DVD Recorders - the lowdown please.
JPG
I need, it's just that I can't find any decent magazine or user
reviews.
DVD recorders (stand-alone) as a replacement for VCRs - a few
questions:
1. How do they record off-air analogue? Via a pass-through RF
connection?
2. What sort of input do they take from a digibox - RGB SCART?
3. What sort of outputs - RGB SCART, S-Video, component, optical and
coax digital audio?
4. What sort of indexing of recordings do they have - menus,
thumbnails, filenames, folders - is text entry required?
5. Reliability - as the recording/playback method is non-contact, I
would expect them to be more reliable than VCR - a fair assumption?
As some DVD recorders are now coming down to Ł250 or so, I am thinking
of going for this rather than S-VHS. Or should I wait and get a
HDD/DVD recorder - most tasks will be time shifting rather than
viewing pre-recorded.
Thanks in anticipation.
JPG
Gary
> As some DVD recorders are now coming down to Ł250 or so, I am thinking
> of going for this rather than S-VHS. Or should I wait and get a
> HDD/DVD recorder - most tasks will be time shifting rather than
> viewing pre-recorded.
Can anybody recommend an HDD/DVD recorders?
I was looking at the new Sony, but that lacks a HDD.
--
Gary
SPAMTRAP : Please delete "NOSPAM" to reply via email
Ronald Marlowe
"JPG" <j...@jpg.com> wrote
"............... DVD recorders (stand-alone) as a replacement for VCRs - a
few questions................."
AFAIK, all such machines take an analogue signal which they then re-encode
back into mpeg format. This is bound to result in some loss of quality.
Assuming that you can receive Freeview, if you wish to archive television
programmes to DVD your best method at present, IMHO, would be to do so on
the PC using a Nova or Nebula card. That way there should be hardly any
degradation of the picture-quality because you are staying within the
digital domain throughout. Sony (and others) produce DVD-writing units which
can deal with any disc format, thus STB compatibility would not be a
problem.
If your primary interest is timeshifting, then it will probably be more
convenient to use a HDD recorder, eg the Pace Twin.
Nebula are rumoured to be developing a combined DTT Receiver/HDD
Recorder/DVD Writer for release sometime next year, but there are other
interesting units just around the corner, eg the Humax 8000/9000. The Humax
9000-T has a removable hard-drive which, presumably, would allow one to
"download" recordings to a PC for authoring to DVD.
Take a look at http://www.idtv.co.uk/DTT_list_insert.html
Ron.
Some bloke
"JPG" <j...@jpg.com> wrote
> 1. How do they record off-air analogue? Via a pass-through RF
> connection?
Yes.
> 2. What sort of input do they take from a digibox - RGB SCART?
Yes.
> 3. What sort of outputs
RGB SCART, S-Video, composite video, optical audio output.
> 4. What sort of indexing of recordings do they have - menus,
> thumbnails, filenames, folders - is text entry required?
On DVD-RAM, a menu that shows a timestamp of when the recording started and
what input it was recorded from. On DVD-R, a similar menu but when the disc
is finalized the menu is burnt on to the final disc. You can enter a title
if you want, but it's optional.
> 5. Reliability - as the recording/playback method is non-contact, I
> would expect them to be more reliable than VCR - a fair assumption?
DVD-RAM is more reliable than DVD-R. A couple of times on my unit DVD-R
recording has stalled and it ejects the disc, and the recording is lost. It
did that to me when I was trying to record "Return of the Jedi" the other
week, and I lost my temper a little....
> As some DVD recorders are now coming down to £250 or so, I am thinking
> of going for this rather than S-VHS. Or should I wait and get a
> HDD/DVD recorder - most tasks will be time shifting rather than
> viewing pre-recorded.
Then the Panasonic HS2 could benefit you more, but it is considerably more
expensive. Currently £679 at http://www.multiregionmagic.co.uk. I decided
not to spend the extra and put the money towards buying some DVD-RAM discs
instead. Personal choice.
Terry Jones
> > 2. What sort of input do they take from a digibox - RGB SCART?
>
> Yes.
The Panasonic DMR-E30 only takes composite or SVideo input, not RGB
Terry
Terry Jones
Just read my own post.... just to be clear, I was pointing out that not
all players take RGB, I believe the E50 does.
Terry
(Not wanting to upset anyone!)
Mark Evans
"Terry Jones" <terry.e.verycommon...@btclick.com> wrote in message
news:1fx8k2e.ya1vw5wd4fkbN%terry.e.verycommon...@btclick.com...
The Panasonic DMR-HS2 DVD/HDD recorder can input RGB or S-Video on one scart socket, and
another scart socket can output RGB/S-Video.
HTH,
Mark
Willie
http://www.dvdplusrw.org/video/comparison.html
Willie
QrizB
wrote:
>Have a look at....
>
>http://www.dvdplusrw.org/video/comparison.html
Not that they'll be in any way biased, of course.
--
QrizB
I sound like I know what I'm talking about, but don't
be fooled.
Terry Jones
>
> >Have a look at....
> >
> >http://www.dvdplusrw.org/video/comparison.html
>
> Not that they'll be in any way biased, of course.
They seem to have forgotten DVD-RAM...
Terry
PS I have been using my Panasonic E30 with DVD-RAM/-R now for well over
a year now. It's never given me a single problem during that time. The
software has not glitched once and it has taken every piece of media I
have thrown at it (and that includes some CHEAP media...) .
QrizB
terry.e.verycommon...@btclick.com (Terry Jones) wrote:
>rote:
>>
>> >Have a look at....
>> >
>> >http://www.dvdplusrw.org/video/comparison.html
>>
>> Not that they'll be in any way biased, of course.
>
>They seem to have forgotten DVD-RAM...
I quite like the sound of DVD-RAM myself, principally because my
interest is mostly timeshifting, rather than archival.
Terry Jones
> >They seem to have forgotten DVD-RAM...
>
> I quite like the sound of DVD-RAM myself, principally because my
> interest is mostly timeshifting, rather than archival.
...and it worls great for that. The disks pretty well last for ever and
if you only ever have less than 4 hours outstanding to watch you never
need to swap the disk (I stlll have some in their wrappers as I thought
I'd need more than I do).
I particularly like the 'watch the prog you are recording before you
finish recording it' feature on my player... If it's a channel with
adverts I often find that I catch up with the recording before it
finishes.
Terry
Willie
> On Sun, 29 Jun 2003 17:02:15 +0100, Willie <wil...@riscpc.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >Have a look at....
> >
> >http://www.dvdplusrw.org/video/comparison.html
>
> Not that they'll be in any way biased, of course.
Of course not :) nor this interesting comparison...
Willie
Terry Jones
Yep,
They are are missing the 'Buggy Software with many complaints about
compatability/reliability' comparison between the platforms :-)
And, what does 'Partially Overwrite Old Recordings' mean? On DVD-RAM I
delete recordings I have finished with. I don't want anything to be
'partially overwritten' (I presume if you have watched half of a movie
it will record over the bit you have watched ... or in my case record
over the bit my wife has watched before I get a chance to watch it:-)
When I bought my Philips W/S set 6 1/2 years ago (great set, still going
strong but it did cost £2k) I bought a 'Matchline' VCR to go with it -
'Smartlink' was quite a novelty at the time. IIRC it was £400 when the
average VCR was £250. The bloody thing was useless, it had a PDC system
that regularly stopped recording 5 minutes into a programme. The thing
also used to 'crash' regularly with an error code displayed and 'reboot'
required to get it going again. After three months (and a fortnight at
the menders) I swapped it for a new model (and paid some more cash as it
was more expensive). The new model has a feature to allow you to
program it using the TV pages of teletext/ceefax using only 25 button
presses and a wait of 3-4 minutes for the right page to come up. It
was quicker to pop out and buy a copy of the Radio Times...
Philips clearly had no idea as to how to write reliable and usable user
interfaces for their recorders then and based on the number of postings
on this group tabout their DVD Recorders they still have a way to go.
Shame really cos the TV has been very reliable (%%% sound of wood being
gently stroked %%%)
Terry