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Are you happy with recordable DVD? (1 Viewer)

Norm

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I was thinking of jumping in but need feedback first. I was going to wait for Sony's recordable DVD player but after the problems I've had with my Sony products over the past few years, I think I've had enough. My Sony 670 five disc changer sometimes doesn't shut of with my remote now.
 

Jesse Skeen

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My friend has the Phillips DVD recorder and I've copied some of my old Beta TV recordings onto it. Right now I'm waiting for more improvements before I buy my own. Picture quality is very good considering it's done on the fly, but my picky eyes noticed some artifacting even on the low-compression setting. You also can only record one audio track at a time (I thought it would be fun to do a commentary or something). The neat thing about it is that it will let you put chapter stops anywhere you want when you're done recording, but it takes about 45 minutes to 'finalize' the disc afterwards.
Overall it's a step in the right direction, but something I'm gonna play wait-and-see with a while longer. I hope these do get more widespread though as they have the potential to bring lots of previously unseen stuff back into circulation. (The coolest thing I put on DVD-R is Rolling Stone Magazine's 10th Anniversary Special from 1977, complete with original commercials, with chapter marks for each commercial and segment of the show!)
 

Steve Phillips

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I have the Philips DVD recorder, and with DVD+RWs, there is NO finalization required; with DVD+R disc, the finalization takes LESS THAN ONE MINUTE! Did you mean 45 seconds? Definately not 45 minutes....

I also have a Panasonic machine. DVD-Rs on it take about 4 minutes to finalize.

Both of these work well (Philips is absolutely the better one though) and recordings at XP or SP look great. Recordings from 20 year old videotapes will be reflective of the condition of the original tape.
 

Jesse Skeen

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The discs I made taking 45 minutes to finalize were probably due to me putting in more than 50 chapter stops, including ones at every commercial. (I gave the old CBS "Special" intro its own chapter so I can play it over and over!)
Another thing I'm waiting on til I get my own though is recordable discs right now are only single-layer, so you can only get about 2 hours of decent quality (my friend wants to put my tape of the 3-hour Live Aid special onto DVD, but doesn't want to split it up or up the compression. I've heard you can get 2-sided DVD-Rs but I still want to wait til they can do dual-layer recording. The machine my friend has can only record 2-channel stereo also, I don't know what use 5.1 recording has right now but it might be useful later!
 

Steven Simon

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Norm,

I have the Panasonic DRM E30 Dvd recorder... I have had fabulous results with it. Taping or should say now, recording TV shows has never been easier..... I record all my favorite shows, and I feel the quality is very good, and worth the effort. I do have a DirectTV Tivo unit, so I use that as a buffer for what I need to record....I usually just record with DVD-R...Media is getting cheaper and cheaper every day.
 

Norm

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I tape stuff then erase most of it. Are the record-able DVDS as reusable as VHS?
 

Mike Brantley

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Norm, I do the same thing as Steven. I use my DirecTivo as a buffer to temporarily hold stuff and burn old movies from TCM and other commercial-free sources to DVD-R. I'm thrilled with the quality. My recorder is the Panasonic DMR-E20, which is older than Steven's E30. There's a new Panasonic recorder with a hard drive in it, and I'd love to have it but probably won't upgrade my unit since it's doing its job perfectly.

Dubbing old VHS tapes to DVD-R actually results in copies that look a little better than the original.

Complaints? I wish there was a keyboard input for entering titles instead of having to use the remote's joystick thing. I wish there was a digital input instead of just analog, although the old movies I'm recording are usually mono anyway.

But, mostly, I'm thrilled to make my own DVDs in real time. As to whether you should buy Panasonic or Phillips or something else, I don't know. But I'm very pleased with my Panny deck.

Meanwhile, blank media prices continue to fall. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more recording in 2003.

EDIT: Dang, I've edited this thing for typos twice already. I have butter fingers today! :b
 

Reece

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Is recording on the PC dvd decks just as easy as the SA when using sources like directivo and vhs tapes?
Are you able to use the directivos optical connection to record Dolby movies that can be played in sa dvd players?
This would be the selling point for me since my old vhs tape collection is taking up so much room and preventing me from storing my growing dvd collection, which a lot of times happens to be a duplicate of a movie I already own.
Are there any legal issues with recording shows off dtv like the Sopranos on HBO (which happens to be in 5.1)?

If none of this is possible then I might have to forgo on purchasing this toy for now.
 

Norm

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I like to tape Philly Eagles Football games to keep, but I only tape TV shows when I want to watch them later, then I erase them. I saw that new Panny with the Hard Drive, but I wish it was DVD-RW not just DVD-R. I not sure what to buy at this point maybe I should wait.
 

Norm

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I have another concern. All Football games run over two hours and I want to record at the best possible resolution. Don't most DVD's record at two hour SP. Right not I use T-200 tape that way I can fit a whole Football game on one Tape in SP.
 

Mike Brantley

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Norm, the Panasonic decks use DVD-R and DVD-RAM discs for media. The RAM discs are erasable and reusable, just as DVD-RW discs are.

Mostly, I use my DirecTivo for timeshifting stuff that I intend to erase. However, I had so much crap on there a few weeks ago that I temporarily dubbed a bunch of stuff to DVD-RAM. Then I watched and deleted from the RAM discs as I had time.
 

Steven Simon

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Norm,

The Panasonic has flexible recording times... XP is for 1 hour on a 2 hour disc (top quality). Then there is a 2 hour record mode which I use for shows like the Sopranos or 24. For every day stuff like foootball, or sports, I use the 4 hour mode..... Quality slips, but if your taping just for archival purposes, it's not bad......
 

Mike Brantley

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Norm, I don't know if the other makes have the same feature (probably do), but the Panasonic decks have a flexible recording mode that can be set for, say, three hours or 2 1/4 hours or whatever. The deck then uses the best compression rate that will fit the timer recording on a disc. There is also a 4-hour mode and even a 6-hour mode, but I don't think they look so hot. So you could program the machine to record your game by telling it what the longest running time might be.

I use this mode to dub laserdiscs that are a bit over two hours (on 3 LD sides), but it does get cumbersome. That's why I'd like to have the unit with the hard drive built in.
 

Norm

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DVD recorders without Digial cable or Sat. is it still worth it?
 

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