"We did a lot of consumer research and focus groups and what we found is lots of people out there who have got home videos on camcorder tapes. But they don't watch them because it's inconvenient to connect the camcorder to DVD. And these same people are very much concerned about preserving their video for the future. This product allows that group of people to easily put the video they have from the camcorder onto DVD without using a computer. Now, also, those folks who are comfortable using the computer might use this product because it's faster."
Going direct to DVD eliminates the time it takes to encode video and then burn a disc.
"If someone is making a more advanced project, they may want to go down that path. But if they're simply looking just to transfer the video onto DVD, they can do it with DVDirect and it's very simple and easy to use."
The DVDirect drive will have a list price of about 300 dollars. It also adds video capture capabilities to PCs when connected through a USB cable. It arrives in stores next month. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.