DVD Recorder

I am not very tech savvy and up on the latest stuff. I have had bad luck with VCRs lately, and am too cheap to pay the monthly Tivo fee. Do DVD recorders allow a DVD to be re-written over and over like a video tape? Are they are viable replacement for a VCR?

Thanks for any help.

Reply to
Buck Turgidson
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Buck Turgidson ha escrito:

Yep! You can buy a DVD recorder and use DVD-RW or DVD-RAM media with it, and record over and over the same disc, just like a VCR tape. Also, you can use DVD-R media, but that is a write once media.

All in all, a DVD recorder is better than a VCR.

Reply to
lsmartino

On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 09:04:47 -0500, Buck Turgidson Has Frothed:

Yes with a DVD-RW or DVD-RAM.

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Reply to
Meat Plow

Probably but a unit with a hard drive would be a big improvement. Been using computers with tuner cards for ~10 years. Comparing a DVR to a VCR or recording to a disc is like comparing a typewriter to a word processor. Once you've paused live TV there's no going back.

I agree about the fee though.

Reply to
Captain Midnight

luck

What would you say the number of write /read/erase cycles could you go through before excessive dropout or whatever finally stops the repeated use of one disc. ? How many cycles before the play quality is noticeably downgraded but still playable . ?

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

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Reply to
N Cook

N Cook ha escrito:

se

That=B4s an interesting question. I have a Panasonic DVD recorder (DMR-ES10) since mid-2006, and i have tried it with DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM. This is what I have found so far:

a) DVD-R: you can write to it once, or several times in an accumulative fashion. I mean, let=B4s suppose that you want to store 4 hours of video in a disc, but you want to record half hour now, 1 hour tomorrow and so on. You can do that until the disc is full, but you can=B4t erase anything from it. I have made several recordings like that, and they are still playable. I think it=B4s matter of buying good quality media.

b) DVD-RW: you can write and erase it as many times you want theoretically, but in practice they don=B4t endure very well that kind of use. Some discs had been able to sustain 100 record/play/erase cycles. Others have failed after less than that, like 10 cycles. It depends on the brand too. I have several Imation DVD-RW=B4s at hand who have survived a lot of abuse, and I have had Maxell DVD-RW=B4s which didn=B4t give me more than 10 record/play/erase cycles. Even I had one who failed just after formatting it, and it became unusable, even the computer refused to take it. I guess I had bad luck with that one and it came defective. In any case, this is all dependant on the recorder and the media brand used. I would expect different results with another machine, or with different combinations of media brands and DVD recording machines. Also I have found something interesting: there is no gradual loss of quality after a lot of use like it happens with a VHS tape. Instead of that the disc tend to fail completely, I mean, the recorder can refuse to take it, or it will only reproduce it but not record anymore, so it=B4s more like an all or nothing situation with DVD-RW media. It works or it doesn=B4t. No middle points. I guess this happens because it=B4s a digital medium.

c) DVD-RAM: the most durable of all. I bought 20 of them as soon as I got the DVD recorder, and so far I have used just one of the discs for time shifting. The entire disc gets formatted as much as once or twice per week, and it=B4s still going strong. The plus side of using a DVD-RAM is that you can record something, and edit it using the DVD recorder, that=B4s one thing that can=B4t be done using a DVD-RW. The DVD-RW only allows you to erase a full segment, ot to keep it, but you can=B4t edit the segment. Also, after editing the DVD-RAM, you can reclaim the free space left by the editing and use it to record more. That=B4s something that can=B4t be done with a single VHS tape unless you make a copy of the edited version. Why is this useful? If you are doing a timer recording of a TV show, want to keep it, but also do you want to erase the commercials. You can erase the commercial after the recording, and also get some free space in the process. The only disadvantage of DVD-RAM discs is that they are not playable in most DVD players (unless they are designed to do that), while a DVD-RW can be playable by most DVD players after finalizing the disc.

d) DVD recordable media costs at least 6 times less than comparable VHS tapes, at least in my country, and it=B4s becoming more easy to obtain than VHS tapes.

e) Overall video quality is better than the one you get of a VHS vcr (excepting S-VHS ones), and also the sound quality is better.

Of course, a lot of the final result will depend on proper handling of the discs. The same know handling rules for CD media applies to DVD recordable media.

Summarizing: if you want maximum interchangeability, but don=B4t care about having less read/writing cycles, use DVD-RW media. That way you will have a disc which can be playable by almost all DVD players. If interchangeability is not that important, then use DVD-RAM media. It cost=B4s more, but is the most durable.

More info can be found here:

formatting link

Reply to
lsmartino

I have a TV card in my PC. But I don't think I can FF or Revwind through the show. Plus, I have to sit and watch it on the monitor, which is not very comfortable.

Reply to
Buck Turgidson

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Reply to
JR North

JR North ha escrito:

Nope, you are wrong. At least with Panasonic DVD recorders you can use a DVD-RAM disc. With a DVD-RAM you edit your movie, or show, *after the recording is made*, and you can cut any commercial or portion of the show. And if the DVD recorder has a internal harddisk, you record the show to the harddisk, edit it there, and then you produce the final DVD recording after all the editing is done, without loosing any quaility.

No VCR can do that. If you don=B4t pause the recording live, you can=B4t edit the show unless you produce a second generation copy, which will be loosy, as it usually happens when one tries to copy anythin from an analog format to another analog format.

I would expect that other brands of DVD recorders are able to use the DVD-RAM discs because they are very convenient for TV show recording.

Reply to
lsmartino

Try news:alt.dvd.video

Don't expect long life out of the DVDRWs in one of these. They are trouble.

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

Based on the amount of these that I see for repair - probably 8-10 a week on average - I would have to say that they are the most unreliable piece of consumer technology to come out in the last 30 years. They can be very picky about what media they work reliably with, and even which make. They suffer all sorts of software upgrade problems, and the sorts of faults where you think that the owner is mad or doing something wrong. For instance, I currently have one in where on some commercially pressed discs, you can't turn the subtitles off - others it's fine. I have another where timed recordings just won't happen. These are both big-name machines. In fact, I've found that some of the longest lived ones are actually the cheapo supermarket specials, although these tend to have poorly made power supplies, and you've got bulging caps on your hands after 12 months.

Another problem that you may have is that if it does go wrong out of warranty, you won't have much luck taking it to your friendly neighbourhood repair shop. The manufacturers are *very* anal about who they supply service info and spares to for this equipment - particularly so, Panasonic.

All in all, I don't believe that this technology will replace the humble VCR for long. HDD recorders are far better at replacing - and indeed improving upon - the functionality of a VCR. My HDD recorder is built into my sat box, and has proved totally reliable at its job. My recommendation to anyone wanting to invest in a new recorder, would be to spend a little bit more, and get a HDD recorder, with a DVD recorder built in. That way, the HDD section does all of the time shift day to day donkey work, and if you need to get a recording physically off the HDD, you can archive it to disc via the DVD writer.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

My recommendation to anyone

Can you buy an HDD recorder that doesn't require a monthly fee to Tivo or the like? I just don't like the idea of being beholden to someone for whatever amount a month.

Reply to
Buck Turgidson

Yes indeedy. There are many makes and models with regular tuners for terrestrial and cable transmissions. Just Google on " HDD recorder ". I'm sure that you will find many in your locality.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

couldn't agree more.

(caution -soapbox comes out....)So much for technological 'progress'. I'm growing to hate optical media in general and dvd-rws especially. Sad thing is, if the manufacturers had perhaps spent a little more on critical components and made an effort designing units with decent airflow, my workshop wouldn't be full of stacks of carcasses of those things. optical media plus cost cutting nature of today's consumer electronics= bad news.

I also agree with the 'all or nothing' nature of optical media mentioned by another poster, making it a poor choice for archiving as recovery is so hard. Not only that, but even those 'obsolete' tapes the retailers are telling us must be dumped in favour of this optical crap seem to survive better - I have cd-rs burned about 6 years ago , stored carefully and now unreadable. I have tapes, some even from the

1950s, all of which (barring the acetate based ones) ) play perfectly. Ok, maybe I was lucky, but to my mind if something such as dvd-rw or cd-rw is so new and hailed as a technological advance, it should not fail so often and so soon, as this makes a mockery of the whole format's claims.

rant off now ;-)

-B.

Reply to
b

Search for (build your own pvr).

Also see

formatting link

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

Buck Turgidson wrote: > My recommendation to anyone > > wanting to invest in a new recorder, would be to spend a little bit more, > > and get a HDD recorder, with a DVD recorder built in. That way, the HDD > > section does all of the time shift day to day donkey work, and if you need > > to get a recording physically off the HDD, you can archive it to disc via > > the DVD writer. >

Yep, got one running right now recording '24' in HD to be watched later. It's using an ATI HDTV Wonder (got 3 of them). The MPEG files can be played across the network in real time in HD. The 'main' computer is the one connected to the DLP set via DVI. BUT, this rig only records Over The AIr (free) HD / SD digital TV. The computers are not anything special. 2 Athlon XP 3200s on Gigabyte with nVidia chipset boards. The first DVR was a Sempron 2500 with 512 meg RAM which worked just fine. You want big disc drives for this. I wouldn't bother with

Reply to
stratus46

Still waiting for a DUAL TUNER HDD that isn't a Tivo.

Reply to
UCLAN

UCLAN wrote: > Arfa Daily wrote: >

Go over to

formatting link

and read Wes Newell's posts about MythTV running Linux. He has 4 or 5 tuners in one machine and can record HD with all simultaneously.

GG

Reply to
stratus46

I'm not sure how far free-to-air digital transmissions have come so far in the States. Over here in the UK, there are now four systems running in parallel - original UHF analogue, cable ( both analogue and digital ), digital satellite and UHF digital free-to-air terrestrial. Many of the HDD recorders here have dual tuners for UHF analogue and the 'Freeview' digital terrestrial service, which in theory, can be received with your existing antenna system ( Ha! ) Many TV sets also have similar dual tuner systems, but inputs to both are not always available via seperate antenna sockets on the back ( back to " you can use your existing antenna !! " ) They are soon to start switching off the analogue service here, region by region. What's the situation over there ?

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

The thought is that they suffer from heat problems. I had a recorder for a while - discs came out 'red hot'. Some recommend rigging a fan to blow air through the unit.

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Reply to
Homer J Simpson

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