Basically, I was thinking of buying a budget DVD recorder with a Firewire IN port on it, so when I film local bands etc, I can give them a dump of the gig directly from the camera without edits etc, just so they have something to look at and can tell me which songs they'd want to use etc. Much nicer than dealing with old VHS tapes etc. Then I thought, if I'm gonna buy one of these things, it'd be nice to have a HDD for future use.. then I realised how broke I am :)

But I do have a pretty nicely specced PC.. but capturing to DV, encoding to MPEG2, burning to DVD.. its just a bit of hassle. Now obviously DVD players have true MPEG hardware in them, whereas my PC is lacking a DVStorm2 (or similar) card.. but an Athlon3500+ 64 with 1gb of RAM and a 6600GT should have enough grunt to do a similar job I'm sure..

So basically, what I'm looking for is software that can transfer whatever signal it receives onto a DVDR in realtime.. or at very worst automates the cap to DV > render to mpeg2 (cbr for ease) > burn to DVD process so I can go downstairs and watch TV rather than keep messing around.. anything like this exist?

Nice idea...

There has to be some software that can do it....


Let's hope the right person sees this post.

I'm not sure of any software that encodes MPEG2 on the fly, but I do know of a handy--and somewhat inexpensive device ($270)--that could give great results. Check out the SONY VRD-VC20 (http://www.sonyburners.com/dvdirect/).

It accepts DV IN and will record to standard DVD+/-R, -+RW, and Dual-Layer discs at varying qualities of MPEG2. It's not too large, making it fairly easy to bring on the road and record the shots you need to hand out on the fly.

Cheers!

James,
I use Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.5 - it's got a "direct-to-disc" option. I just plug in the camera via Firewire, go to "capture" mode and let it to burn the tape content straight to DVD.
It might be just what you're looking for.
The app. has got lots of other useful features as well...

Regards,

Robin

PS, the week after next, I've got some single-camera drama shoots for the Beeb, so if you're free to pop over, you're welcome...