Confused about DVD recorders..... (1 Viewer)

[Tommy*M]

Apparently, some of the manufacturers of DVD recorders are about as confused as I am, from what I've read. Well, I don't really know where to start......I was actually in my car, about to drive to the store and purchase the Philips DVDR985. It was about then that everything I have read the past few weeks started to set in and eat at me. The progressive scan glitch won't affect me (before last week, I didn't even know what progressive scan meant, so yes, I am a novice). But then I read about timer glitches, and "missing video" glitches, "NO DISC" glitches and such. I finally decided that I don't know enough about what I'm buying to rush out and spend money.....not yet anyway. Now I turn to the people here, because you all know more than I do about this stuff, and nobody here is trying to sell anything, so I can get unbiased opinions.

Anyway....I know that Pioneer and Panasonic have DVD recorders on the market also (with Panasonic supposedly releasing anthird-generation model this month), although it seems harder to find information on these models than the Philips. It seems Philips spent most of their time on marketing instead of testing their product.

What I was wondering is....for those of you who own a DVD recorder of any kind (stand-alone models).....are you happy with what you have, or do you wish you had waited? I can afford to spend the money, but I can't afford to waste it. I really liked what Philips presented, until I read more. Now I have decided I don't wish to give Philips $1,000.00 so I can do a beta test for them. These sorts of glitches are something they should have made sure didn't happen. With the kinds of glitches appearing on their product, along with the customer service I have read about, I am getting the impression they are a very unprofessional company that is not willing to admit they have released their product too early, before they made sure it actually worked.


That being said, are there any recomendations for other products, or should I just wait until all these things get sorted out (glitches, DVD-R/RW versus DVD+R/RW, etc.)? Anyway, I would very much appreciate any input, ideas, suggestions, or opinions. I find myself very lost and confused about the whole subject, so anything at all would be helpful.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Eugene Hsieh]

In your shoes I'd probably just buy the cheapest one on the market. That would be the Panasonic DMR-E30. Its predecessor, the DMR-E20, has been quite popular. The E20 has supposedly been less glitchy with slightly better image quality from what I've read, but I don't have any personal experience since I don't own one. It does seem, however, that Philips has done a more thorough job advertising their product.
The machine uses DVD-R and DVD-RAM. DVD-R allows for compatibility with most standard DVD players. Compatibility of DVD+R (Philips) and DVD-R (Pioneer, Panasonic) should be similar, in the 80-90% range. DVD-RAM does not share this high compatibility and is higher priced than both DVD-RW and DVD+RW, but is a rerecordable format while allows interesting features such as Time Slip (which is the ability to watch the beginning of a video while it's still recording say the end of it).
The DMR-E30 is $550-700, vs. the $750-1000 of the Philips 985 and the $1250-1350 of the Pioneer 7000. Personally I'm hoping for recorders to drop below $500 before I get one.
Check out DVDplusRW.org for info on the Philips, and Link Removed for info on the Panasonic and Pioneer machines.
There are also hard drive-endowed machines coming, but it will be a couple of months until they're out, and they ain't gonna be cheap. I think the MSRP on the Panasonic DMR-HS2 is US$1199, which I'm guessing means a street price of $800-1000.
By the way, check my sig for some general information (geared more towards PC drives though).