without any issues, and the hardware literally just plugs in (just make sure you have a USB2.0 input though). Unfortunately, when I actually tried to backup one of my VHS movies, the HP Video Transfer Wizard told me "The source video is copyright protected; video capture will not resume."

Well, even though the U.S. courts say I can make backups of movies I already own, HP apparently doesn't agree. So, if updating your aging VHS movie collection is one of your primary reasons for buying a product like this, you should just take the dc3000 out of your basket and move on (if you can find something else without this draconian copy-prevention).

Aside from HP, I'd also like to thank George Lucas for this disappointing experience. Being the geek that I am, one of the main reasons I purchased this the dc3000 was to finally have a copy of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD, since my friend George has yet to do so himself. And here I just wanted to keep from having to buy a new set of videos every 6 months, as that's about how long it takes for VHS tape to begin degrading, and I'm that big of a fan.

Lastly, I'd like to give special thanks to the RIAA. Even though 99.9% of us just want to make our own copies of our own media for our own internal use, the RIAA would rather do everything possible to prevent us from doing so, treating ALL of us like criminals. Sorry RIAA, but that's only going to hurt your business even more in the long run than any piracy possibly could.

So... back to the HP dc3000. Yes, if you want to copy your own home movies and non-copyrighted materials... I'd give it a thumbs-up (4 stars, only because the software is a resource-hog). But if you thought you might be able to make legal copies of copyrighted materials you have already purchased, think again. The dc3000 won't let you do it, even though the law still says that you can.

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I purchased the HP DVD Movie Writer with every intention of retiring my VHS collection once and for all. Boy was I in for a surprise.

I'll agree that the HP DVD Movie Writer was easy to setup and use. HP has made that part of the experience quite painless. The capture process is fantastic and seems to work just perfectly. The problem, however, lies in the consistency of the burn process.

So far I have successfully burned about 8 VHS tapes to DVD and I have had to use up about 24 DVD's to get there. When I first begain having issues with burning DVD's I thought the problem was media related, so I set aside the 25-pack spindle of Fuji DVD+R's and got a 10-pack of HP DVD+R's. Well, I went through all 10 HP DVD+R's and I have 3 successful burns to show for it. So much for media being the problem. Next I thought it was a speed problem, so I ran out and purchased the only USB 2.0 PCI adapter card I could find, a D-Link DFB-A5. Well, needless to say, that didn't work either. Although the USB 2.0 card seems to recognize the DVD Movie Writer, it refuses to burn the captured video to a DVD. So, I am back to using USB 1.1. Oh the shame.

I have ran into the frustration of not being able to burn copies of my copyrighted VHS tapes, and although I am a bit peeved about that, I have found that many of my VHS tapes are not copyrighted and, theoretically at least, should be able to be captured then burned to DVD. I have a handful of .mpg files sitting around that didn't get the honor of being burned to DVD as the burn process, I am sad to say, hung. And forget about pulling those mpg files in through ArcSoft Showbiz 2.0 and burning them to DVD as is, that won't work either.

I gave the product 3 stars because I have seen the results of what it can do when it works, the problem lies in its consistency. If you meet the minimum requirements laid down in the documentation, you should expect reliability regardless of how slow the process might be.

I suppose I will simply have to suffer along with USB 1.1 and a 33% chance for a successful burn. I am on that 3rd try right now, so someone wish me luck.