Stand alone DVD Recorders

[yeedog]

Hey all. I've recently been seeing some DVD players out there that can now record to DVD straight from your cable signal. Thus it functions like a VCR, you can record an play DVDs with it.

Are these things worth it or is the technology too new? They are all around 800 bucks right now and I was contimplating asking for one for christmas.

Any of you have some first hand experience with them? How is the quality? Does it just record in real time?

I was looking at this one as something pretty good.
DVD

It records to DVD+R/RW. Is that a good format for cross platform playability? I'm new to the whole DVD burning scean so any help will be great!

I would love to get one just so i can record TV shows and some apperances by some of my favorite bands straight to DVD. Right now i record to VHS and transfer it to my computer via a DV Cam. Tho i'm still only saving them in VCD format. DVD format would be awesome, espically when it's on it's own DVD.

Thanks!

--Brian

 

[MrBond]

I'd hold off right now, give them another year or so.

Panasonic has two new modesl that are really nice. I'm not sure of the model numbers, but if you go to www.panasonic.com/time they've got a site up. For about ~$700 MSRP (our local ABC Warehouse has it for $679 "or less" so you can probably score it for under $650 cause they will haggle), you can get the standard model which records onto DVDRAM and DVDR. It has "time shift" which lets you watch a recorded program while another is being recorded.

The more expensive model is sweet, has a built in 40gb hard drive. MSRP of $1000. I'm not sure if it works like a pvr where you ca n FF through commercials or not, but thats basicly the DVD Recorder I am looking for. A combo Tivo/replaytv and a DVD recorder would be so damn cool

Both panasonic units can record up to 12 hours on a double sided DVDRam disk.

 

[yeedog]

Thanks, i'll have to check out the panasonic. It sounds cool that it has a built in hard drive and all.

Is that 12 hours at DVD quallity?

 

[0roo0roo]

dvd quality is vbr mpeg 2. 2 pass real time outa the question. dv bitrate = higher constant bitrate, so amount on a single sided single layered dvdrw is pathetic. u can bump quality down a bit. dvd really needs more space.