Sony Offers Souped-Up DVD Burner

Some missing features mar an otherwise solid burner.

The Sony DVDirect VRD-VC10 offers an intuitive nine-button interface and a useful built-in LCD display.

Sony's $300 DVDirect VRD-VC10 is a hybrid product: more than an external DVD burner, yet not quite a set-top DVD recorder. A double-layer, 16X external DVD+R/RW writer, it includes video-capture and MPEG-2 encoding capabilities that let you connect it directly to your digital camcorder or VCR, so you can skip your PC altogether. Unfortunately, Sony left out several features that could have made the DVDirect more compelling.

I tested a shipping version of the two-tone silver, vertically oriented unit. The device has a five-line LCD status display and nine buttons for selecting functions such as input, stop/start recording, and finalize. The interface is quite intuitive, which is good since the manual is a bit difficult to decipher.

To record without a PC, you plug your digital camcorder or VCR into the DVDirect's rear-mounted S-Video or composite inputs, enable the product's sync function, press Record, and voila--hassle-free duplication.

The DVDirect records using the +VR format in three qualities: HQ (1 hour per single-sided disc), SP (2 hours), or SLP (6 hours). It can also record twice those lengths on double-layer DVD+R. My PC-less transfer tests in HQ and SP produced good results, though the device's lack of a DV input is hard to comprehend. The unit also performed well as a PC-attached burner using its USB 2.0 port. Alas, the quality of sporting events recorded in SLP mode was worse than a VHS tape (a 4-hour mode is badly needed). It's also too bad Sony didn't include video outputs on the unit so that you could use it as a basic set-top DVD recorder as well.

The DVDirect is a solid external burner that offers good camcorder or tape-to-DVD transfers. However, several missing features make it a bit harder to recommend.

Sony DVDirect VRD-VC10

Good for basic recording tasks, but lacks a few features that would have made it more appealing.Price when reviewed: $300Current Prices (if available)