Despite
the positive prognostications of all the video editing
software makers, the effort required to capture video
from a camcorder, edit on a PC or Mac, add narration,
music and transitions, is both considerable and rife
with difficulties. While there's plenty of video editing
software that I like, the fact remains that most home
users aren't prepared for the amount of time needed to
do a decent job of producing a home movie. An awful lot
of camcorder owners just want to put their video footage
as quickly and simply as possible into a format that
can be shared with friends and family. Worrying about
capturing footage to a PC or Mac so it can be edited
and uploaded to YouTube or turned into a fancy home movie
can come later. I discovered that the shortest distance
from camera to distributable (and copyable) DVD can be
traveled using the DVD Factory DVD Burner. Plug a compatible
camcorder into the DVD Factory device, turn everything
on, load a blank DVD, press a button, sit back and wait
for the capture and burn to finish. It doesn't get any
easier.
The
list of compatible video cameras is still somewhat short,
but as far as I can tell Pixela is adding more camera compatibility
on a regular basis. I hope Pixela issues firmware updates
so that owners can update existing DVD Factory burners.
Cons: The photo editor in Irodio is supposed to handle Digital
Negative (DNG) file conversion which essentially provides
RAW file support. Unfortunately, the software does not
recognize Nikon NEF RAW files, which means you have to
convert the RAW files to TIFF or JPG or DNG format in
some other software before importing and using the files
in Irodio. Since Irodio offers only rudimentary photo editing
functions, we'll take a pass on its DNG handling for now.
The DVD burner automatically adds only an extremely rudimentary
menu. There are no menu design options or anything else
of the kind — when
Pixela says this device is meant to seamlessly burn a DVD
directly from the source material stored in an HD video camera,
that's exactly what they mean — which means the application
for this device is quite limited. No Firewire support. I
periodically encountered corrupt JPG photo files burned
to disc despite the fact that the originals on the camera's
storage card were fine, a problem I attribute to some sort
of file transfer problem or a bug in the DVD firmware.
Pros: DVD Factory
DVD Burner usually works basically as advertised. Load a blank DVD
into the device, connect any supported HD video camera, press a couple
of buttons, and you're done. It's the same for most digital
still cameras — connect
the camera via USB cable, turn everything on, press a couple
of buttons, and you've got yourself an optical disc full
of photos. For home video shooters and digital snapshooters,
the DVD Factory DVD Burner provides a quick and easy way
to store video footage or still photos on DVD, without having
to fuss with PC or Mac video editing, photo editing and
manual disc burning. Creative it's not; quick it is. If
that's what you want, this is the device for you.
