Customer Reviews

Sony VRDVC20 DVDirect DVD Recorder

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

The digital i.link connection is not compatible with other Sony devices. I purchased the VC20 and the DCR-TRV480 in order to make high quality transfers of my old Sony Hi8 analog tapes over to DVDs, just as Sony advertises. Although both items have the digital i.link feature, they are not compatible with each other. I have spent two months sending each item back to Sony for testing: Each works fine by itself, but the TRV480 does not send a digital i.link signal that the VC20 will recognize. Sony Tech Support had me purchase another i.link cable, and when that didn't work, they finally acknowledged the compatibility issue, but they have no remedy for it. I found nothing in the Sony literature that warns that these two Sony products will be unable to connect via i.link. I wasted a lot of time and $100 on the second i.link cable and in shipping for testing, and Sony Techs have walked away from the problem. Buyer beware!

I bought this solely to archive old, analog Hi-8 Camcorder tapes. (I don't have any old movies or tv shows; I just have videos of my great and wonderful children.) The archiving of old analog tapes to DVD seems to be the sole purpose in life for the VRDVC20.

The time requirements and frustration levels of other methods had me pulling my hair out. Thus, I bought the VRDVC20 to save myself much, much time and bother.

For the most part, I am pleased with the device. I have only made four coasters (out of about 35 made), which is a better ratio than other methods I've used to archive. I did a little research and found that the device needed a firmware update, which I completed. Since the update, I have only made one coaster; otherwise it seems to be working fine.

(I do have a gigantic issue with any device going commercial, especially one that has such limited uses as this VRDVC20, and then the producer immediately sending out a massive fix for the device. Do these people do any in-house testing?)

The picture quality seems to be pretty good. I've played the archival DVDs back on 32" tvs, and there is minimal pixellation (my family has absolutely adored watching these videos). However, whenever a shot is indoors, or in really low light, the pixellation is quite noticeable. I understand this is normal with analog tapes, so I haven't expected much better.

I bought Sony CD-R DVDs for the archival process. After burning, those would not work in my Panasonic DVD player, which was on its last legs, anyway. A kind friend loaned me his Samsung DVD player, but these Sony CD-Rs will not play on it, either. However, my in-law's Sony DVD player works just fine with these, so it looks like I'm being forced into a new Sony DVD player. I'm still not sure if I'm okay with that.

When I'm finished archiving my Hi-8 tapes, I'll be sending this burner to other family members for archival of their tapes.

I usually research products to death before making a purchase and I take the customer reviews very seriously. I just received the Sony VRD-VC20 from my wife for my birthday - and of course before I even opened the box I was checking CNET/PCMAG/Amazon reviews to make sure this was a good product. The reviews by the pro's were generally good, the customer reviews were mixed - but I really wanted to turn these tapes into DVD's and I couldn't bear the thought of spending hours loading the tapes onto my computer, editing them, and then authoring them - only for the process to blow up in the ninth inning with nothing to show for it. So....I opened the box.

WOW - I really am glad that I did. This product is great. First of all - its one of the easiest gadgets I've used. Right out of the box I looked at the quick start instructions, hooked up my hi8 analog camcorder using an S-Video Cable, and the 2 audio RCA cables (red/white), plugged in the unit, popped a tape in the camcorder and it was ready to go. Once you have all that set up you just press play on the camcorder and record on the DVD Direct - it is that simple. When the tape ends - the DVD Direct recognizes that there is no longer a video signal coming through and it stops recording. You then have the choice whether to record more on the dvd (it tells you how much recording time is available) or you can close out the dvd so that it will play on a dvd player. To finalize the disc all you do is hit the eject button on the recorder and it prompts you to finish the disc. It really is that easy.

So far I have made 9 discs and no coasters. They have all played in my Sony DVD player (it's a couple of years old). I have been using DVD-R Sony discs - I haven't tried a different manufacturers disc yet.

The only thing that i wish the unit could do in stand-alone mode is give more flexibility in Titling the disc and in Chaptering the disc. I have yet to hook the unit to my computer as a burner - but at some point I'll put aside some time to test it out. In the meantime I highly recommend this product for anyone who has old tapes they want to easily and quickly convert into DVD's.

I bought a DCR-TRV480 D8 and a VRD-VC20 burner to put my old 8mm and D8 tapes on DVD. So far I have tried 3 digital and one analog. One digital lost the sound after 20 minutes. The two-hour analog had no sound at all - two wasted hours. I have spent a few days trying to narrow down the problem. Sony support is fun to work with: "Contact the storage group" and "It must be the camcorder". When turning on the equipment the DV signal is not recognized until I cycle through the different input options with the tape running. There is no one-button recording on this unit!

Buyer beware if you attempt to copy digital 8 tape from your camcorder using i-link to this burner.

I bought this burner with the goal of coverting all my digital 8 tapes to DVD using the i-link. What I discovered is that this burner automatically goes to pause if there is even the slightest gap on the tape you are trying copy. In order to start recording again you must physically press the record button again to start recording. If your tape has quite a few gaps -- which many home videos have, you will have to sit next to this burner and press record everytime it pauses. Bottom line to burn a DVD with this unit you have to sit next to it for the entire hour to make sure it does not stop -- unless your output take is well edited with no gaps at all.

I contacted Sony technical support on this issue and they admitted that the pausing of the burner using i-link because of tape gaps was a "design flaw" that had no remedy. Furthermore they had fielded many calls on this exact issue with their only suggestion to attempt to return the burner to the vendor.

If you are not going to use this burner with i-link and a camcorder then I guess you are ok. Unless you have perfect output tape with no gaps, you are in for a frustrating experience using this burner. Buyer Beware!!!

I was eagerly awaiting the release of this product. And I jumped and got this in May 05. My main intention was to convert all my home movies from MiniDV tapes to DVD. This product sounded ideal as it had the DV Link and the fact that I did not need a TV or a PC to constantly interface with it.
When it arrived, I immediately got my MiniDV camcorder, plugged this unit in, popped in a blank DVD+R disk, plugged in the DV cable form my camcorder, hit record and it started recording. (Very simple no need to read the manual!) But after about two minutes, it paused recording. I was puzzled, and then after reading the user manual found that the unit pauses recording whenever there is a break in the actual recording. You have to manually hit the Record button again to resume recording. I did just that and it started to record only to pause again after 3 minutes and then again a countless number of times! By the time the 60 min. tape was complete, I was already frustrated! So much for my idea to leave it alone until it finishes recording.
I called SONY support to inquire if there was a way to turn off this "feature" and was told that this was by design and there was no way around this! What were the SONY engineers thinking? Do they really think most people will finish recording a 60 min DV tape in one sitting and that too without any breaks? What good is this unit if I have to pay constant attention to make sure that the recording has not paused again! They fail to realize that if I had the time to constantly watch the recording, I would be better off with a regular DVD Recorder or a DVD+-RW drive on my PC which are much cheaper too!
On day 2, I decided to return this unit. The lone DVD I burned, was ok, no complaints about that. So, if you do not mind the constant attention it needs then this is for you! If you have the time, I think you would be much better off with a PC & and DVD+-RW drive as you can get quite creative with that. As for me... my search goes on...

I'm a videophile and I wouldn't buy a DVD Recorder until one was made that burns to a double layered disc, and it had to have an iLink port. As far as I know this is the only one that does it yet. I instantly felt an obligation to post here, as this site is an excellent source for consumers to share their experiences.

First the bad news. DO NOT USE DVD-RW discs!!!! I was dumb, I bought Memorex's Dual Layered RW (re-writable) discs, and the video on the first recording would intermittantly block up. I'm hesitant to call fowl on Sony for that though, because Memorex claims that RW's are NOT ideal for recording video on to be played back in DVD Players. So, if you're going to buy Sony's VRD-VC20 then also buy DVD+R discs or DVD-R discs, but NOT DVD-RW discs!

Secondly, I'm dissappointed that at the highest quality setting Sony only gives you 119 minutes of recording time, that is dissappointing, it should be at least 2 full hours (120 minutes) or more, but this is more of a pet peave of mine.

Thirdly, there is no 3 hour recording setting for dual layered discs?! Why?! A three hour record algorithm is already a consideration by other manufacturers. There OUGHT to be one for this unit, I'm hoping Sony has made it's firmware upgradable so as to fix this, and I don't just mean adding an extra bit every so often to the SP setting, just to fill up the disc at 3 hours, what I mean is Sony needs to design a 3 hour recording algorithm for writing to dual layered discs! Sony, if you are reading this, please tell me my VRD-VC20 can be flashed to having a new algorithm between HQ and SP.... PLEASE!

Also, Finalizing the discs takes about 10 minutes, so brush your teeth and make some popcorn, and then it'll be finished.

OK, I'm done wining. I do suggest to the rest of you consumers to buy this unit and also buy DVD+R recordable discs and NOT buy DVD-RW discs.

On the HQ setting it records the image perfectly, good job Sony. I've made my only rcording so far from the S-Video port and I have yet to record from the iLink port but I am axious to do that.

Many consumers posting to this site on the older "VRD-VC10" complained that the drive was always stopping because it sensed copyright protection. Thats because analog video sources (such as the signals coming from VHS, SVHS, Video8, Hi8, Betamax and Super Betamax) often have time shifting errors in the horizontal sync of the video (which is part of the video signal above and below the image that you can't see on a normal TV). So you shouldn't have that problem using the iLink because it's not Analog it's Digital.

With all this considered, I am hopeful that as soon as I get some blank DVD+R dual layered discs and NOT DVD-RW discs, I'll be very happy with this unit, although I admit I've only made one recording so far and that was with the RW discs and I'm just assuming that the problem is that RW discs aren't ideal for this unit.

I hope this helps you.

get distorted video with my brand new VRD-VC20 when it is creating HQ DVD directly from the DV input using a Monster DV cable to my Sony TRV17. I have tried two different home video tapes and two different manufactures of DVD+r discs and their is video distortion and audio distortion at random points throughout playback on the newly created DVD discs. The Mini DV home movie tapes play back with no problem on the camera and also when played back from the TRV17 to the TV. I upgraded the VRD-VC20 with the June 2005 firmware update posted on your web site and it still is doing the same thing. The discs were all finalized properly. In addition to the distortion (blochy pixels, etc) the newly created discs have also had trouble loading when inserted into a new sony DVD/VCR combo player. I am getting ready to return this to the store I bought it at unless you have a solution. The VRD-VC20 was not hooked up to the computer during the capture process.
I also tried another new Sony Camcorder and another tape and I still got distored video and it skipped.
I'm not sure if this was a defective unit but test!

I am using the Sony VRD-VC20 to record 4mm, VHS and 8mm tapes to DVD at our corporate headquarters for some of the company officers. I have tried to use two different DVD-VHS combo decks and a multitude of other PC based video capture hardware, all to no avail. The problem was the DVD's on those other player would work fine in their own brand player, but when they were used in a different brand or on a PC, the would either not play at all (on home DVD players they would say "Invalid disk") or play once and not again (on laptop DVD drives).

After much research I found that different DVD burners burn in different formats. As a result, one brand may not play on a different brands DVD player because it cant read the way the disk was burned (encoded). So I searched for a DVD burner that would burn in a common universal (generic) format. That's when I found the Sony VRD-VC20. It burns in the universally recognized MPEG2 format.

I bought the VRD-VC20 and burned a test DVD. I played it on two different brand DVD players and it worked. I played it on a laptop DVD player and it worked. I gave it to one of the company officers and he said it played perfectly. Halleluiah!! This had a been a long, arduous process trying to resolve this problem and now it is done.

Go to the Sony Style web site, www.sonystyle.com, and go to to: Home > Computers > CD/DVD Burners > DVDirect > VRDVC20

I've had very mixed feelings about this unit. I bought it in mid-2005 because it seemed like a good dual-use recorder. I could record my old videotapes to DVD, and then also easily burn copies by using it as an external computer burner. Well, I've had mixed success but I believe I've ultimately found how to optimize the drive.

First of all, I've almost no problems with the external DVD/CD burner aspect. I've had a few bad burns and had a few unreadable discs that wouldn't copy, but I don't think I've had any more problems in this area than the average computer burner.

My problem was with the standalone recording, meaning mainly recording from VHS. I had probably at least 25-35% of the discs either error out during recording or, even more frustratingly, record fine but then see a "finalize error" at the very end. I tried all sorts of different things to fix the problem. I stopped using s-video cables and switched to an RCA style video cord. That didn't help. I tried recording at HQ instead of SP mode, but that didn't help. I tried recording straight through entire discs without even hitting pause or stop to edit anything. That didn't work. I was very close to junking it as a standalone recorder. Then I decided to try some different brand DVD-R discs. My problems had been mainly with Memorex, and, shockingly, Sony brand DVD-R's. I tried out Maxell brand DVD-R's (both 8x and 16x), and I've transferred dozens of VHS tape now without any errors. So it really does matter a great deal what brand you choose. I'm sticking to Maxell now.

So, if you find the right brand, this recorder works pretty well. But it really shouldn't be that hard to get the thing to work, and I would have hoped at least Sony brand DVD-R's would be easily compatible with the recorder. (The brand issue is with the standalone recording function; as I said, I've had no serious problems at all, with any brand, when using this as a computer external burner).

The only main drawback is that you can't monitor what you're recording unless your source (i.e. VCR) has two video outputs (which few do). I ended up buying a $50 video amplifier/splitter than takes the VCR signal in and includes four outputs I can simultaneously output to the DVD recorder and a TV/monitor. If you can, do this as opposed to letting the recorder "automatically" start and stop recording, because this function doesn't work that well. This automated recording actually causes additional problems, because it occasionally will stop recording when a videotape simply has a dropout in it. In other words, the recorder stops whenever it loses the video signal, even for a fraction of a second.

I've also occasionally had the recorder tell me that what I'm trying to copy from VHS is copy protected, even though what I was trying to copy was a 10-year-old home movie on videotape.

I'd probably give this thing 2 1/2 stars if I could, but I'll go for 3 because it works pretty well once you find a brand that doesn't error out 25-50% of the time (which gets expensive with DVD-R's).