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Before we go on I want to talk a little bit about the DVD format. With a MiniDV-based camcorder you just pop in the tape and forget it. With DVD camcorders there are three varieties of disc and two ways of formatting one of those discs.

There are three types of 8 cm DVD discs available: DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW. DVD-R discs are write once, while the two RW discs can be edited or overwritten. For the DVD-RW disc there are two ways of formatting the disc. Video mode lets you play the disc in any DVD player after the disc is finalized (I'll explain what this means in a second). VR mode will allow you to edit the disc right on the camcorder but it will not work in most DVD players. If this sounds confusing, it is. Sony includes this big flowchart with the camcorder and it's still puzzling. Quotes like this don't help: "You can play back the disc without finalizing it. However, you may need to finalize the disc."

Finalizing, by the way, is when the camcorder writes the directory structure and all necessary files needed for playback onto the disc. It took about six minutes to finalize the disc that I used for this review. When you finalize a DVD-R disc, it's done -- you can't add anything else to it. The two RW discs can be used again after you unfinalize them.