Topic: DVD recorders

[Clive]

During the next few days I intend buying a DVD recorder to replace a failed VCR.  Some of the models appear to have HDD's whereas others do not.  Does anyone know which is best?

[Simon]

Well, you've had my recommendations.    I will also be following this thread closely, as I may well be in the market for one myself in the New Year.

[Robotochan]

How about one of those panasonic ones, the ones that can record and play at the same time, I don't know how they do it but that'd be handy

[Clive]

Yes, Simon already suggested the Panasonic.  That doesn't have a HDD and I just wondered if there was any advantage in having one.  I read somewhere that DVD recorders with hard drives also have to have a cooling fan which can increase the noise level quite a lot.

[Robotochan]

I suppose they can store Programs on the HDD and you can either watch them from there or burn them to DVD. If you wanted that however you'd be better to get a PSX

[Sandra]

After havin my mpeg4 playable dvd player for a couple of months, I would wait until they bring a DVD recorder with hard drive, ethernet and mpeg4 capable.
That way you would be covered for all eventualities for the moment.
There are some with a hard drive, ethernet and also wireless connection to your router at the moment Clive but I am not aware of any that have the recordable dvd in plus the other features unless the latest Kiss ones do it (model 5400 I think).
It may also be worth waiting until the 9 gig recordable dvd players are around before you buy one as the current ones are only 4.7 gig  

[Sandra]

As far as I can tell Clive this is about the best thing that is available now :

http://www.nickknows.com/index.html?target=dept_446.html&lang=en-gb

Go to this one :

Kiss Technology DP-558 £ 499.38inc

It doesnt record onto DVD but this is better, as for most tv progs you dont want to save you can watch and erase from the hard drive and any that you want to save you can transfer to your PC via ethernet and burn onto a cd or dvd on there  

[Clive]

Thanks for all that research Sandra, but it has only served to confuse me more.  I don't know if I really need all those technological capabilities as I only scratch at the surface of the technology I already have.  For instance, my TV has picture in picture facility so I can watch two channels at the same time yet I never use it.  I could go on and on ... and on.    What I really want, what I really really want, is something simple enough for myself and Mrs Clive to operate in a one touch operation to use just like a basic VCR.  My existing VCR has index search, but do I use it?  What do you think?  Well actually I can't use it anyway because like most of my VCR's it's conked out.  I actually remembered that I bought a combined  DVD/VCR unit for the bedroom last May but hadn't got around to tuning it in.    Sorted!!  But I'm still going to buy a DVD recorder for the home cinema setup in a day or so and I think I may go for that Panasonic as it's very slim.   That may allow me to stack my other DVD player on top of it when I throw out the very chunky very useless Sony VCR.

[Sandra]

Do you intend to save a lot of stuff off the tv for ever Clive or just watch it later that day or over the weekend?
If you are going to save everything then a recordable dvd player may be the answer but to watch something and not keep it then a hard drive recorder makes more senseEspecially with the ability to burn on to your pcs DVD writer if it was something you wanted to keep.
It may be as well waiting for Lona to wake up from her overindulgences and ask how her daughter is going on with the recordable one that she got, the last time she mentioned it she wasnt very happy with the quality off playback from the recording that she made  

[Simon]

I think you might find this useful, Clive: http://hometheater.about.com/library/weekly/aadvdrecfaqa.htm

Particularly relevent to your question, is this part on page 2:

There are, several DVD recorders from a few manufacturers that include both a hard drive and a DVD recorder in the same unit. This type of system allows the user to copy raw footage or record a series a programs to the hard drive and then edit or copy smaller segments or the entire contents of the hard drive to a blank DVD. Also, another benefit of this type of unit is that if the DVD runs out of space during recording, the excess video is automatically recorded onto the hard disk, which, once again, can be copied onto another blank DVD at a later, more convenient time.

Like you, all I will want is something which works in the same way as a VCR, to record TV Programmes.  If I understand it correctly, it seems, from the above quote, that one with a hard drive could be an advantage, in that if you could watch programmes you have recorded onto the hard disc drive, you only need to use blank DVDs for stuff you want to keep, or wish to play on another machine.  These types of machine burn the discs for you, without the need to integrate the DVD Recorder into the PC, which seems to me, would only add to the complexities of the matter.

[Sandra]

Thats why I suggested that Kiss one Simon, so that 99% of the time you just use the inbuilt hard drive and if you do record something that you would like to keep then just transfer via ethernet to your pc and burn it to a cd or dvd using the pcs cd writer or dvd writer.
That has the advantage of being able to play on other peoples dvd players too as you can burn it as + or - whereas most of the recordable will only do - I think unless you get the philips one which is pushing the + format.
Presumably you could play back any jpgs from your pc as a slide show via the ethernet conection, on your tv without having to burn them to a cd first, if you wanted  

[Simon]

I realised what you meant Sandra, but the DVD Recorders with hard drives can do that anyway, without the complication of using a PC.  The DVD-R format is compatible with most DVD Players, from what I understand.  

All Clive wants (and this also applies to myself) is to replace his VCR to record TV Programmes.  With that Kiss thing, it seems you would be paying for a lot of features you would never normally use, and I'm not entirely convinced that the build quality is up to much either.

[Clive]

Mrs Clive likes to save programmes so that she can lend them to her Mum so I am coming more and more to the conclusion that burning to DVD is what we need.  I wouldn't really be interested in connecting it up to my computer anyway.  This has proved to be a very useful debate.

[Simon]

Yes, that would seem the way to go, Clive.  I don't suppose for a minute that the ones with hard drives would be more expensive, would they?  

[Simon]

Here's another interesting website:

http://www.dvd-recorder-buying-guide.com/