Hard Drive Recorders?

[susanduic]

What are the advantages or disadvantages of Hard Drive Recorders? I vaguely remember reading things like that they can get "filled up". Does that mean that there's no way of deleting recorded material?

What are they supposed to replace? Do people use them instead of DVD (or combi) Recorders or is it usual to have both?

[CaptainWaggett]

They only get filled if you never delete anything and obviously there are plenty of programmes you aren't going to want to watch twice. . I love mine - it's dead easy to record stuff and you can set 'series record' so that you don't have to keep checking the time of Doctor Who every week, plus it will chase programmes round the schedule if they move unexpectedly or if you find you've got too many things set to record at once. Mine's got a USB port which I guess means I could transfer stuff direct to my pc and convert to dvd though I've never felt the need. My dvd recorder has stopping recording but the few times I did copy to it from the hard drive, it wasn't hard.

I have a set-top aerial and I've found the signal is much much better with the hard-drive than when i just had a basic box.

To be honest, I don't think they have any disadvantages if you have Freeview. And unlike Sky-plus, you don't have to keep paying Mr Murdoch every month

[dvdman]

i have 3 of them plus sky plus i love them

[theuofc]

i have 3 of them plus sky plus i love them

They are great. Plus all the perks mentioned, one can edit out commercials on a recorded program if you decide to transfer it to a dvd-r. It also saves on recording a tempting title directly to a dvd and then finding out you didn't like the film or programme once into it.

My problem is the recorders don't have enough space so I understand dvdman's having three.

Barbara

[MikeB]

My HDD/DVD is pretty good, although now I'd go for a HD twin tuner model. They can even go on the net to get Iplayer as well, and the Panasonic Blu-ray model can do all the stuff that a normal blu-ray does as well. Since you can get so much more on a blu-ray disc, their great for archiving, but the standard size for a HDD is now 500gb, and Tb1 models are probably not far away, since Sky already have 2 TB models out.

CaptainWaggett -

Mine's got a USB port which I guess means I could transfer stuff direct to my pc and convert to dvd though I've never felt the need.

If you have a Humax or similar, I'm afraid you cant transfer it via the USB. You can load stuff from a USB stick, and update the firmwear via it (or of course via the ethernet). Strangely you could do it on the old 9200 model, and there might be a crack somewhere for the later models, but its not supposed to.

Anyway, susanduic, definately get one, pref. a decent brand with HD (even if you've got a old CRT, your going to get a new TV at some point soon) and twin tuners (c.£299 for the Humax and a little less for Philips, etc - steer clear of Sagem). If you want a DVD/Blu -ray as well, then be prepared to spend around £500.

We've sold loads of them in the past couple of months (our region has just gone fully digital), since it replaces the video, does a lot more, and is of course a digibox (or two).

[CaptainWaggett]

Everyone says to steer clear of Sagem but mine has lasted 3 years so far which is pretty good value for something that cost me £100 . Certainly compared to playing £10 a month for the same service via SkyPlus

[dvdman]

Everyone says to steer clear of Sagem but mine has lasted 3 years so far which is pretty good value for something that cost me £100 . Certainly compared to playing £10 a month for the same service via SkyPlus

sky dont charge £10 anymore for use of there sky plus

[wadey]

We are on the verge of taking the plunge, the video cost a fiver off you know where and I reckon it's taped about about 5,000 hours so pretty good value for money, we have Freeview here in the North West so fingers crossed

[Dame Starry]

I find the fact that I can watch a DVD while recording a TV programme/film to my hard drive a great advantage.

My brother bought me a new Panasonic DVD recorder with a Panasonic LCD TV last year, each with its own Freeview. It has a Viera Link which means that, like a video recorder, you just press 'Record' on the remote and it'll record whatever's on the TV at the time onto the DVD hard drive without having to set anything. Plus I have 'Pause Live TV' which is brilliant for if the phone rings or if you want to put the kettle on in the middle of something.

One very small problem is that my new DVD recorder is R2 - but I still have my trusty Yamada (£30 from Amazon about 10 years ago) that plays anything from anywhere!

Having a small supply of DVD+RWs is a good idea - they're like having video cassettes.

[MikeB]

Wadey - if you get a recorder with a DVD recorder, you can transfer your videos to DVD. You need to connect the video (via some RCA leads) to the line 2 of the recorder, and then let the machine record to the hard drive. I found it a lot easier than via the PC, and you can edit frame by frame, join different bits, etc. My suggestion would be though to only transfer stuff not available on DVD - video doesn't look great after transfer, even when on HQ. Even on HQ recording you couldn't really see the difference over Standard, and Standard is a lot faster to burn.
I only did the stuff I could not get elsewhere (and not all my VHS tapes were playable anyway). 5000 hours is going to be a lot of DVD's!

Dame Starry - you can hack a Pani, even a Blu-Ray (try Video Help ) but like you, I've got an old multi region DVD that's fine to use. Frankly, if you get the hack wrong, thats £200 gone (I know that the manufacturers regard a hack as invalidating the warrenty). You can buy the EX83 online as a multi-region for about £200 though, so thats one possible solution.

[wadey]

Thanks MikeB but we only have 6 tapes so we don't get a backlog ! If it hasn't been watched it gets recorded over

[Dame Starry]

Dame Starry - you can hack a Pani, even a Blu-Ray (try Video Help ) but like you, I've got an old multi region DVD that's fine to use. Frankly, if you get the hack wrong, thats £200 gone (I know that the manufacturers regard a hack as invalidating the warrenty). You can buy the EX83 online as a multi-region for about £200 though, so thats one possible solution.

I know it can be hacked - you can hire a very safe gizmo for about £30 - but the recorder was a gift (and cost over £200!), so I wouldn't do it; a new multi-region player isn't much more than that anyway.

I never understood why they stopped making the Yamada 5520, it's a great little machine and mine still looks brand new. The original remote packed up and an 'All-4-One' proved to be useless but I managed to get a perfect second-hand original from e-Bay for about a fiver.

[dvdman]

I know it can be hacked - you can hire a very safe gizmo for about £30 - but the recorder was a gift (and cost over £200!), so I wouldn't do it; a new multi-region player isn't much more than that anyway.

I never understood why they stopped making the Yamada 5520, it's a great little machine and mine still looks brand new. The original remote packed up and an 'All-4-One' proved to be useless but I managed to get a perfect second-hand original from e-Bay for about a fiver.

what is the size of your dvd recorders harddrive on your panasonic ?? mine is 250 gb

[Dame Starry]

what is the size of your dvd recorders harddrive on your panasonic ?? mine is 250 gb

It's 160gb - I wouldn't want a bigger one, I have enough trouble keeping up with this one!

[dvdman]

It's 160gb - I wouldn't want a bigger one, I have enough trouble keeping up with this one!

the only problem i have with the panasonics which i dont like is once you copy your programme onto a disc and then finilise the disc you cant ever copy that programme back onto the hard drive unless you use ram dvds on the player which i use only on the panasonics but with the Pioneer machines you can a 2 hrs disc takes 8 mins to copy onto the drive and then 8 mins onto a blank disc absouletely fantastic

[Dame Starry]

the only problem i have with the panasonics which i dont like is once you copy your programme onto a disc and then finilise the disc you cant ever copy that programme back onto the hard drive unless you use ram dvds on the player which i use only on the panasonics but with the Pioneer machines you can a 2 hrs disc takes 8 mins to copy onto the drive and then 8 mins onto a blank disc absouletely fantastic

That doesn't cause me a problem - they copy back in real time and I do that when I have something else to do or leave it copying when I go to bed.

[MikeB]

My Sony will upload from a disc to the hard drive in real time only, even on Standard, so I suspect it might be common to most recorders now. Pioneer is a high level brand, and possibly the extra value of the feature wasn't worth it to the other manufacturers.

DVDman - have you tried using a different brand of DVD? According to the manual (for the EX83), 'You can copy the content of finalised DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD-RW
(DVD-Video format), +R, and +R DL to the HDD' (page 55). It might be that the brand you used was twitchy, or that the machine just prefers DVD-R to DVD+R - it does happen. The manual doesn't help - a lady brought one in to ask some questions about her machine, and it seemed three times more complicated than the one for my Sony, which does basically the same thing! DVD-RAM is a fine format, but I know my work dos'nt sell them now, and they are not exactly cheap.

[Dame Starry]

the only problem i have with the panasonics which i dont like is once you copy your programme onto a disc and then finilise the disc you cant ever copy that programme back onto the hard drive unless you use ram dvds on the player which i use only on the panasonics

I've just re-read that and I can't say that I've had that problem. I use DVD-Rs, DVD-RWs and DVD+RWs and I'm pretty sure I've recorded from them all back onto the hard drive - even if it was in 'real' time.

It's not something I need to do very often though.