Thought I'd stick my oar in here (having had one for about 18 months now
)
There never really was a format war - all DVDs have to conform to certain physical attributes, it's just the way data is laid out that is different.
DVD-r and +r are pretty much identical in terms of compatability on other players. Early +R recorders had a few problems (thats why the Philips recorders had an option to 'tweak' the recording to make them play on some machines). There were also reliability issues with early machines (Philips had a problem with machines dying while the Panasonic was a bit choosy over discs).
DVD-Ram best format for editing and timeslip, Treats the disc as a big floppy/drive to all intents and purposes. Main advantage is it allows timeslip as standard. This is because of the drive analogy where you can read a file while writing one out. RAM discs come in two forms - caddied (about £5) and uncaddied (about £2). Difference is the caddied ones should be good for about 100,000 re-recordings compared to the uncaddied which are good for about 1000. Disadvantages: not as compatible as other formats when you try and play a disc on other machines.
DVDRW (plus and minus) both re-recordable formats. Discs good for about 1000 recordings. Advantage: can be used on other machines quite easily (usually). Disadvantages: +RW uses constant bit rate recording
As DVD plus is an 'unofficial' format that has not been approved by the DVD consortium then there is no guarantee it is likely to be supported by all players (for some reason my panasonics don't like them
)
Latest Pioneer drive has it's own 'new' format (VR mode) to enable the timeslip function, this is NOT compatible with other players.Hard drives - A few recorders have hard drives built in which can be used to extend the record time and also have a few features like high speed dubbing to/from disc.
What it comes down to is "how do you intend using the recorder"?
Nearest to a VCR is probably the RAM range (as you can just delete parts of programs to free up space, with +/- RW you don't get free space back until the disc is reformatted or a recording is deleted). The compatability issue isn't usually a problem as when was the last time you loaned a recording out?
Alternativly there are some hard drive recorders (Tivo style) that only allow you to record to hard drive and have a DVD PLAYER included - this has the advantage of a larger storage but there is no way to then transfer the recording to someone else.
Also worth mentioning that you can't 'dub' from one player to a dvd-recorder unless macrovision and cgms has been disabled on the player.
Swings and roundabouts
