By Kire Terzievski, RMIT Test Labs
June 18th, 2002.
3. Panasonic Movie Studio
The Panasonic Movie Studio adds another twist to this feature. The Panasonic drive is a DVD-RAM drive capable of also recording in DVD-R. This drive cannot record onto CD-RWs or CD-Rs, but it can read them.
Another set back to this device is that it can only write to DVD-Rs at 1x. The Lacie and Pioneer on the other hand can burn DVD-R discs at 2x. The Panasonic drive took the longest to record our 1.153GB video file. It was quickerthan the Lacie and Pioneer drive at recording our 353MB audio file and it was also quicker writing random data files to and from the desktop.
The Panasonic drive shipped with an IEEE-1394 card so you can capture movies from your DV Camcorder. You can also edit scenes, add effects, chapters and titles by using the Pinnacle Express software package, which was also thrown in. Also included was Cyberlinks Power DVD software, Veritas PrimoDVD data burning software, one DVD-R disc, and one DVD-RAM disc. We must mention that you cannot record onto your DVD-RAM disc and expect to be able to play it on your DVD Video player or a PC with a DVD-ROM drive. You will have to burn your movies onto a DVD-R disc.
| Product: | Panasonic Movie Studio |
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| Price: | AU$1099 |
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| Vendor: | Panasonic |
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| Phone: | 132 600 |
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| Interoperability: |
 Writes to DVD-RAM and DVD-R. |
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| Futureproofing: |
Future is uncertain and too difficult to predict. |
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| ROI: |
½
Excellent software bundle, comes with a FireWire card. |
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| Service: |
1-year parts and labour warranty. |
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| Rating: |
Bundled extras make this more of a movie-making product. |
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2%
4%
