Sony DVD Direct

We've long been interested in putting our home movies (on VHS-S) onto DVD somehow. Sony seems to have come out with the right gizmo, so we bought one of their DVD Direct units. It's pretty nifty! You can attach it to your PC and make DVDs from files on the PC. It will also act as a stand alone recorder, so you can attach it to a VCR, a DVR or a video camera. It has A/V and S-Video jacks in the back, so will take a live feed/signal from pretty much anything. I have tried all of these so far and it has worked very well indeed. The resulting copy image has been excellent, with great sound too.

The only issue is that my BOSE 321 DVD drive won't recognize discs made from this new macine. All other DVD players will recognize it, no worries. Someone on the Web said that BOSE might send me an upgrade disc so I'll call them tomorrow.

Anyway, I am now quite the Spielberg as I am busy putting old home movies together and creating my own DVD menu screens. It's actually a lot of fun! We'll be sending some DVDs out to our family over the next few weeks as I get the initial copy done.

I heard from the telescope service guy today and he says my RA drive is now fixed. He was going to conduct an eight hour test on it (WOW!) and will ship it tomorrow. I should have it early next week I guess. That's okay, with the full moon out now the seeing conditions will be ordinary, and I have the Dob to keep me going!

Anyway, to other things... Still interesting to see the massive amount of coverage over Steve Irwin. He was very popular indeed, it seems. I think a lot of news networks are trying to milk it for all its worth, but people seem genuinely upset by his loss. The folks back home are also very upset. I think it's the tragedy of it really, and it really seems to have taken by surprise because he was somehow deemed invincible. Sad stuff.