Community Newsletter: Q&A: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs
- 3/10/08 5:01 PM
Re: Panasonic and Sony Hard Disk Recorders
by bobeld - 3/8/08 4:50 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I own a Panasonic HD recorder with a 400GB hard drive (DMR-E500H). My brother has a Sony model with a smaller capacity. They are all no longer made. Mine is currently in the shop because it cannot receive the integrated TV guide which makes recording automatic. The authorized repair facility told me that they stopped making them because everyone was using TIVO or the cable or FIOS boxes and that their record to hard drive ability opened them up to possible copyright lawsuits. Imagine copying a season of shows that the producers want to package and sell in the stores. Also, the Panasonics and Sony's are relatively old (3-4 years) and record only NTSC. I currently am using a FIOS provided Motorola set-top box which is costing me $13 a month (about what a TIVO would cost). I find it integrates beautifully with the FIOS program guide and, as a person who swore he would never pay a subscription fee for TIVO, makes me eat my words. It is worth it - It can record in High Definition which my Panasonic can't and has two tuners and will let me watch a recorded program which the two tuners are recording different shows.
I don't understand the value of the new machines (Philips makes one) that have a tuner and record to DVD. Do they even have program guides? How much recorded TV can you fit on a DVD? I could fit about 100 hour long shows on my Panasonic hard drive recorder? And I could erase shows after viewing. What do you do after you have seen the shows you recorded onto DVD - throw the DVD out?
DRV/VHS Combo
by WildClay - 3/8/08 7:17 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Like you, I did not want another subscription service, but there were more reasons I decided against TiVo, I wanted to burn DVD's and I wanted to really remove commercials from shows I recorded and then wanted to burn to DVD (more on this later), and finally, I did not want my computer to be in the mix in any way.
Many years ago I bought a Panasonic DVD recorder with a built in 80G Hard Drive so you record to the hard drive and then burn your DVD. You can also burn right to DVD but if you get a burn error then you have lost your show, better to record to the hard disk first then to a DVD. I can say without a doubt that it was the perfect solution, however, there is always a "but" in life...
The first thing is moving your VHS tapes to DVD, if you plan to do that you DO NOT want to buy a combo-unit, the copy protection will prevent you from making a copy of your store bought VHS tapes, but you can use them to transfer anything you recorded off cable/TV to VHS before and move them to DVD. The store bought ones are mostly going to be copy protected.
Google/Yahoo "The Clarifier" by FacitVideo, I am not sure they are in business anymore but I found planty of places still selling them. This hooks up between you VHS player and DVD recorder, this is why you don't want a combo-unit, you need the box cabled between the VHS player and DVD recorder, with a combo-unit you can't do that.
It worked great for me, I moved my entire VHS collection to DVD. Beware though there are a lot of phoney's out there that don't work, this I knew would work because a friend had one and it worked for him. It only defeats Macrovision protection which was the most common with VHS tapes. There are likely units that will remove other kinds, but as I said take great care before buying, for every unit that really works there are like 10 that don't! Please only use this to copy your legit bought tapes, it's poor form to pirate not to mention illegal...
You will want to do it over time, since the record process happens in "real-time", that is, you have to play the movie on your VHS like you were watching it, then when you burn to DVD from the DVD Recorder hard drive you can burn at high speed. So you don't over-heat/load your DVD recorder, I would give it an hour break between burns.
If you want to go all out you can get a DVD Label kit from like Neato that will let you make covers and even a sticker to put in the DVD, I went with just the covers and used a magic marker to label the DVD itself. (You can get Cover art from places like WalMart or Amazon and other places that have a picture of the cover, just download the cover and the Neato package will let you size it to your DVD cover, typically you can only get the front, if you want the back, go to IMDB and they have the summary, actors, time, etc... cut an paste that info on to the back cover in Neato.
OK, now that you VHS collection is taken care of, note that this will only record Stereo, so if you want surround sound you'll need to go buy the DVD, over time I did replace some, like Top Gun by buying a DVD, but for many, like TV shows I never bought a DVD, little point.
The Panasonic's (I have two) have a gizmo on them that let them control your Cable or Sat box, so if what you want to record is from that source, make sure to buy a unit that has this feature. It is a little Infra-Red box that you set in-front of your cable box and you tell the DVD recorder the brand and you are good, the same as a unversal remote but even easier to set up. This takes care of your "source" if it is not antenna. When it goes to record, it sets the channel on the Cable/Sat box as well as turns it on if it is not on already. The unit I have will "capture" a week of TV Guide from the cable, so in many ways it is like TiVo, but unlike TiVO if the show moves time slots and you have it set to always record the show, it will miss it...
So not you have you VHS covered and your way to control the source box for Cable/Sat/Other.
Now for the rubs, with ATSC (digital tuner), Blue-Ray, High Def, and Widscreen you have to ask, do I wait a little time or buy now. You can get a DVD recorder with dual tuners analog and ATSC, you can also get ones that will deal with Wide-Screen. If your only source is your cable/Sat box, then the tuner does not really matter as you will just connect the recorder using Video/Left/Right cables for standard def or HDMI for High Def.
More rubs, there are no High-Def recorders on the market in the US yet, at least not Blue-Ray, they will likely pop out later this year or early next year. So why the rub...Well a standard DVD does not hold a High Def movie, not enough space, so the player will have to compress it and you will no longer have a high def movie, no matter if you recorded to the hard disk in High Def. you will not get High Def on your DVD, the new units do support Wide Screen though.
Since I have had my units a long time I more than got my moneys worth out of them, I record everything, even my regular TV shows to the DVD hard disk. Before watching them, I go through a process called in Panasonic lingo "shorten segment". This allows you to mark the start of a commercial break and then mark the end and hit erase, this removes the commercials so when you watch or burn the DVD there are no commercials to have to "skip", and I must say it does a great job putting that gap together, it is seemless while viewing.
Good Luck, there are many brands, I have only tried Panasonic and it has been great! Good feature mix, lots of inputs and outputs, burns fast, allows you to compress with having the ultimate picture quality is not an issue. (I actually have a DVD that has 6 hours of Twilite Zones on it, I just told it, make it fit. Personally I can't tell any picture quality loss at all eventhough it crammed 6 hours in to 2 hours of DVD space. (It uses VBR, Variable Bit Recording) which allows it to not record things that don't move or change from frame to frame.)
Hope this Help.
One unit does it all, without fees.
by Tom Pilcher - 3/8/08 8:49 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Since I work at Best Buy, I am familiar with a couple you might look out for. One is the Panasonic "EZ47" (discontinued in stores, but might still be available elsewhere), and the other is LG's Multiformat DVD Recorder/VCR Combo; available at most stores and on-line
Model: RC797T | SKU: 8251535
This is a progressive scan DVD player that upconverts via HDMi connection, has a built in ATSC tuner, and a 4-head VCR that allows internal transfer of old tapes to DVD.
The only fault I find with all of these combos and DVD recorders, is that they don't allow for anything higher than S-video input from an external source!
Some years back, there used to be a DVR made by Panasonic (I believe) that allowed recording to an internal hard-drive without paying programming fees. However, I think it was killed off by TIVO over a copyright infringement issue.
GOOD LUCK!
Check Out The EchoStar TR-50
by jrj90620 - 3/8/08 9:02 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This was introduced at the recent CES show in Vegas and got a "Best Of Show" from CNET.Just Google it to find out more.I don't know what the cost will be.It is supposed to available about July,2008.
There are multiple options
by DSE319 - 3/8/08 9:36 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
There are multiple options.
The one I use is to get the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD from my cable provider. It cost me an extra $8 per month for the service and no extra for the box. The box puts out digital audio and an HD signals of 480i, 480p. 720p, and 1080i. I have put an external eSATA drive on it so that the storage capacity went from 160G to 650G or about 20 hours to over 100. The quality of the software on this box is not considered good but it does get the job done. It has two tuners and I can watch a third program while both tuners are busy. It allows pausing live programming and can automatically record new programs for a series. This may be your cheapest solution.
There is the Tivo. It is considered a way better box then the cable company provided one and you might have to get two cable cards from the cable company to record two programs at once. If you pick this solution, I'd definately get the HD one even if it is more expensive.
Option three is an inexpensive PC and two HD tuner cards running MythTV. There are distributions of MythTV that install everything from the OS to the program. This option does not have a monthly fee but a higher front end cost for two tuner cards and the PC. If you do choose this route, there are PC cases that look like stereo equipment and they often come with very quiet power supplies. (You do not want the quiet moment of a movie to have a fan whir in it) The other thing I would do if using this option is send the sound to the stereo via S/PDif. This is a digital audio spec and uses either a fiber toslink cable or a standard RCA cable to the orange input plug on your stereo. When I played with this on my computer, it was the first time I ever succeeded in getting audio out of my PC and into a stereo without an annoying 60 cycle buzz. On the plus side, you cal also download a LOT of content from the web and watch it.
Option four is one of the small multimedia boxes that are available like Apple TV and D-Link DSM 520. These play content that is on your home network. These two examples can output that content at 720p for HD TV's. Some like the DSM can do 1080i. Apple TV can download content on its own but the internal HD isn't big. D-Link doesn't have a hard drive but it can get content from a computer in another room. They do have problems recording live TV shows though.
In truth, we are not all that far from realistically being able to tell the cable companies where to stick it. While not always immediately available, many if not most TV shows can be watched on line or via a multimedia box. Apple for example, will sell you a season of TV shows via its AppleTV box. If the number of shows you follow regularly is not high, this may be cheaper than cable. There are networks, like C/Net, on line now that has programming for niche audiences. If you fall into one of those niches, you can get good content that would NEVER make it on regular TV.
Cable Company
by anna3333 - 3/9/08 2:20 PM In reply to: There are multiple options by DSE319I would love to tell the cable company "where to stick it", but they will just do like Tivo and kill all the new technology that threatens their bottom line. This is the U.S.A. where corporations take precedence over human beings, after all.
Can you explain exactly what will happen when the engineered "transition" dropping analog and moving entirely to cable occurs? What equipment will be obsolete? Will the analog to digital box be of any use if you don't use airwave TV? What about satellite TV? I don't want or need a new TV.
I use Beyond TV
by scifirantergirl - 3/8/08 11:09 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've been using SnapStream's Beyond TV since the middle of 2005. I originally bought it because I didn't want another piece of hardware and I didn't want to pay a subscription fee. I liked the idea of a media center that could surf the web and act like TiVo. It recorded all my TV shows. I could access those shows from all the computers on my network in my house. If I wanted dual viewing, I had the option. They've had several upgrades since 2005. They've added HD support; iPod conversion, burn to DVD. With some digging into the forums, I figured out how to capture stuff from VHS in to BeyondTV. If you want to push it the limits and get specific functions, it can be a bit a bit of a project. For me Beyond TV was the best choice. I'm still using it.
Question for Lee Koo
by alabeach - 3/8/08 2:19 PM In reply to: I use Beyond TV by scifirantergirlLee Koo
You sent an email referring to Jim's question with the following as
part of your reply.
Quote:
However, one solution that I found interesting was one provided by our member zysmith, which is a standalone DVD recorder that not only has a built in tuner, but also a built in hard drive for recording TV programs. The great thing with this device is that there is no subscription cost, only the initial cost for the device. Unquote
This link refers us to zysmith's reply recommending the Panasonic DMR-E85HS. I fail to find this machine available anywhere. There are
no referrals for purchase on CNet. Is this machine that you are suggesting obsolete?
If you have further information on where to purchase new, please pass it on to us.
unavailable because...
by anna3333 - 3/10/08 1:00 PM In reply to: Question for Lee Koo by alabeachTivo has successfully taken over a monopoly on the technology and successfully sued anyone trying to make a stand-alone-no-fee unit. Another Microsoft. I'm already planning to watch any TV episodes I want to see on the networks web episode viewers when Tivo raises their fees. Of course, Tivo may try to shut down the web viewers too, but I hope they can't get away with that.
go with Tivo - it is the easiest DVR service to use
by snowbdr440 - 3/8/08 4:44 PM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I recommend using TiVO. With all of the great features (Tivo to go, networking abilities, downloads etc) it surpasses any cable company DVR right now). I have a Toshiba RS-TX 120 Tivo unit, which is a TiVO with a built in DVD player/recorder. I chose it because I wanted one unit that would do it all. This unit records DVD's, plays them and it also records TV shows with the excellent Tivo Service. Plus, you can hook up you VCR to the front of the unit through the composite cable jacks and record a VHS tape to the Tivo unit, then burn it to DVD as an archive. It could not be easier.
The best place to find these units is through Weaknees.com, http://www.weaknees.com/ a website that sells all kinds of Tivo units, and they can also handle upgrades. I also recommend buying one with the lifetime TiVO service if it is still available. You'll feel like you are paying a high initial cost, but it will pay itself off if you own the unit more than 2 years.
Not True
by Winchester257 - 3/8/08 5:18 PM In reply to: go with Tivo - it is the easiest DVR service to use by snowbdr440Once again,the Verizon Fios/Motorola "Home Media" HD DVR can do all of that.Check post # 24 (I guess that post # may change).I posted it on March 8th,2008 @ 4:29 p.m. in response to a post by "massimj".
No DVD Drive
by Winchester257 - 3/9/08 6:39 PM In reply to: Not True by Winchester257The DVR's I have mentioned have no disc drive but,to get premium TV service,a DVR,and DVD / VHS recording,any way you slice it,you will need at least two boxes\units.
Possib;le Purchase Of Re-Furbished Equipment
by Kelrob USA Ltd - 3/9/08 10:16 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Christian Greetings ... In response to the inquiry regarding
the purchase of "Refurnished Equipment", please be ad-
vised ... I have a refurnished HP 5in1 unit, and have had
same for approximately One(1) year, and other than
MINOR problems, i.e. HP replaced unit THREE(3) times
due to OEM defects, I've experienced no further down
time with the last replacement.
ANOTHER EXPERIENCE WITH REFURBISHED EQUIP-
MENT: Approximately One(1) year ago, I subscribed
to DIRECTV, and after six(6)months of their service,
cancelled simply because they (DirecTV) continued
to send me DEFECTIVE DVRs ... A TOTAL OF FOUR(4)
UNITS WITHIN THE SIX(6) I had their service. During
the six(6) month subscription period I invested IN
ACCESS OF 100 MAN HOURS attempting to get
DirecTV to honor the conditions of their contract
within an acceptable time frame ... WITH NO SUCCESS!
Hopefully, the above information will be helpful to
all that may read same. Will be happy to provide
additional information via 1-888203-2412 (24/07/365).
Respectfully ... In Proverbs 1:07 & 21:30,
rlrsr/Kelrob USA Ltd
I was unaware...
by zysmith - 3/9/08 11:22 AM In reply to: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
...that the hard drive DVR's were no longer available. My Panasonic is only a couple of years old and other than a few initial problems, it has been working fine so I haven't had reason to keep up.
I am sorry to see that this functionality has been taken away from the public and tied to a fee service(s).
functionality taken away from the public
by anna3333 - 3/10/08 1:07 PM In reply to: I was unaware... by zysmithIt was Tivo that took the stand-alone functionality away from the public. They sue everyone who tries to make one.
But only in the U.S.A. where the government allows them to get away with that (corps & property over people here). These stand-alone recorders are still available in other countries (like the U.K.) where the governments look after their people first ,before excess corporate profits.
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