DVR and DVD recording, what's the best way? (1 Viewer)

[Joel Stein]

I like the idea of a DVR for time-shifting; a hard drive takes up less room than a stack of video tapes. But I would also like the option of burning to DVD if there is something I want to keep and/or view on a different player. So what's the best way to handle it?

It seems there aren't that many DVR/DVD recorder combos, and they tend to be more expensive. Am I better off getting two separate units? Would such a burn be comparable quality as in a combo unit?

Or should I try building something myself with a pc, tv card, big hard drive, and a disc burner?

Thanks for any advice/insight.

 

[Jerome Grate]

I'm no expert, but for me the easiest path would be the DVR to the DVD recorder. I own a DVD-recorder and love it. The quality of the recordings are very good, close to if not identical to source in some occasions, and using the DVR as the source, archiving to DVD is easy and you can edit commercials from your timed recordings. DVD recorders are cheap now and work better than VCRs. The higher end models actually now come with HDMI for upscaling standard DVDs to 1080i. Don't know if it's an issue but playback of your material through HDMI will probably look most impressive.