I seen a Mini-DV player/recorder that fitted into a 5 1/4" bay on a PC recently on Ebay. I believe it was made by Sony.

I have searched the net looking for this item without success, does anyone know if Sony still make this product.

Try this link:

Sony DRV-1000P (http://www.broadcaststore.com/store/model_detail.cfm?id=20615)

I am sure it has long been discontinued by Sony.

There's even a link here to a PDF! (http://www.broadcaststore.com/pdf/model/20615/sony_drv-1000p___________________________________________________________________________________________.pdf )

Thanks Martin,

It would have been a useful addition on the PC.

I remember when DVCAM first came out, one of the things Sony hyped was those drives. I haven’t heard anything about them for years.

at the time it was available, it was a bit too soon (NLE on pc was not affordable) and the drive was very expensive.

It is strange than since PC price goes low and probably technology would allow to produce such drive for half the price of a cheap camcorder , that nobody at Sony wakes up and revive the product, they would have sold thousand of them in a snap without impacting the camcorder market.

I got one about 6 months ago on ebay, it works great. It is basically a seperate device from your computer, just uses your computer power. The firewire jack on the back just plugs into your firewire card in your computer. It has analog jacks on the back you can run out to a monitor if you wish.
Here is a picture of mine.

http://www.digitaliso.ca/drv1000-1.jpg

http://www.digitaliso.ca/drv1000-2.jpg

Well, If anyone has noticed, there is not much demand for Mini-DV or DVCAM VCRs, or at least for under $1,000. I have the Sony GVD-1000 I use for Mini DV, and I use my camera for DVCAM. I think part of this is because consumers all play back in the camera, and with the limited number of passes Mini-DV is not a viable replacement for VHS. Though it also might be Hollywood worried about bootlegging. :)