DVD Recorder

SickBoy

Can anyone recommend a good stand alone DVD recorder? My dad is looking convert all his old hurling & football matches to something more reliable than VHS after the VCR decided to eat the 1973 All Ireland final he loved watching. I know I could do this on my PC through the TV capture card but he has hundreds of hours of matches and he really wants to do it himself.

combs

Most if not all of the well known DVD recorders will have a feature that allows you to connect your VCR to the DVDR and make recordings that way. DVD Playback is the crucial thing with these machines. I recommend Panasonic, but it's up to you to do the research in magazines and stuff on which recorder is best.

ChipZilla

The Toshiba D-R1 is a great DVD recorder. It takes DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM, and has inputs for everything, including firewire. I picked up one of these from Makro in Belfast for £270...

shabbyroad

I got the Panasonic DMR-HS2 because it has a built in harddrive. I like to cleanup and edit the material coming in from VHS or SKY+ and then select an appropriate compression rate.

If you go for a machine that doesn't have a HDD then you will have to monitor the recording in real-time if you want to put in breaks/pauses etc.

Personally I like to leave a VHS running for a couple of hours and then when it's done, top & tail it, title it and then when all is ready leave it dubbing to DVD-R. If the DVD-R fails because of bad media or whatever I haven't lost the HDD material.


The HS2 is now discontinued but there's other machines out there.

There's a whole forum on http://www.avforums.com for this hardware type and it's frequented by very knowledgable people.

carrolls

As 80% of the DVD Recorders being manufactured worldwide this year are DVD+RW format , I would recommend a Philips DVDR80.
The problem with purchasing the Panasonic or Pioneer DVDR-RW is that in one or two years time the (-)RW blank media will be non existant or very expensive.
This has already happened to DVD-RAM. Nearly $10 per disk and increasing.

SteM

Originally posted by carrolls
As 80% of the DVD Recorders being manufactured worldwide this year are DVD+RW format , I would recommend a Philips DVDR80.
The problem with purchasing the Panasonic or Pioneer DVDR-RW is that in one or two years time the (-)RW blank media will be non existant or very expensive.
This has already happened to DVD-RAM. Nearly $10 per disk and increasing.

But surely as more and more PC drives are being manufactured as being both -r & +r there will still be a market for -rw media which will keep the price low?

Where did you get your 80% figure do you mind me asking? I've not seen it before and it could persuade a lot of people to go with a Philips over a Panasonic or Pioneer.

ChipZilla

Originally posted by carrolls
As 80% of the DVD Recorders being manufactured worldwide this year are DVD+RW format , I would recommend a Philips DVDR80.
The problem with purchasing the Panasonic or Pioneer DVDR-RW is that in one or two years time the (-)RW blank media will be non existant or very expensive.
This has already happened to DVD-RAM. Nearly $10 per disk and increasing.

What? I dunno where you got those figures from, but anyway a Philips is the last thing I would buy. The DVDR80's predecessor, the DVDR70 was a piece of absolute sh*te, and was +R only as well. And I dunno where you get your blanks either - models made by Panasonic and Toshiba are perfectly happy writing on the cheapest of the cheap Datawrites or Bulkpaqs. As for DVD-RAMs being $10 and increasing? You can buy single-sided DVD-RAMs from for £1.99 and double-sided for under a fiver each on the internet. Sorry, but I couldn't see any reason to buy a Philips. Anyway, they're all going to be obsolete once blu-ray recorders come on the market here...

combs

Here we go again...

I'd steer clear of Philips too. Get something with a Hard Drive if you can afford it. You can record all you want onto that and transfer to DVD-R for permanent recordings.

SickBoy

Originally posted by ChipZilla
Anyway, they're all going to be obsolete once blu-ray recorders come on the market here...

Is this something worth holding out for or is it a long way off or too expensive right now?
Thanks for all the replies so far, I really appreciate it!

carrolls

....Well its actually 76%. Sorry Combs, obviously still a touchy subject. But facts speak louder than emotions:D
http://www.globalsources.com/am/article_id/9000000049901/page/showarticle?action=GetArticle#goto4

Originally posted by ChipZilla
What? The DVDR80's predecessor, the DVDR70 was a piece of absolute sh*te, and was +R only as well.

That is totally untrue ChipZilla. DVD +RW blanks work fine with the DVDR70.
I have being using a DVDR70 with DVD +RW blanks for 8 months without failure.
It would be a good idea for all concerned to post accurate information at all times. Misleading information is worse than no information.:mad:
And BTW its not a piece of sh*te. Its great.

daveg

Sickboy I have just bought the new Pioneer DVDR-220 (DVD-R/RW) from Leading edge concepts in the UK.. It costs £249.

Originally posted by carrolls
As 80% of the DVD Recorders being manufactured worldwide this year are DVD+RW format , I would recommend a Philips DVDR80.
The problem with purchasing the Panasonic or Pioneer DVDR-RW is that in one or two years time the (-)RW blank media will be non existant or very expensive.
This has already happened to DVD-RAM. Nearly $10 per disk and increasing.

Carrolls whilst I do agree the +R maybe the better overall format I have to say your comment about -R media will be non existant/very expensive is laughable. -R media is still may cheaper than +R media. Whaty about all the dual format drives that have been sold. You think your adverage joe is going to buy +R media over -R media because it's a slightly better format - but is nearly douible the price? Personally I think both formats will survive, as does what hifi magazine, and I would put a lot more stock in their latest article than your link.

carrolls

I read the article in What HiFi, and whats laughable about the article is its total lack of technical detail about why the Panasonic is the best machine, Its not putting two different formats up and comparing them.They must have got the Panasonic as a freebie, while Philips probably refused to throw in a freebie.;)

Originally posted by daveg
I would put a lot more stock in their latest article than your link.

As far as I could see, they were not offering 76% as an opinion. they were offering it as a statistic. You can argue that 76% is wrong if you can show me an article to back your statement up, but to claim that the article has no stock without any form of counter argument is bizzare.

John R

+R/RW standalone recorders may be outselling -R ones but -R media is far more popular with PC users who have mostly dual format burners. -R media is slightly cheaper and more brands are available.

ChipZilla

Originally posted by carrolls
That is totally untrue ChipZilla. DVD +RW blanks work fine with the DVDR70.
I have being using a DVDR70 with DVD +RW blanks for 8 months without failure.
It would be a good idea for all concerned to post accurate information at all times. Misleading information is worse than no information.:mad:
And BTW its not a piece of sh*te. Its great.

I should have been clearer. When I said +R is should have said +R/RW. It was still a crap machine though. I was lucky enough to offload mine on some poor chump in the Buy And Sell... I'd prefer a machine that does -R/RW and RAM any day.

10000maniacs

Originally posted by ChipZilla
I should have been clearer.

I think Chipzilla when you say "you should have been clearer" surely you mean
"You should have been correct". "Correct" meaning the opposite of talking total ****e.
Some people.:rolleyes: