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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Advice needed for an all-in-one DVR that can burn DVDs
- 3/10/08 5:01 PM
Is it legal to purchase a video stabilizer?
by Katman14 - 11/11/08 2:44 PM In reply to: video stabilizer by reschAll the ads I've seen for video stabilizers are aimed at defeating macrovision copyright protection. If that's all they're for, doesn't DMCA prohibit purchasing one in the USA? Does stabilizing my old VHS tapes recorded from TV count as a legal use?
I think you're about a decade or more behind the curve...
by SWLinPHX - 11/11/08 5:44 PM In reply to: Is it legal to purchase a video stabilizer? by Katman14You are completely over concerned to worry about using a video stabilizer to record a VHS videotape. First off, analog VCRs (whoever still uses them) like audio cassettes have never provoked the kind of controversy digital copying has because the quality is so degraded even without a stabilizer, especially after a few years of life on the shelf. Using that to defeat Macrovision is nothing when you consider you still won't get near the quality the millions of people who are making digital-to-digital audio, video, DVD & software copies on a daily basis get, that VHS is all but obsolete and no one cares about or manufactures them anymore, and the fact that even the many, many DRM and copyright safeguards on the market in digital media today are still easily defeated by the amateur computer programmers & hacks that populate the Internet today. The encryption is much more sophisticated than Macrovision for VHS, and the stakes are much higher, but that hasn't made one bit of difference.
If I were you I'd worry more about getting clean, non-degraded or faded copies of the media you want if available digitally. I've pretty much had to start all over with DVD copies of my favorites. For hard-to-find or TV recorded programming, I use my DVD recorders to copy and edit them to the hard drive before burning to DVD. In that case, Macrovision is not an issue, because VHS programs recorded from television have no copy protection. Just worry about getting the best quality copies of the media you want in your collection and you'll be fine.
How to transfer VHS tapes to the Toshiba D-R400
by yajanssen - 3/8/08 5:48 AM In reply to: Toshiba DVR by jmj947Toshiba D-R400. I read the comment that it is easy to transfer from VHS to the above Writer. Could you please tell me whether or not one needs a computer? My apologies, I am new at this. And I also have 100s of VHS tapes.
Don't know about that model but,
by HawgnDos - 3/8/08 9:32 AM In reply to: How to transfer VHS tapes to the Toshiba D-R400 by yajanssenI have a Pioneer DVR 540H. It has a digital tuner, 80 Gb HD, and a dual layer DVD burner. I can record live TV to the HD or to DVD, watch DVD, or burn recorded content to DVD. What I have also done is connect my VCR to the DVR and record the VCR tape to the HD the burn that to DVD! The owners manual tells you how to accomplish all of that. I am sure it does with the Toshiba as well. I bought my DVR on eBay for just less than $300 shipped. One might be able to find them less than that now. Pioneer does make a DVR 800 I think that has Tivo if that is a service one wants.
Good luck!
Another Panasonic endorsement
by Holly Klug - 3/8/08 1:35 PM In reply to: Don't know about that model but, by HawgnDosWe have a Panasonic DMR-EH50. For analog, it is fabulous. Unfortunately it does not have a digital tuner, and the IR blaster won't work with my Samsung OTA set top box, so I end up leaving the set top box on a lot for recording.
My brother bought a Sony DVR with no hard drive, and found that DVD+RW was completely unreliable because he recorded to the same disk to frequently, switched to Panasonic, and has been much happier. DVD-RAM is better if you want to erase and record again. With the DMR-EH50 you can copy a DVD-RAM to the hard drive, and copy it to DVD-R.
It's too bad they don't make a programmable set top box with S-Video output that can be programmed like a VCR to come on at a certain time, and switch to a certain channel.
How to transfer VHS tapes to the Toshiba D-R400??
by macielag - 3/8/08 9:51 AM In reply to: How to transfer VHS tapes to the Toshiba D-R400 by yajanssenI'm in the same situation, an old newbie. I would also like to know the specific steps in trasferring VHS to DVD using the Toshiba.
Toshiba D-R400
by jmj947 - 3/8/08 8:10 PM In reply to: How to transfer VHS tapes to the Toshiba D-R400 by yajanssenNo. No computer is needed to do this transfer. Simply hook up the cables, fire up the D-R400 and let 'er rip.
Hook up cables to what?
by anna3333 - 3/20/08 8:19 AM In reply to: Toshiba D-R400 by jmj947Hook up cables to what? I'm looking for something that has both drives that you can just plug into a power oulet, put in a VHS and DVD and "dub" from one to the other. I don't really want to have to uncable other units, cable them up to something else, then have to cable them back again. Mine are hard to get to.
Reply To: Hook Up Cables to What?
by horberry - 3/20/08 9:18 AM In reply to: Hook up cables to what? by anna3333You are always, always better with separate components to allow you to easily keep up with technological changes. My old JVC "SUPER" VHS 5 head recorder-player records in SVHS for better quality and permits a "direct through connection" via the "SVIDEO" connection to my SONY MC5 DVD Recorder with it's own preview screen so I can see what I am recording (very helpful), Because the DVD R is a separate unit, I can switch-select to copy existing DVDs as well as VHS tapes. Because a combo unit is just that --all encased together, you cannot insert a video stabilizer if you are getting "copy protection errors" as I did before I installed a Xdimax Corp.'s "Grex" to correct it. Multiple routing is always better served than trying to do it in a combo unit. Plus, when 1/2 of a combo unit fails, the whole thing is usually useless. Get out those cables, they're worth the price.
Toshiba RD-XS34
by jdbaldwin23 - 3/8/08 3:12 PM In reply to: Toshiba DVR by jmj947I don't know that this will be helpful, unless you happen to find one of these available very cheap. I have had a Toshiba RD-XS34 DVR for two years; it fits your bill exactly in every respect ... but it has other drawbacks. It has a 160 GB hard drive and is capable of recording HD input (though does not have an HD-tuner onboard). It is programmable both from the on-screen guide (see below about this) and manually. There is no subscription fee, and no capability for anyone to reach into your DVR and delete your saved programming (as TiVo has been known to do) or to spy on your viewing habits (as TiVo is WELL known to do).
The drawbacks: its designers were brain-damaged in ways that boggle the (normal) mind. There is no way to set the clock, for example: if the time signal on your TV system goes askew (as mine has), you're completely out of luck. I had to write a Perl script to convert from Eastern Standard Time to "JD's DVR time."
The on-screen guide was never good, exactly, but there was a time when it sort of worked about 80%. Those days are gone. "TV Guide On-Screen" is a great idea in principle -- they put the programming data in the blanking interval of regular TV programming, and your device goes to that to load its program guide. Unfortunately, as with everything else associated with the "TV Guide" brand, it has become complete ca-ca. Absolutely useless.
So even though I have to do advanced math to set a new program, and even though I have no on-screen guide or search capabilities at all, I'm still ahead of the game compared to a VCR, and I'm not paying TiVo $150 a year to spy on me and sell my private viewing habits to marketers.
The RD-XS34 was on the market for about ten minutes at the end of 2005. I cannot for the life of me figure out why it wasn't a runaway success, given how promising the basic idea was. Maybe they simply couldn't get TV Guide On Screen to work at all -- you could search the Internet for a week and not find a single positive comment about it. Still, your question proves there is at least some kind of market for a DVR that isn't tied to spyware, a subscription service or both. Add a network connection so it can go out to some web site (configurable, of course, so you're not locked in to any one vendor) for program data, and I have to believe there would be enough consumer demand to dislodge TiVo from its place at the top of the heap.
Toshiba RD-XS models
by ak0557 - 3/8/08 5:38 PM In reply to: Toshiba RD-XS34 by jdbaldwin23I have an RD-XS35 (the RD-XS34's replacement), which I love; unfortunately, Toshiba is no longer making DVD-R/DVRs (partly because of an FCC regulation that all such devices must have digital tuners), and with the failure of the HD-DVD, will probably not for a long while. Right now, only Pioneer, Panasonic and LG seem to be making DVD-R/DVR combos; I'd suggest holding off buying a unit until you start seeing BluRay recorders.
On a side note, TV Guide on Screen works well if your cable system allows it to; check some other forums to see how your cable system handles it.
Of course, but Tivo would just sue them
by anna3333 - 3/20/08 8:21 AM In reply to: Toshiba RD-XS34 by jdbaldwin23Do you think Tivo wants you to have access to something better than theirs???
Speaking of paying someone to spy on you & alter your HDD...
by anna3333 - 3/20/08 12:13 PM In reply to: Toshiba RD-XS34 by jdbaldwin23Are you aware that that is exactly what Microsoft has in the works with VISTA and it's cartel with HP & Intel? There is an Intel White Paper (directed to corporations, but the Intel vPro chip is the same & the capability is there), explaining the advantages of the Intel vPro chip (the Fritz-chip - google it) for remote identification and control of PCs.
The Intel vPro chip sends out hardware "heartbeats" - your (wired or wireless) PC does not have to be on. It can identify your PC, turn it on in the middle of the night, remotely, do a snoop & poop in it (i.e. "inventory" your hardware & software versions and bring it into "compliance" - restore any remote management software you have disabled), then restore it to however you left it (off, hibernate, etc.), so you never know it happened - except you may find some of your applications vandalized/damaged/disabled, and/or the files they created - gone!
The hardware component of this scheme is so you can't disable the "remote management software" - the hardware just reinstalls it. VISTA-ready means: Hardware - it has "the chip", software - it won't run unless you give it unrestricted, unsupervised access to it's momma (vendor) via the internet, so that vendor can snoop & poop in your PC. And its not just applications MS will disable functionality for - but also your operating system.
Microsoft can even do this in XP (disable apps, alter/delete files), but ONLY if you have certain services running AND have WinLiveId attached to the software. I know this from personal experience. MS also used WinLiveID to upload the user's financial data, account numbers, passwords, and check/charge history to MS/web so the user could "access it from anywhere". This can never be fixed, retrieved, gotten back off the web from MS. Recovery of a working application was possible only because of disk imaging and scrupulous backup copies of data files - after removal of WinLiveId from the app. of course.
Microsoft did this to a legitimately purchased MS application because the application was 5 years old and MS decided they wanted to coerce the user into buying the new (inferior) VISTA-ready version, the offer of which popped up when the user tried to run their old program.
Look before you leap with Vista (or WinLiveID). Google: Palladium, Fritz-chip, TC Trusted Computing, etc. and follow the links - NOT Microsoft links and NOT the Trusted Computing Group's propaganda page - these are propaganda sites).
One TC info site: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
a video: http://www.lafkon.net/tc/TC_HIGH_mirror03.html
bad DVD disks or DVD recorder
by trueblonde48 - 3/8/08 5:31 PM In reply to: Toshiba DVR by jmj947I have a Sansui combo VCR/DVD recorder from Sears. I have been trying to copy my home VHS tapes to DVD also as well as recording favorite TV shows. Most have done fine. Several times though I have had a disk that would not work properly. I get an error message many times but sometimes it just stays in a "reading" mode until I finally have to stop it. The most recent time that it happened was as I was going to add a TV program to a disk that was not full or finalized. It had recorded the first 2 shows and played them fine but when I put it in to record the 3rd it would not stop "reading" and I finally got an error message. Now the disk is useless. I am afraid this is going to happen with my home movies. I have been told there are sometimes bad disks in a pack but this disk worked fine for 2 other recordings. Does any one have some feedback on this problem. I am new to this site and not very technology literate.
Sanyo DVD recorder has same problem
by sdtrott - 3/18/08 7:07 PM In reply to: bad DVD disks or DVD recorder by trueblonde48I have a Sanyo DRW-500 that always did the same thing. For a unit that initially cost around $180, it was very unreliable. Often it would do the same thing. On the last video program being recorded to the disk it would freeze and then the disk would no longer be playable. But there is a program called ISOBuster that can recover recordings from unfinalized or otherwise unreadable disks. You can download the program for free, but then you have to pay $29.95 to register the program before it will do anything useful. But I have been able to recover several recordings with ISOBuster that I thought were hopelessly lost, so it does work.
I also found a cheap DVD recorder at Big Lots that puts the Sanyo DRW-500 to shame. It is a brand name I have never heard of before (SV2000) and I only paid $49.95 for it, but so far it has not produced a single bad disk.
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