Sony short on miniDVD drives, media

IF YOU were one of the fortunate few that purchased one of Sony's new DVD camcorders (DCR-DVD100/200/300) incorporating an 8mm DVD-RW drive over the past month, you might be feeling a little smug - or a little miserable, especially if you are hunting for blank media. There's a shortage.

Supplies of the DVD200 mid-end model capable of 1MP photos have total dried up in the US mass market retail channels and only seem to be available through Sony's online web site, with a week-long wait for orders.

Best Buy had two of the high-end 300 models (3.5" LCD screen) in stock despite labeling it and the entry-level model (2.5" LCD, no mega-pixel stills) as "Special order" items. Circuit City is just plain out of everything and didn't think they were going to see 100s or 300s for "a few weeks" at least, something this reporter found very amusing as he stared at the large pretty Sony DVD camcorder propaganda sign placed smack in the middle of the demo models.

However, the real choke point seems to be blank media in the smaller form factor, either in the write-once DVD-Rs or the more desirable DVD-RWs. There's no media on the shelves and the earliest the Sony web site says it will be available is on February 15, 2004; it won't even take backorders for singles of -R, much less the "new" 3 packs of -RW.

One has to wonder why Sony is dorking around with trying to breath new life into their proprietary MiniDisk format by beefing it up to 1GB of storage when the more popular mini-DVD format can store up to 1.4 GB of data and can be potentially read by DVD-ROM players (if -R) or computers (-RW).

The popularity of the Sony mini-DVD camcorders is very simple; no having to futz with video tapes or video-in to get things on disk. Simply remove the mini-DVD disk, pop it into a DVD reader, and copy the contents straight onto the hard drive for editing. It also has a USB 2.0 port (But no Sony-blessed Firewire, hmm...) for copying video if you're short a DVD driver. The camcorders can also be used as mini-DVD-RW drives...assuming you can find the media.

Hitachi might be tickled to know their DVD-RAM camcorders and media are in stock at Circuit City, but the sales people seemed highly disinclined to recommend 'em. µ