Terapin VCD recorder at Sam's Club $199.98

[Fire17]

A friend of mine bought one in Ohio at Sam's b&m and they had tons
of them. I ordered one online yesterday and it just shipped. They
seem to be out of stock on line now.

 

[Brolli007]

That sounds like a cool toy, let us know how it works when you have tried it out. Thanks.

 

[Kwad Guy]

All the reviews I read of this, including those in such typically
"vendor-friendly" sources as StereoReview basically said the
Terapin sucks...I thought it'd be a cool toy, and maybe for 200
clamolas it still is, but my interest waned quickly in light of the
reviews.

kwad

 

[Fire17]

The user reviews I have read sound good if you get a good unit.
I never had the nerve to order it from online retailer, but Sam's
has the best return policy around.

 

[clunk]

I thought the terapin cost more like $500. At $200, it may be a go.

Review from VCDHelp.com

 

[Fire17]

You might want to call your Sam's first. I ran over to the Ocala Fl
Sam's and they had no idea want I was talking about. Luckly I
got one online before they want out of stock.

 

[Jono182]

or you could buy a $20 tv tuner card and encode your video to svcd....but thats just my idea

edit: or even better, encode it to divx and play it on your dreamcast!

 

[samgoody69]

Got the item #, Fire17?

I am in central Ohio, what part of OH are you at?

 

[Fire17]

My friend lives near Dayton he bought his thursday. The sku # online was 446170. When I gave the # to the sam's in Ocala Florida they said it
was for sweatpants. What they call it on my order is "Terapin Cd Video
Recorder - Raven Grey".

 

[geckojohn]

This seems like a pretty good deal to me... It looks like a neat toy! How many minutes of video can you put on a 700mb cdr? Does anyone have one of these?

 

[Kato]

Does it really look like this?

Terapin recorder

 

[geckojohn]

I found a review of this: Review

It doesn't seem that good... Does anyone know of any other vcd recorders out there?

 

[dimwit]

Max 74 minutes, no SVCD, forget it. I'll wait for set top DVD-RWs which are just around the corner. Until then, my VCR works just fine.

 

[maxxas]

I agree that 74 minutes is limiting, but, IMHO, this is still worth a look. Since stand alone CD recorders still run for around the same price, it seems to me that if you consider the VCD functionality an additional "feature", the Sam's Club price is a pretty good deal.

Interestingly, the two posted reviews seem to have some serious discrepencies in their assessment of build quality and performance. Wonder if this is a quality control issue that Terapin has since worked out.

 

[namlook]

Yeah this makes no sense to me. 74 minutes? Wait for a DVD recorder.

 

[psy]

I bought a Terapin recorder last year for $400 and thought it was worth my time and money at that time. It is a very simple and effective machine for recording cartoon shows for the kids (which I can then play on our portable DVD player in the car/on trips). The picture quality is fine for cartoons on a small screen, but the quality/low resolution is distracting on a big (36" plus) screen.

I realize that a lot of people can use their computers to do the same thing as this Terapin, but this is real time recording with no effort other than pushing a few buttons. I figured that it was not worth my time and effort to archive cartoons and other disposable programming. Recording to a blank CD-R is also a lot cheaper than buying DVD-R or DVD+RW media.

Given the decrease in costs for a DVD recorder, most people would rather wait before buying anything for this function. But I would probably recommend it to people with kids who need something soon (not in six months or a year) to stockpile entertainment for those holiday trips.


YMMV.

 

[jonnashville]

If you don't mind picture quality that's worse than a 1978 VHS machine, by all means, throw away your $200.

 

[geckojohn]

I agree, wait a year or so and there will be much better recording devices..

 

[darth_beavis]

It seems like a good use for my 100s of free blank cds i've aquired but if the quality sux i guess there's not much point.

 

[potcedotcom]

I reviewed this unit almost a year ago. Read about it HERE

BTW, ignore the link to a free sample VCD from Terapin. . .they removed the link. I will remove it soon, when I get time. Overall, I liked the unit, but it has it's limitations. Read the review for more details.

 

[Fire17]

I received my Terapin yesterday, and I'm very happy with it.
I download a lot of vcds from the net so I know what to expect from
them, and so far the vcds that I have recorded from directv are of better quality than anything I have downloaded. I bought the Terapin mostly
to record tv show such as Enterprise. For this the Terapin is Perfect
because I can put one show on one disk. Dvd Recorders are great but I get
my cdrs mostly for free or near, and there is no copy protection on a
Terapin so for me it is perfect.

 

[jbarm]

Just bought a Terapin this week from Sam's for $199 and am quite happy with it. A real hot deal for the price.

I've made lots of VCDs via the other PC-based methods (real time and slow encoding) and the quality looks to be the same. The great thing about the Terapin is that it took me about 65 minutes total time to create a 60 minute VCD from my Digital 8 camcorder. Easy connection, push a couple of buttons like on a VCR, done. Can't do that even with my All In Wonder real time capture.

Also, you can do 80 minute VCD's with a 80 min CDR ($0.25 each). So you can actually put some shorter movies on one disk. If you need to record more than 80 minutes, just pop another CDR in and record (takes about 15 seconds to switch).

Guys go on about quality, but VCD's are really watchable to me. With a good source it is about VHS in quality. Bad source will give you bad quality (even if you are capturing in MPEG2 and burning on DVD's). Normal televisions have the same resolution as VCD's (320x240).

Thinking about moving all of your VHS tapes to DVD, guess what? They are going to look like VHS quality on DVD because your new DVD's are only as good as the VHS tapes you pulled the data from.

Those who say they can get a PC-based DVD burner for $375 aren't looking at the whole picture. If you want real-time DVD encoding, throw in the cost of a DVCII ($299) or Instant DVD ($199) and then throw in DVD blanks (I'd hate to create 'coaster's' at $5 a pop). Stand alone DVD recorders like the Panasonic are about $800. DVD recorders are also an immature technology with a format war going on and so you might buy the loser in the format war and have a white elephant (remember Betamax)

The Terapin is a great deal for someone who wants more of a digital VCR like me. When stand-alone DVD recorders are in the $300 range and media is in the $2 range (3 or 4 years maybe) then I'll probably switch.

jb

 

[dimwit]

Normal televisions have the same resolution as VCD's (320x240)

Aren't TVs actually 320x480 interlaced with VHS being 240x480 interlaced? VCDs just throw away the interlaced frame.

EDIT: Meant TVs being 720x480 (NTSC anyway for US).

 

[erickotz]

OK, a few points. First off, VCD's are HIGHLY dependant on your source material. If you have a snowy picture (Cable) then it will probally look real bad. If you're recording from something like C-band or a rooftop antenna, it will look MUCH better.
NTSC TV's are 525 lines, and interlaced. However, only 480 of those lines are actual picture material (the remaining lines are the sync pulses) Standard VHS is 240 lines. Super Beta is 280 lines. SVHS is 400 lines. ED Beta is 500 lines. VHS can be highly dependant on the equipment you use though. If you record and playback in VHS on a SVHS machine, you will find it will look SIGNIFICANTLY better than most VHS machines, as the processing circuitry in most SVHS machines is far superior to that in most VHS machines. VHS machines tend to have smudgy/bleeding color, lots of chroma noise, and other problems, which the superior processing circuitry in SVHS machines help compensate for.
But anyway, my point is that given a good source, a VCD is roughly equivellent to a VHS tape, but it depends a LOT on the source. Give it something that's fast action (like a basketball game or racing) and it will pixelate. VCD and VHS each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I'd reccomend an SVHS machine over this.

 

[jbarm]

Oh yeah. I forgot that another 'feature' of the Terapin is that you can copy Macrovision protected tapes and DVD's with this machine 'for backup purposes only'. No need for a Macrovision stripper.

Given how many folks out there are ripping DVD's to VCD, this is a nice feature. You could rip a DVD in the time it takes to play the movie rather than the hours and hours (overnight for many) that people are doing now.

jb