Digital Trends

Samsung's new TruDirect SE-S204S DVD burner lets users burn DVDs from their camcorder or digital camera without first transferring video to a PC.

Samsung is trying to make it easier for families to create custom DVDs of their home videos—and while they haven't eliminated the home computer from the process altogether, they have reduced it to the role of a passive intermediary, merely serving as a conduit between a user's digital camcorder or camera and Samsung's new TruDirect SE-S204S DVD burner.

"As a global technology innovator, Samsung has always been at the forefront of optical disc drive technology and further pushes the technology envelope with the introduction of the new TruDirect SE-S204S," said Samsung's storage division's western regional manager Richard Aguilera, in a statement. "The TruDirect SE-S204S enables users to easily and efficiently turn their digital videos or photos into DVDs in the easiest and fastest way ever."

The idea behind the TruDirect SE-S204S is to eliminate the steps of transferring digital video to a PC's hard drive, firing up DVD mastering software, and attempting to burn a disc. Instead, the TruDirect SE-S204S enables real-time, quick-and-simple transfer of digital video to DVD: Samsung says creating a one-hour DVD takes only about an hour and five minutes with the TruDirect SE-S204S; and creating the same DVD from a hard disk camcorder file takes only 30 minutes.

The TruDirect SE-S204S features 20× DVD+R and DVD-R writing, 16× DVD+R dual-layer writing, and 12× DVD-r and DVD-RAM burning.

The TruDirect SE-S204S is available now from U.S. retailers for $159.99.