HP DVD200E DVD Recorder Drive - I've Got the Music in my Computer W/O
Written: Aug 06 '02 (Updated Aug 06 '02)
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Pros: Powerful technology that's easy to use. Record your video on DVDs!
Cons: Expensive.
The Bottom Line: Exit CD burners. Enter DVD burners. The music and video world will never be the same.
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| jag2112's Full Review: Hewlett Packard HP DVD 200xe (Q2104A#ABA) DVD+RW B... |
Isn't technology wonderful? Technology has given music lovers a plethora of ways of listening to, categorizing, exploiting and maintaining the songs, albums, CDs, groups - everything music - that they love.
Only a few scant years ago, the extent of duplicating music was limited to taping songs/CDs on to cassette tapes. Low quality reproduction, limited play-life, and timely recording process were issues that we all had to deal with.
Then as the home PC exploded and CD-R/CD-RW (recordable CDs) started popping up, music wasn't taking on a far more personal approach. Now we could burn our own CDs with our own musical compilations.
Next came MP3s and the variety of miniscule listening devices that could exploit this musical/computer format. And there were other formats - mini-discs, digital cassettes, micro-CDs - the list went on and on, and with each new 'invention' music, portable music, was pushed that much further.
And now - music collides with video and the power of a DVD has become as accessible and customizable as CD-R(W)s are. I present to you the recordable (and re-recordable) DVD drive - The Hewlett Packard DVD-200E (External) DVD and CD Recorder.
For my own purposes, I've been looking for something that could alleviate my hard drive of countless gigabytes of captures video. Many of it relates to old music videos (of Rush and the like), and quite a large amount of it relates to my own music videos that I've produced of my daughter Rebecca.
With the use of my digital camcorder and some of her favorite music, I piece segments of her together with the song (using the Adobe Premiere 4.0 Video Editor) and create some nice musical compilations. Yet since the digital format of the video and audio is typically lost when I then store it to VHS, I would keep the finished product on my hard drive (which believe me, takes up an enormous amount of room).
Now, with this DVD recordable drive, I can dump all of my video and musical creations to a DVD disk and maintain all of the clarity of the digital data I'm exploiting. Better yet, these recordable DVDs, as you would expect, can be played on virtually any type of DVD player, utilizing any type of regional coding.
Since DVD recording is still a virtually new concept and direction, it would be understandable if the options behind the HP DVD-200E were limited and slow. After all, this isn't just music (audio) that you're transferring. It's video - and video occupies a tremendous amount of information. But as of the writing of this review, the options included with the HP DVD-200E are impressive, well thought out and powerful.
Consider first the available formats. The HP DVD-200E can produce the following formats: DVD+RW, DVD+R, CD-RW and CD-R. So you won't need an added CD burner when using this drive.
Writing speed may sound slow, at up to 2.4x, with reading speeds up to 8x, but again, video occupies an enormous amount of data (a disc can contain up to 4.7GB of video data), so a speed of 2.4x is actually quite impressive at this early stage of the DVD recording game.
Fortunately, the CD writing speeds don't suffer from the DVD limitations. The HP DVD-200E offers up to a 12x recording speed on pure audio - sufficient for most casual needs.
Connection to the drive can be obtained via either a USB and IEEE 1394 connector. Use of the IEEE connection is far superior and faster than the USB connection, especially when linking to a digital cam corder or transferring a large amount of video data to the drive.
Keep in mind that this ingenious device doesn't simply mean you can store and/or create DVD videos. You can also preserve photos, graphics, or simply any type of data using the vast storage capabilities of the DVD format.
The included software with the HP DVD-200E will help you do anything from DVD back ups, to creating slide shows, to editing your DVDs, and more. It's intuitive, easy to use and very powerful. And since the software and drive are backed by HP, you know you'll always have access to the latest updates and product enhancements for many years to come.
Right now, the drive will run you nearly $500 - a bit steep for the more casual user. But if your needs warrant such a device, you'll quickly compensate the expense with all of the time savings, hard-drive storage savings and the convenience of utilizing your music, videos and data through any DVD player.
This is something I've been waiting for a long time, and it's something I'll be using continuously for years to come.
This review has been part of the I've Got The Music In My Computer Write Off hosted by Opalman, Lambchops, and Opinionated3. Following is a list of participants to this write-off. Please read their entries as they are all fabulous.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
-John
Participants:
JennJoy
cartman_2K
opinionated3 – co-host
lambchops – co-host
opalman - co-host
quasar
Lyagushka
Frazzledspice
Deaser26
Paulyoungotti
Dedemw
Netnut746
Divad23
Jag2112 (Hey, that's me!)
Mike.Holmes
DVON
Aerocat
Kurt_G
NC10
Drfaustus
Kiko_cat
KCFoxy
cntaur5
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 475
Operating System: Windows
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jag2112
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Member: John
Location: Clinton, NJ
Reviews written: 303
Trusted by: 312 members
About Me:
The writer stares with glassy eyes...
Defies the empty page...
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