HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000

by HP

Product Details

Product Manual [2.21mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000C0TUT
• Item model number: Q2114A#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 9, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Early Adopters Pick: October 2003 The first DVD ReWritable Drive with built-in analog video capture lets you quickly and easily transfer home video directly from tape (via camcorder or VCR) to DVD.

The HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000 is an external DVD writer with built-in analog video capture. It lets you quickly and easily transfer home video directly from tape (via camcorder or VCR) to digital format on your PC and to DVD+R/+RW discs. It provides a full suite of software to enable video editing along with photo, music and data applications, and it lets you write and read CD-R and CD-RW discs as well as DVD+R/+RW.

The DVD Movie Writer dc3000 lets you better preserve your family memories by easily transferring outdated VHS and other analog videotapes to DVD. HP created the DVD Movie Writer dc3000 as a simple tool to convert videotapes by combining the analog-to-digital conversion and video compression function with a full-fledged DVD writer.

Connected to a desktop or notebook PC through either the USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 port, the HP DVD Movie Writer transfers VHS or other analog tapes and creates digital negatives on long-lasting DVD+R/+RW discs. It can convert video from a variety of formats including VHS, Hi8, Digital 8, Mini DVD and BetaMax, as long as the appropriate format player connects to the Movie Writer. The DVD Movie Writer also functions as a standard DVD/CD writer to burn music, photos and data to CD and DVD backup program files.

After the analog tapes are converted by the Movie Writer to the digital MPEG-2 format--the same format all commercially available DVDs are written to--consumers can edit and share their DVD masterpieces with friends and family. And, users can get as detailed as they want in editing their DVDs. The DVD Movie Writer comes with a number of video-editing software packages, including a full-suite editing package, ArcSoft ShowBiz 2, and MuVee autoProducer, a quick and easy video editing software.

ArcSoft ShowBiz 2 lets consumers add or delete scenes, add music or special effects, or create slideshows set to music. Easy-to-use screens allow users to drag and drop video clips, digital photos and music files in either storyboard or simple timeline editing formats. MuVee autoProducer is a fun and easy editing software that quickly turns digital movies into music videos with a few clicks of a mouse.

The HP DVD Movie Writer also comes with software to help save data, video or music on DVDs and CDs, including Veritas RecordNow and Simple Backup. SimpleBackup reliably backs up, protects and restores individual files or folders or helps 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 dc3000 external USB drive
• Software CD including electronic user's guide and integrated install software
• Quick start placement
• Getting help guide
• How do I? Guide
• USB cable
• Composite video/audio cable
• One blank DVD+RW disc and one blank DVD+R 4x hi-speed disc

Product Description

HP DC3000 DVD MOVIE WRITER

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great in theory but could use a little work..., November 11, 2003

By 

Tracy Pitz (Ankeny, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000 (Personal Computers)

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!!

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Costs a little more than a DVD+RW writer; but incomplete, October 14, 2003

By 

Somasundaram Meiyappan (Singapore Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000 (Personal Computers)

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?
---------------
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?
---------------------
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.

89 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your time on HP Media Writer, October 27, 2003

By 

Jon F. Weber (New York, ny United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP DVD Movie Writer dc3000 (Personal Computers)

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.