[Crusoe]

Anyone try one of these out? Would it be possible to use the cd burner for data and video. I would be nice to be able to record my videos, do some editing on my mac and produce final DVDs directly to the camcorder. Also would be nice if it would mount as a read writeable drive.

Other questions:
Battery Life?
Video Quality?
Analog to Digital?
Wide screen format . . without optional lens.

8cm DVD with a powerbook? According to the KB they should be ok.

Hitachi's site provides limited info and they tend to be anti-mac, no FW and statement not guaranteeing it'll work.

http://www.hitachi.com/tv/browse/cam...dzmv380a.shtml

Panasonic's looks a bit more promising.
http://www.prodcat.panasonic.com/sho...goryId=%202690

[Eug]

I have a Hitachi camcorder (gift). It's a pain getting the video from the discs to the Mac, since everything is in MPEG-2 format. Furthermore, the quality isn't the greatest always, because it's already heavily compressed. Also, if you want to use rewritables (DVD-RAM) they do not work in Mac OS X (without 3rd party drivers). This is esp. true for me, since my DVD camcorder only supports DVD-RAM, and not DVD-R. I have to do all my video rips on a PC.

No Firewire. No data support.

Plus, I would not want to risk running the disks in my PB (even though they're supposed to work).

If you want a DVD burner, then buy a DVD burner. Simple as that. It doesn't make sense burning DVDs on 8 cm discs anyway if you plan on giving it to your friends. Those discs are $$$.

The whole point of the DVD camcorders is so you can simply play the recorded discs immediately on your DVD player. MiniDV is better suited for editing with current software. I'm thinking of just getting a MiniDV cam when I decide I really need to make more home videos.