Sony's DVD camcorder 80mm DVD-R(W) media in short supply

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.