Customer Reviews

Sony DVDirect DVD Recorder VRDMC5

5 star:		(102)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

Okay - I love this item for what it can NOW do for me and how EASILY it finally ended up doing it. I gave it four instead of five stars because of what I had to DO to get it to work the way I needed it to.

I have fourteen years - wedding, holidays and 3 children - worth of Video Cassettes ranging from 1994 - Sony, HG120, NTSC, Video 8 tapes TO 2008 - Sony, Hi8MP Digital 8 tapes.

My old camera was a Sony and the current camera is also a Sony: Steady Shot Digital 8, Model DCR-TRV460.

The Sony VRD MC5 DV Direct DVID Recorder I have can, and NOW DOES, burn DVDs from my Sony Handycam with both types of tapes via a Sony DV Direct Cable. However - it did not, out of the box, purchased in December 2007, burn my old tape formats to DVD with Audio. The Audio was gone and I could not get it to burn!

I had to waste about ten DVDs trying to figure out what the heck I did wrong. I scoured the manual, I bought two types of DVDs, looked here on Amazon, went to the Sony site. NOTHING on WHY the audio was missing!

When I finally found a way to contact Sony - live chat did not work and I could not get anyone on the phone - via email they went back and forth with me in email telling me that the Software Version on the Recorder had to be updated. They gave me a link that I could not find by navigating the site on my own, thus needing their intervention. I found the download, and followed directions, I tried burning the file to CD in many different ways and STILL the software would not upgrade! They never called me or gave me a number, it took days to try to figure out what was happening and they finally told me how to call someone.

I did it again while I was on the phone with them. Still the Recorder did not recognize the CD I was burning or the file I downloaded from the site. They made me call back, I was transferred twice, someone took my info and it took from 1/11/08 to 1/22/08 to get a CD that they burned at Sony and shipped to me.

I just came up today, followed the very same directions just with their CD and the software upgraded without a hitch. I just burned a tape from 1994 and the audio is there!!

After spending three years and more than $700 in software for my computer, a DVD Burner for my computer and finally a standalone Sony VHS/Camera player and VHS/DVD burner but none, and I do mean NONE of them - were able to do the job. Even the standalone unit never consistenly burned quality DVDs from the Camera and you had to tie up your tv for hours while it burned to DVD only for the "finalization" of it to not "take" so you had an empty DVD which was not R/W. Waste of time!

Please note that I am a technical person so not ignorant. I am just short on time so I wanted something that would get all my old moves onto DVD with a PHD - Push Here Dummy - functionality and the Sony VRD MC5 device did it.

The struggles, aggravation, wasted time it took me to get to today were worth it but PUH-LEASE Sony. Get a grip and put the information out there. Be proactive! Make it available! Communicate! Tell the vendors that sell your product what they are going to have to tell their shoppers do to get it to work. Update your manual. Whatever you have to do - no consumer should have to hunt like I did for weeks to try to find a way to fix something Sony knew about when they shipped the devices.

I wanted to transfer all my old VCR tapes and camcorder tapes of my daughter from years and years ago. I absolutely couldn't believe how easy it was to use. The LCD screen makes it really simple to see what you are recording. Not a lot of buttons to confuse a person. I've hook the VCR up to it and away it goes. I'll be glad when I'm all done with this project, but I 'll know all my memories are safely stored on DVDs. (So much cheaper than taking them to a camera shop!)I would definitely buy this model with the LCD screen as opposed to the previous model which did not have a screen. It's really helpful. Naturally, Amazon is awesome. Click the button, order it, and next thing you know, it's at your front door.

This just arrived and if you are considering purchasing this item know that notwithstanding the description above this burner does not connect to a computer via USB port. Amazon says they got the description from Sony. Sony says Amazon has it wrong but confirms that it is not designed for a computer connection like their previous models.

I'm sure it will work fine as a stand-alone burner but I was disappointed that there was an explicit representation made in the description that is not accurate.

I bought this Sony DVD recorder a few weeks ago to transfer 10 years of family VHS, 8mm video, and mini DV to DVD's so I could then use Adobe Premiere Elements for editing, etc. I'm about halfway through the conversion process, and it's going like a breeze. Out of about 40 DVD's burned I've only had one get rejected with a "cannot record" message. The resulting files on the DVD are chopped into 1GB MPEG files that are recognized when I add them to the Premiere editor. Prior to trying the Sony I could find no information about what file format the DVD's would have...so I took a chance, and got lucky. The DVD files have an extension of VOB. I looked this up and it's just an MPEG2 video file...so that's why Adobe has no problem with it. It's great way to copy your family videos to DVD, and have the peace of mind that they will not be gone forever if your old VHS and 8 mm camcorders die. It would be a shame to have to buy an old format machine just to see (or eventually copy) your old media.

It works great when you play your video from a camcorder to create a DVD. Be aware that if you create a slideshow with photos (from your digital cameras card) it can take quite a few hours depending on the amount of pictures on your card.For example I made up a DVD containing 1600 images and it took about 6 hrs to complete.

Great looking item with video display, very easy to set up and a small foot print.

This device was clearly created to copy bulk media from Sony cameras to DVD. Probably does that fine...I don't know since, like most people, that's not the exact hardware combination I have.

I wanted to cheaply convert my large VHS library to DVD. Old movies and tv shows recorded in the VHS days. But this only works in the trivial case: if you have a <60 min recording you insert a blank DVD start playing, hit record, format the disk when you're done and voila...success. As other reviewers note this does work fine and is very easy to use. So far so good.

BUT almost every other user scenario is a mess! It fails if:

(1) You have a long show and try to use a Double Layer disk the failure rate is ~90%. I have thrown out most of these very expensive discs. The Sony unit just fails and playback constantly shows "skipping over damaged area". Which means you have to use a normal 60 min disc at HALF resolution. As you can guess the VHS quality is already pretty low. I'll guess that I may never be able to watch these on the higher definition screens of tomorrow.

(2) You try to break a larger recording into pieces -- or create several titles on one disk from among the multiple recordings on a VHS tape. The Sony unit has a little screen (thank you) but no audio output. So, if you want to stop recording and create multiple titles you have to lean over and watch it like a cat watching a mouse hole. You might do this for a critical tape but while converting a library? Ridiculous!!! I've tried using a separate timer, etc., to warn me but this should be a built in process, not a parallel process. Be prepared to spend hundreds of low-quality hours providing the monitoring and control function that should have been included with this machine.

(3) No way to label individual titles. That's right. If you do manage to catch breaks in your recording and create separate titles for the DVD menu they will just be Title 1 through Title N... VERY useful when you try to find something later to play back. What's worse, there's a variable lag in the "start recording" button of 1 to 3 sec's so even if you press the button when the show title is in the screen you're more likely to get an opening frame a few seconds later. Most of my Sherlock Holmes recordings now don't say "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in the DVD menu... they have an ambiguous picture from the title animation rather than the text. And, as I said earlier, just below that is the equally informative "Title 1" text. The best solution is to carefully write information on the DVD media with a felt tip pen -- not much better than the VHS labels from 15 years ago that I am replacing!

I am only discussing VHS-to-DVD transcription since that's what I've done. Please read other reviews to understand pros and cons of some of the other features like photos, etc.

BOTTOM LINE -- this is a "not ready for prime time" product. Wait for a few generations. I only hope that you will still be able to buy a VHS player once this product has matured to the point where extensive transcription usage would be more rewarding than frustrating.

LATER UPDATE: It's getting worse. I have tried out some of the other features and am very disappointed. THe USB port will only recognise SONY cameras -- It rejects my Sanyo camcorder as well as Mac/Windows computers. Amazingly, it wont read SD, SDHC, or CF cards!!! This may be a error with my unit but I'll never learn because SONY wants to charge me $20 per call to figure out why their device is defective. Sigh... if only more things were made by Apple.

I bought it to save all my VHS to DVD. It's simple to use. Mostly! When it works well it's easy and the quality is good.

Drawbacks. There's a mini screen to see what you are recording or to check what you have recorded. But there's no fast forward so if your recording cut out and you want to know where it cut out, (See more below)you need to watch the whole recording on the small screen with no sound. Not very efficient! you have no way of seeing where it cut out on a regular player because until you have finalised your DVD, the DVD won't play on another machine and once you have finalised it you can't record on it anymore.

The machine cuts out if you copy a tape that is in poor condition and the picture quality distorts for a few seconds. You then get an error message on the small screen saying "no signal" although the signal is once again fine but the the machine having once cut out refuses to acknowledge the signal is back.

Then there are some homemade tapes that the machine wrongly decided are copyright protected and refuses to copy.

More over I resent that the copyright protection does not let me copy the thankfully few prerecorded VHS tapes I own. I really resent having to pay for them again if I want to own them once the VHS machine is gone.

So all in all the machine does some of what it should, the software could be tweaked up a bit to be more robust in discerning if a signal is coming through, it needs a fast forward feature and the copyright protection is a bit draconian. Given the machine records in real time it's not as if one is going to start a cottage industry copying movies with it. I'd prefer if it made the discs it burns copy protected so they can't be duplicated. Wouldn't that be a good compromise?

I would probalby not buy this product again.

Sony VRDMC5 DVDirect DVD Recorder

I never have written a review for any product.
I was very disappointed in this product. I transferred my 8mm tapes to the discs, which was very easy, but there wasn't any sound. I called Sony customer service, they told me there were was a glitch in some of these models causing the sound not to be transferred. They informed to load a patch from the Sony website. I did this and followed the directions to load the patch to the DV Direct, the DV Direct would not load the patch.
I will be sending this product back. It is a good product for it's easy use, but I would wait to buy this product when they resolve the sound glitch problem in their models.

I'm very disappointed at the Sony DvDirect VRD-MC5 DVD Recorder which I have just purchased for downloading the video clips I made using a Sony HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i camcorder. The VRD-MC5 does not and cannot record the high-definition 1080i in the AVCHD format on a DVD.

Instead, the Sony VRD-MC5 down converts the high-definition video to the standard definition (SD), that is, a low-definition output on a DVD. This is because the VRD-MC5 records a DVD in the AVCHD high-definition format only via its USB port. The Sony HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i camcorder (perhaps some of the later models of the Sony HD camcorders) does not have an USB video-output port. It uses an iLink port for the high-definition video output. Although the DvDirect VRD-MC5 recorder does have an iLink input, it can only produce SD DV output on a DVD (for reasons I can't comprehend). This incompatibility is not stated anywhere on the product Website, nor in the product Operating Instructions that comes with the device.

The review in the PC Magazine of this Sony device published online dated 12-05-07 by Cisco Cheng is particularly misleading (see http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2228675,00.asp). It specifically stated: "The VRD-MC5 also supports high-definition camcorders like the Sony HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i Handycam, which uses Sony's proprietary AVC HD format." This statement is misleading because although it can downgrade the Sony HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i Handycam video to an SD low-definition video on a DVD, it does NOT support the AVCHD format with the 1080i high-definition output of the Sony HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i Handycam. (This incompatibility may also be true for other versions of Sony HDV Handycams. Others can verify.) It seems that the reviewer of the PC Magazine had never tried the HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i Handycam with the VRD-MC5 before the review was published. This misleading review really set me up for a fall as I always do a careful research on the features and usability of an electronic product that I'm considering purchasing. I usually believe that the reviews in the PC Magazine are very good and accurate.

So, if you are thinking about purchasing the Sony VRD-MC5, first check to see if your HD camcorder has an USB video output. If it doesn't have one, you won't be able to burn a DVD with the AVCHD high-definition format with the Sony VRD-MC5.

That being said, if you don't care about the 1080i high-definition feature of your camcorder, the VRD-MC5 is an excellent device for recording SD DVDs with very good quality. It is also easy to operate as advertised.

I needed something to easily dub my old VHS tapes to DVD and this seemed like the ticket. I was able to to encode and finalize a DVD pretty easily and no error warnings came up but the DVDs would not play on either of the two DVD players in my house. (One is only 2 years old) I called Sonly support, (That's another story which I won't
even go in to) and they suggested I try a different brand of DVDs. No luck. So then I was told that there was
compatibility issues with this unit and I needed to download and instal firmware to fix the problem. (btw, if you
have a Mac, you can't download the firmware!) After a couple of hours of downloading the firmware and successfully installing it, no difference at all. The DVDs would still not play correctly. Anyway, major disappointment. back to the store it went. I've since purchased a set top VHS to DVD converter and it works
PERFECTLY, I only wish I had gone that route in the first place.