Give me an "edumacation" on DVD Recorders, please.

[FCWesel]

Hi all.

I was thinking about investing in a DVD recorder for my TV.

I have Comcast Cable, if that means anything.

What I am looking for is something to "tape" (Record onto DVDs) shows I might not be able to watch when they are on and be able to maybe take them with me to watch when I am on a buisness trip or whatever.

I seriously know almost nothing about the technology on the whole or that of that Tivo service thing.

Anything you can advise me on or any personal experiences that you can share would be truly appreciated.

Thanks for your help and suggestions.

 

[FCWesel]

Woo! Is there a special prize for stumping ENWorld with a inquiry/call for aid?

 

[Temprus]

I currently have a GoVideo dvd recorder/vcr. Very easy to use, as easy as a well designed vcr. Two quirks. It is -R/-RW only and all dvds it burns will not work on pc based dvd-/+rw drives, works on regular dvd drives, just not burners. Took me awhile to catch on because I had a regular dvd drive too in my main machine (and recently died for no known reason).

Note: Some shows are record once (many PPV movies) or even non-recordable (especially macrovision recorded sources). My machine tells you if it can't record, never ran into a record once show yet.

 

[WayneLigon]

If you're using it to timeshift and delete instead of building a DVD library you're going to keep (until the format changes again and we have to buy all new Stuff), I'd say think about TIVO or see if ComCast offers a comparable DVR.

I've been toying with the idea of getting a DVD recorder myself, but can't decide between that and the TIVO, or the TIVO with the built-in recorder.

 

[Thotas]

I have a Sylvania DVD recorder, model DVR90DE. The market must have something better; I have to go now, but I'll post details within a couple of days.

 

[Rel]

I'm in the video business and I have a fairly top end burner/recorder (well, it was cutting edge a couple years ago but that probably doesn't mean squat right now). It has a big hard drive on it so that you can record stuff to that or to the DVD drive.

It depends on what you want to do with the machine you get. If you want to build a video library with it then you can probably just settle on a DVD recorder. If you want to "timeshift" as WayneLigon said, then a TiVo is probably the way to go. A machine with a hard drive gives you the benefits of both.

One nice feature that mine has is that it dubs from the hard drive to DVD at double speed. So if I record something on the hard drive and then decide that I want a permenant copy then it is a quick thing to burn it over onto DVD.

 

[Dimwhit]

Sounds like TiVo and TiVo2Go might be ideal for you. I've never used DVD recorders for recording straight from TV.

 

[FCWesel]

Hey everyone, thanks for your posts.

I like the idea of recording to a HD and then having the option to burning it onto a DVD. My goal would be to make sure I can watch it on my laptop, though, when I am on the commute or on buisness (or whatever). There's a fe wmore shows I would love to watch, but just don't have the convience-time for.

Hey, does Tivo (or any of these things) cut out commercials once person said they did another said no.

Thanks again, folks.

 

[Thotas]

It appears you've got the info you need, but I did promise, so here's a fuller review. It's also a -R/-RW machine, and it has two mdes of recording. One is supposed to allow you to play the recorded disc on another player, but it seems, as mentioned above, that my computer is not considered to be a legitimate player by this standard. The same mode does not allow editing of commercial material, so if I want to be able to create commercial-edited archived discs, they are unplayable on any other machine, even one of the same model. I imagine this is some sort of copyright protection measure, but I can't help noticing that if my machine is stolen or broken somehow, all the material I've built up becomes inert plastic.

Another peculiarity of this make and model: after buying this machine, I talked to the tech support (several times, I might add, to solve one problem -- which turned out to be exactly what I thought it was, though the first 3 calls I made told me that couldn't possibly be it) and in the course of things found out that Sylvania's machines don't have real good compatibility with Memorex blank media, and JVC is a much better match. So I looked all over for JVC -RW discs, and couldn't find them anywhere. I went to the store that I bought the machine from, which sells only Sylvania machines and mostly Memorex media and let them know what the tech support folks told me. This was early this year, and today I noticed JVC -RWs in that store. So it may be that the wheels turned slowly but the electronics dept. of the store did respond to my input. I'll let you know if I notice any difference in the performance of the discs.

 

[WayneLigon]

Hey, does Tivo (or any of these things) cut out commercials once person said they did another said no.

At one time they did. The current plan, and I do not know if it has been implemented yet, is to put popups up when you fast forward through commercials or something like that.