DVD Recorders

[David Brent]

You may be surprised to hear that DVD recorders are only just becoming popular over here.
I'm thinking about getting one but as i know many of our members have been using them for some time, i was wondering if anyone could inform me of the pro's and con's / do's and dont's of using DVD recorders that they themselves have experienced.
Your information will help me decide on if/what to buy.
Are most members happy with their brand of recorder?
Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks chaps!

Dave.

[Jim]

David Brent: You may be surprised to hear that DVD recorders are only just becoming popular over here. I'm thinking about getting one but as i know many of our members have been using them for some time, i was wondering if anyone could inform me of the pro's and con's / do's and dont's of using DVD recorders that they themselves have experienced. Your information will help me decide on if/what to buy. Are most members happy with their brand of recorder? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks chaps! Dave.

Hi David,

DVD recorders are about £600-700 at the moment, (unless someone else knows better!), but I expect they will come down in price. They are a bit too rich for me at the moment . What sort of price are they asking for over there?

[sanndevil]

DVD Recorders are about £250 these days - roughly half the price from what I paid 12 months ago! A Sickener.

I would recommend buying one which supports as many formats as possible - e.g. DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, CD, SACD, CD-R, MP-3 etc etc.

Also, get one which has been converted to multi-region.

Hope that helps.
Nigel

[JamesM]

I have heard of prices as low as £199. I would not get the cheapest though.

[Rob Compton]

What I'm not clear about, with a multi format recorder, is do you choose the format you want to record in? Or how does this work?

rgds
Rob

[sanndevil]

The machine works out the format by the type of media you stick in the machine.


Cheers
Nigel

[Rob Compton]

Thanks Nigel - now I understand! :) However, would anyone like to take a guess on which format will still be around in 5 - 10 years time? I'm thinking of the problems you could have if you transfer your VHS tapes (thousands, in my case) to a format that then disappears

rgds
Rob

[Steve Crook]

Rob Compton: Thanks Nigel - now I understand! :) However, would anyone like to take a guess on which format will still be around in 5 - 10 years time? I'm thinking of the problems you could have if you transfer your VHS tapes (thousands, in my case) to a format that then disappears rgds Rob

You have already taken that risk with VHS and will be taking it again whichever format you go for. Nobody knows for certain.

Most current formats will probably still be around in 5 years time. I doubt if any of the current formats will still be around in 10 years time. I doubt if DVDs will be around then either.

Steve

[David Brent]

Thanks guys,

The price of DVD recorders here are basically the same as those in the UK. There are cheaper brands with names you've never heard of before but i steer clear of those.
It's very disheartening to read that Steve thinks they may have a short lifespan.
As Rob says,it leaves you in a puzzle about what to do with all those VHS tapes.
No one has mentioned the quality of DVD home recordings at this stage.
Are they really top quality or are there some flaws that occur? I believe some can be programmed to delete television commercials from the recording.Is that true?
Also can DVD recordable discs be used multiple times like a VHS tape? What would be the average life of such a disc before quality diminishes?

Dave.

[ollie]

Here's my experience so far.
I purchased a pannasonic dmr e55 roughly 6mnths ago £229.It is multi region,and will play most current formats + - mp3 vcd,it uses the - format for one shot recording,and a system called RAM for recording over and over,the stated time of re-writing these disc's is 100,000 times ish lol.

I believe pannasonic have artificially aged some of these disc's for life time expectency i cant remember exactly 30yrs + (i dont know about you lot but i plan to be dead by then,so i wont really care about me film collection then lmao)

I would recommend using the best quality disc's you can afford,i use panny's own(expensive!)close to £1 per disc,and a brand called ritek ridisc(30p per disc),these seem to work well with my machine 200 disc's now NO! failures.

Storage is also IMPORTANT,disc's need to be stored upright in a dark case and not in direct sunlight(pretty standard for most formats).

The quality of these machines is fantastic, the difference in quality(source dependant) compared to vhs is miles apart,only a few differences in operation to a vhs machine i.e finalising(completing a disc),and editing ads out is easy.

Who knows what format's there will be in the future with technology moving so fast,but i get the feeling there will be time, if some drastic change in storage capability occurs, we'll have time to convert our collection's again! like some of us are doing now with vhs to dvdr.

My experience so far has been a positive one ,hope this is of some help. wink

cheers Ollie.

[sanndevil]

Ok – let's look into my crystal ball to try and answer your points!

Firstly, DVD is a transitory technology, and it is unlikely to have a shelf-life as long as VHS. It makes no sense to me for a technology to rely on spinning a disk thousands of time a minute to retrieve data – mistakes can be made and moving parts wear / become misaligned / get dirty.

I see technology going two ways. One, it will be possible to download any movie 'on-demand' over the Internet (or the equivalent) in a few years time, though obviously the big blockbusters will be the first to get that treatment. Secondly, for those wanting to buy on sell-through, there will be solid state memory cards / sticks containing an entire movie in high fidelity. Already large capacity memory sticks are available to save computer files on them, but as yet their price is too high to justify their use in that vertical market (i.e. a movie needs to be £20); the time will come however.

As far as converting a collection of VHS tapes to DVD-R – not something I would advocate. The only reason for doing this I can see is to save space – tapes are bulky! You won't get a better quality recording and remember that VHS is (believe it or not) a stable medium – I have tapes over 20 years ago which play fine. I have DVD-R recordings less than 12 months old which have rotted rendering them useless. Perhaps I got a bad batch of blanks, but who knows how recordings made today will react in 10 years. The DVD-R dye technology looks inherently unstable to me (remember laserdiscs!!!), but I'm not an expert.

I have a policy of recording to DVD-R any movie which is broadcast on TV and I already own on VHS. I then take the VHS tape down to the local charity shop and feel a nice warm fuzzy feeling that I've contributed. However, considering my lack of trust in DVD-R (see above) perhaps this is a little risky! Sooner or later, once all the movies I have on VHS are broadcast again on TV, my entire collection will be on DVD / DVD-R.

As far as quality is concerned, don't necessarily expect a recording to be as good as a top of the range Hollywood sell-through product. Remember that retail DVDs tend to be 9GB double sided disks, whilst DVD recorders can only record half that – 4.7GB. When you set your DVD recorder you have to make a judgement on what quality recording you want versus how much data you want on a disk. For instance, you can save a 30 minute show on "ultra quality" but it will use up a significant portion of the disk. If you want to record a three hour movie, you will have to save it in "low quality" mode, and you won't be able to use 16:9 widescreen format – the blank disk simply doesn't have the capacity. The retail product can offer that because it has twice the capacity.

Regarding adverts – I don't know of any DVD recorders offering the facility to skip them yet (I could be wrong of course) but I have heard it discussed. It sounds more like the preserve of the PVR – another option you may want to consider. I also have a PVR type facility on my computer – I have a Nebula TV card which records broadcast TV direct to my hard disk, and I can then edit out adverts. However, be aware – ITV are biting back, fearing revenue losses. They now use cross fade techniques as they cut back to a movie making it very difficult to locate a good point to resume recording without loosing some of the movie. Blighters!

Hope that helps (a little more negative than Ollie's comments I'm afraid!!!)

Cheers
Nigel

[David Brent]

Many thanks Nigel and Ollie.
Your most intelligent information and advice certainly gives me food for thought.
I didn't realise the low capacity DVD disks held under "ultra quality".
Nigel's experience with DVD-R recordings "rotting" within a 12 month period certainly is alarming.
I already have a DVD player - I may just hold off from getting a recorder for a bit longer.
Thanks again for all your help.
Much appreciated clap

Dave.

[Jim]

With all this talk about DVDs rotting after a few months/years; does this apply to the commercially recorded ones as well?

[sanndevil]

Thankfully, categorically not! The manufacturing process is totally different. Rest assured!

Cheers
Nigel scarf

[Jim]

sanndevil: Thankfully, categorically not! The manufacturing process is totally different. Rest assured! Cheers Nigel scarf

Cheers Nigel.