Photograph: Rick Rizner

What an appealing concept: You record your video to DVD right in the camcorder, drop the disc into your DVD player, and voilà!--you're instantly reliving those precious moments.

Not so fast, Spielberg. Unfortunately, the reality of the Sony DVD300 Handycam doesn't live up to the expectation. Though it's a promising start, this technology needs to improve in some key areas before the 8-centimeter MiniDVD discs this camcorder records to can replace the MiniDV tape. The process of recording to DVD itself is fairly trouble-free, but you'll spend a lot of time waiting for other things to happen. While a MiniDV camcorder can record a few seconds after you insert a blank tape, you'll have to wait between 30 seconds and a couple of minutes before you can start recording to a blank MiniDVD disc. And after you've shot your video, you have to finalize the disc so PCs and DVD players can read it--a process that can take up to 10 minutes.

The MiniDVD discs also seem to be in short supply; most stores that carried MiniDV tapes didn't stock them. In stores that did stock them, they weren't cheap: At $33 for a 3-pack of MiniDVD-RW discs, they're significantly pricier than MiniDV tapes, which cost less than $10 each. The MiniDVD discs can hold an hour of video at the lowest quality setting, but only 30 minutes at the quality setting we tested with.

In our video-quality tests, the DVD300 performed adequately. While it stumbled in our low-light indoor test, it scored well in our lit indoor and outdoor sessions. Even though it lacks a video-assist lamp, the slow shutter speed mode produced video that was moderately grainy and had reasonably good color. The infrared mode produced sharp video, although it captured military-green-tinted video.

If you're thinking of editing your video, beware. The DVD300 stores the video in MPEG-2 format, which is more heavily compressed than MiniDV format. And while the raw video may look fine, this compression becomes more noticeable if you edit the video and add titles.

The camcorder sits relatively comfortably in the hand, although it is a bit chunky and, at 1.74 pounds is on the heavy side. You may find it tough to hold the camcorder for long stretches, because the body is a little taller than most to accommodate the DVD drive. This drive also gets a little warm while it is recording--not uncomfortably so, but it's nice for keeping your right hand warm on a New England fall day when you're out catching some foliage. The camcorder is covered with buttons and dials; we counted 23 on the LCD side alone. Thankfully, these controls are sensibly placed, and the menu system is easy to navigate.

The battery ran out of steam after just an hour in our tests--the shortest time of the group. We recommend spending extra money for a higher capacity battery pack.

The DVD300's $900 price makes it one of the most expensive camcorders in our roundup, but its features are merely average, including a 10X optical zoom and the ability to capture 1152-by-846-pixel still shots that can be saved to DVD. Its features line up most closely with Panasonic's PV-DV73, a MiniDV contender that sells for over $300 less than this model.

Upshot: Although this camcorder's ability to shoot straight to DVD sounds attractive, the process is awkward.

Bryan Hastings