Looking to buy a DVD recorder, but which one? (1 Viewer)

[Shahryar]

Steve,

Thanks so much for getting back to me. I never got my mother anything for her birthday because I couldn't figure out what to get her. Now, two months later, I realize this would be the perfect gift. She's always missing her favorite show because she's working now.

I would really like to make this purchase as soon as tomorrow. So if I go with the Toshiba X-32, would you have any recommendations as to where I should get it from and what's a good price? How does this compare to the $249 Pioneer 420 that's showing up on costco.com? I don't have a costco membership though so if anyone has any real world prices they've seen, that'd be helpful. I live in the Baltimore/Washington DC area.

Any advice you can give me on this will be helpful.

Shahryar

 

[SteveK]

Shahryar - I bought mine either at Buy.com or Amazon.com (can't remember which one had the best price at the time). I think you'll find the Toshiba is more expensive than the $249 you mentioned for the Pioneer; it seems I paid around $425 or so for mine. I've had it for about 8 months now, so I can't remember exactly what I paid for it. All I know is I feel it was worth every penny of the purchase price. I have recorded hundreds of hours of programming on the hard drive and transferred much of that to DVD-R after editing out commercials and other filler material. I generally record only movies from Turner Classic Movies, IFC, Sundance, etc as I generally am not interested in most television programming. So far, its performance has been flawless.

I believe Elizabeth S, who has a post above, has used both the Toshiba and the Pioneer, so she'd be able to give you a better comparison than I could, as I've only used the Toshiba. In our correspondence, she seemed to indicate that the Pioneer was easier to use than the Toshiba. The Toshiba offers numerous ways to accomplish the same goal, and its instruction manual is quite lengthy, so perhaps it can be intimidating for a new user. But once you get past the learning curve, I think you'll be very satisfied with the results.

Good luck in your decision! I'd be curious what you ultimately wind up with.

Steve K.

 

[Elizabeth S]

Hi Shahryar,

As Steve (Hi Steve!) mentioned above, I own both the Pioneer 420 and the Toshiba XS-32 and am thoroughly enjoying them both.

If you mother would primarily be using the recorder as a "record and erase" device, either unit would be quite simple to operate. I find the tuner in the Toshiba better for picking up the weaker stations, however. Once you go beyond simple recording into editing and burning, the Pioneer is simpler to use, albeit because the Toshiba has many more features you can tweak.

(Don't recall if it's been mentioned in this thread before, but one thing of note is that there is great argument over whether the XS-32 has a "black level" problem. Some users say DVDs recorded on this player look washed out on other players; others don't notice anything like that on their setups. So, a YMMV issue.)

I only have a simple analog cable hookup with no box, so I can't really speak for usage with Dish or other such connections.

(BTW, Costco seems to have run out of stock on the 420 and pulled it from the site. The new Pioneers are expected around March/April. The Toshiba XS-32 is getting a bit harder to find, as well, since the XS-52 is out, and I think other new models are expected around May. Presently, Amazon no longer has their own stock, and is selling through a third party Merchant, Target, for a very high $599. It was about $370, I think, when I purchased it about 5 months ago. I think you may find good prices if you do a price search, as dealers should be trying to clear these out before the new models.)

If you have specific questions about either player, I'd be happy to try to answer them. I love these gadgets, and am eagerly looking forward to what the new models bring.

P.S. John, curious if you went through with getting the 520 and your experience with it!

 

[steve_wener]

I have pored over this forum and it seems that I am the only person in the world who has a Samsung R-100.
No hard drive but : It records on DVD-RAM , DVD-R, DVD-RW
and has a firewire input for a video camera. It was extremely cheap - $329 Canadian. It seems this machine is too good to be true and.......it is. Having done an A/B test this is what I found. Right now in order to record at the highest quality I am taking my S-Video signal from my cable box (the box has no component out)into the recorder and S-Video from the recorder to my TV. For one thing I always have to turn on the recorder to watch tv, this bugs me (the machine takes 7 or 8 seconds until picture comes thru)and I am noticing that there is some quality loss going thru the machine (if I look at a scrolling banner at the bottom of the screen a la CNN, the words are fuzzy but when not going thru the recorder they are not). Has anyone done any kind of comparison like this with their recorders?
I am trying to find some kind of device that will send the cable box signal to the recorder as well to the tv so I can switch accordingly.

 

[Phil Tomaskovic]

Steve, your cable box doesn't have multiple outputs or only 1 S-video? Does it also have a component output that you can connect to your tv or dvd? Worst case I think you should be a ble to get a y-cable to split the output from the cable box and go to both the tv and dvd. try radio shack

tiger direct has one, but rather high at $15
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...video+splitter

I web searched for "s-video splitter"

 

[steve_wener]

My cable box unfortuately only has one S-Vid out. I actually bought a S-Video switcher to route the signal for the box to either the tv or the recorder but the signal was completely un-useable (kind of like having rabbit ears from the 1960's). Apparently a splitter cable will degrade the signal because you need to amplify the signal when you subtract from it.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

The Toshiba I just tried (RS-TX20, lists at $599) has no editing capabilities whatsoever. Irritating lack of functionality at that price point, but much more user-friendly than the godawful Philips recorder I tried before it.