If you've got a bunch of old VHS tapes lying around, it's time to light a match -- after you've burned them to DVD, that is.

There are plenty of methods for digitizing VHS. But HP's Movie Writer dc3000 does something innovative. It integrates the hardware you need to capture aging VHS tapes and camcorder video with a fast DVD recorder, letting you conveniently burn that video to more durable DVD discs.

With a simple interface and one-touch recording, the dc3000 takes much of the complexity out of archiving old video to beautiful-quality DVDs. But if you envision connecting your camcorder to a stand-alone PC-less recording device, look elsewhere.

What it will and won't do

The Movie Writer dc3000 is an external DVD+R/RW burning drive with an integrated video-capture card and USB hub. The 2.75-inch by 9.75-inch by 7-inch drive is oversized for an external burner owing to its additional built-in USB, S-Video, composite, and RCA audio connections. The Movie Writer will record 4X DVD+R, 2.4X DVD+RW, and 16X/10X/40X CD-R/RW discs, but not DVD-R/RW or DVD-RAM discs.

The Movie Writer has a big, fat, shinny red record button on its top. But just connecting your camera to the drive and hitting the record button won't do anything unless you have a PC to work as an intermediary. It's my bet that more than a few buyers who don't own PCs are confused by this "feature." The button simply launches a suite of burning utilities on your PC to handle the job.

Easy as DVD

The Movie Writer comes with several useful software applications for editing video, burning DVD movies, and performing system backup to DVD+R/RW and CD-R discs.

• RecordNow makes data discs and copies CDs and DVDs.
• ArcSoft ShowBiz 2 captures, edits, and creates DVDs
• Muvee AutoProducer automatically edits and compiles your video and audio into a movie.
• Simple Backup backs up your system to DVD.
• PowerDVD lets you watch DVD video.

If you want to archive VHS or camcorder home video to DVD, HP walks you through a quick five-step process using ArcSoft's ShowBiz 2 and HP's software interface. The menus are written in plain English and the software even has voice cues if you want your PC to act more human-like.

I give kudos to HP for keeping the process simple and streamlined. But setting up the review unit wasn't exactly a pleasing experience. After several conversations with HP engineers about firmware updates and software patches, I finally smoothed out the kinks. I very much recommend getting all firmware and software updates for this drive.

Comparison chart

To test the speed of the HP Movie Writer dc3000, I compared it to two of TechTV Labs' favorite internal EIDE DVD multi-format drives, one from LG and one from Sony.

Burner	3.5GB DVD+R burn (in minutes)	Record 645MB CD-R of MP3s (in minutes)
HP Movie Writer dc3000	13:15	5:14
Sony DRU-510A multiformat drive	12:36	4:31
LG Super Multi DVD Writer (GSA-4040B)	11:59	4:44

The dc3000 is a bit slower than either internal EIDE drive, which is to be expected from an external USB 2.0 drive.

Bottom line

Archiving your old video to DVD is still not a simple process. But as $30 DVD players continue to sell, and with video-editing software improving, more of us will demand that our computers archive video to DVD easily and inexpensively. HP gets us halfway there.

Company: HP
Price: $349
Available: Now
Specs: USB 2.0; speeds: 4X DVD+R write, 2.4X DVD+RW write, 8X DVD read, 16X CD-R write, 10X CD-RW write, 40X CD read; compatible with Microsoft Windows XP and 2000 Professional SP2
Ships with: USB cable, composite video and RCA audio, audio splitter cable