9.4GB DVD RAM drive

[rayb]

Hi from a newbie. I'm a part-time videographer and I also earn a bit of pin-money transferring video from tape to dvd. I've found the easiest way to do this is to copy from the analogue source to a Panasonic Recorder, which has time base correction of a sort, and then transfer to a dvd-rw disk which I import into my video editor. This works for me and using fast copy, it's relatively quick. My main problem is the length of video I can transfer to dvd without losing quality. The recorder can write to DVD RAM, so if I could get hold of a DVD RAM drive that read 9.4GB disks, I would be laughing. Trouble is, when I try and search for such a beast, I seem to find everything but! Looking at the pictures of ones say they do, the trays don't look deep enough but that might just be perspective.

 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, can anyone suggest a drive, preferably usb external but I could live with SATA?

 

Thanks in advance.

[synaesthesia]

Would strongly suggest cutting out the middle man and using dual layer DVDs unless there's a really good reason for using the DVD-RAM? Those things went the way of the Betamax years ago!

[rayb]

Sorry, I maybe should have explained a bit more. I could import the analogue source directly into my video editor but this ties it up for hours. If I had a way of extracting the relevant files from the Panasonic recorder HDD, that would be great but I don't think that is viable. The dvd I create on the recorder is only to transfer the files across and I use R/W to save waste. Dual layer DVDs would be an answer but I haven't seen rw versions. The recorder has a DVD RAM drive and I have some disks. They are supposed to last 100 times longer than DVD R/W. So, if I can find a DVD RAM drive it would be great.

[synaesthesia]

do you need to keep the discs in the cartridges? most DVDRW drives will read and write RAM.

[rayb]

Oooh! I didn't know that. I'm off to look right now.

[synaesthesia]

Not sure if they're any easier, you used to have to pretty much break into the things; maybe more modern cartridges are somewhat easier! (then again I recall they used to come with hinged lids before which made it far easier)

[rayb]

I found some instructions:

 

1. Remove locking pin with icepick

2. Depress indent with icepick and pull hinged back

3. Remove disk.

 

They forgot to add item 1.5. Apply band-aid to punctured finger.

 

Anyway, I finally got it out with a jemmy and it's working. It produces .vro files which, like .vob are mpeg and can just be renamed to .mpg.

 

Thanks for your kind advice.