Also in this issue:

• Up Front
  Letters: Out of the Humidor
• Good Life Guide
  Leica D-Lux
• Good Life Guide
  John Jaques Croquet Set
• Celebrities
  Return of the Terminator
• Celebrities
  From Cigars to the Big League
• More from this Issue

Do-It-Yourself DVD

Go beyond buying and renting DVDs -- now you can make them yourself, with or without a computer

Steve Morgenstern
From the Print Edition:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, July/Aug 03

If you don't want to deal with the complexities of internal installation, or use a laptop computer instead of a desktop, you may still be able to add a DVD burner, as long as the computer has either a FireWire or USB 2.0 port. These two connectors are fast enough to burn discs using an external drive; I've worked extensively with Sony's dual-format DRX-500ULX drive ($430) connected to a FireWire-equipped laptop, and the combination works perfectly.

What about making copies of those store-bought (or rented) DVD movies? It can't be done with a stand-alone DVD recorder but with a little finagling, it's possible using a DVD burner on a Windows machine. DVD X Copy from 321 Studios ($99) makes the process very simple -- just follow the on-screen instructions and, even without much technological savvy, you can copy a commercial DVD movie, complete with functional menus and all the DVD extras intact. One fly in the ointment: it takes two blank DVDs to copy most single-disc DVD movies, because commercial DVDs are burned using a two-layer process, giving them double the capacity of the blanks that are available for home burning. That's where Pinnacle Systems' Instant CD/DVD Copy software ($100) comes in. While it requires more manual processing, it's possible to trade off some audio/video quality -- and even eliminate some of the space-hogging extras on commercial DVDs -- and burn a movie to a single blank DVD. Of course, the legality of copying a copy-protected DVD is still being wrangled over in the courts. It's an interesting face-off, pitting the rights of consumers to make backup copies of material they've legitimately purchased against the movie studio's rights to protect against piracy.

Watch Out, Camcorder Cassettes!

The DVD-burning revolution is currently threatening VCRs and computer CD burners with extinction, but it doesn't stop there. What about those pesky tapes lurking in consumer camcorders? They too are under siege, with initial salvos fired by Hitachi, Panasonic and Sony as they introduce camcorders that capture movies directly to miniature DVD discs (each of which records for 30 minutes). With a DVD camcorder, it's possible to shoot video, then remove the disc and play it back on your DVD player -- a very convenient system. And, of course, while using the camcorder to play the video you shot, you can jump quickly from scene to scene, an impossibility with standard videotape.

But there's another feature that really changes the camcorder experience: the ability to edit your video on the camcorder. Those mortifying minutes when you didn't realize you'd accidentally hit the record button? Gone! The endless wedding toast with an interesting 30 seconds embedded in the middle? Trimmed down to a crisp, funny clip. What's more, editing in-camera doesn't mean the deleted footage is gone forever. It's still preserved in its entirety on the disc, so grandma can watch all 30 minutes of junior making mud pies, while you can choose to show the edited version, a two-minute "dirty movie" that you can share with friends and family without embarrassment.

Steve Morgenstern, a freelance writer living in New York, writes extensively on technology issues for Cigar Aficionado.

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