If you own a camcorder, you'll probably be putting it to good use this month — capturing footage of a child's frenzied gift-opening, documenting a big family reunion, filming the highlights of that holiday vacation ? maybe all of the above.

Being the parents of two young kids, my wife and I shoot a lot of home movies year-round. When Alexander, our 1-year-old son, systematically pulled out all the low-lying cans from the kitchen pantry and threw each one down the basement stairs, we got it on tape. When, on his 5th birthday, his older brother Ben whacked a hole in the side of his pinãta with a wicked overhand smash, showering party guests with colorful little trinkets, we got it on tape. This kind of stuff is endlessly entertaining (to us). Still, it's not every day — or even every week — that we hook up our camcorder to our TV to actually watch these gems, even though it takes very little time and effort. It's an "out of sight, out of mind" thing.

Sony's top-of-the-line DCR-DVD300

So when I had the chance to check out Sony's new top-of-the-line DVD camcorder, I jumped at it. The concept instantly struck me as a great idea: record your movies straight onto a mini DVD disc, which you can play back on most newer home DVD players or PC DVD-ROM drives. Of course, in typical gear-geek fashion, I had some questions. How would a DVD camcorder stack up against my trusted Mini DV model, in terms of picture quality and ease of use? How well would this unit interface with my PC? I was also interested to see how the inherent convenience of the DVD format might affect the viewing habits of seasoned home-video veterans like us.

Feature-packed, and rarin' to go
Pulling the DCR-DVD300 out of the box, the first thing I noticed was its solid, well-built feel. Despite having slightly greater size and weight than my Mini DV camera, it still certainly earns Sony's "Handycam®" badge, being easily compact enough to tote around and operate with one hand. As Sony's top-shelf DVD camcorder, it retails for about $1100 and comes loaded with perks, including a high-end Carl Zeiss® lens, a very respectable 1-megapixel CCD, and a 3-1/2" articulating LCD viewscreen. Sony also added other popular, time-tested features that hail from their previous camcorder lines, like Super NightShot® mode, which uses infrared light to record in total darkness, and Super SteadyShot® image stabilization.

Choosing blank discs
The camera takes mini (8cm) DVD-R or DVD-RW discs; most people will probably find uses for both types of media at certain times. Mini DVD-Rs are "write-once" discs — footage you've recorded on them can't be erased or undone. They're compatible with a slightly wider range of home DVD players than DVD-RWs, and also cost a little bit less. DVD-RWs, on the other hand, can be erased and re-recorded (up to 1,000 times, according to the specs). When using DVD-RW discs, you can also record in a mode known as "DVD-VR," which allows basic in-camera editing (deleting movies or stills, dividing movies). However, this mode isn't compatible with nearly as wide a selection of DVD players as the standard "DVD-Video" mode.