dvd recorder with hard drive?

[chuckliddell101101]

ok a friend said the only dvd recorder with hard drive to buy is the philips DVDR3475
but im hearing horror stories about copyrighting protection on certain channels, will a video filter take care of this and if so whats the best cheapest one to buy

basically i record maybe 2-3 hours of shows a day from SD satillete receiver, i want to record my shows to the HD directly from sat and if i want, one in a while to pick my favorites and put them on a dvd using the recorder

also how much disc space can u put on a normal dvd-r, can u fit a 3 hour movie onto it

right now i have nothing, just a 50" plasma with no extra cords, recorder, etc, nothing, i used my old vcr for my other tv but want to upgrade, i have no clue on all this dvd recorder stuff

[chuckliddell101101]

also my budget is 300 give or take at most
i also use my vcr on mine and my brothers dish, so i basically want something that works like a vcr where you can plug it into any sat or cable and have it work

[chuckliddell101101]

p.s. the philips i dont think supports dvd-ram, not sure what that means, but if i want to record something on its HD to dvd what is the best disc's to buy that can fit atleast 3-4 hours

[jjeff]

I believe you're talking about the Philips 3576 or similar Magnavox 2160 both made by Funai. Some people have been reporting that they are able to record certain programs to the HDD but not copy them off to DVD. I don't believe people have been having problems like this with the Magnavox but I'm not sure if it's available in Canada like the 3576. The Maggy is sometimes available at Walmart.com but seems to be out of stock more often than IN.
Since you're in Canada you would also have the choice of a Pioneer, the cheapest of which should be just south of $300.
If you're trying to get 3-4 hrs of video/standard DVD I'd tend to go with the Pio, the Philips and Maggy will drop to 1/2 d1 resolution on any speeds above 2hrs/disc. Anything more than 4hrs/disc is going to look rather poor on any machine.
The Pio will also do RAM discs which have the same capacity as regular DVDs but act more like a mini HDD. Note not many players play RAM discs so keep that in mind. The picture quality will be the same regardless of disc type.
All of the machines mentioned can record from line inputs and will program just like a VCR. That is start and stop times will need to be entered.
If you end up needing a filter they're available on the internet and start at just north of $100. Certain pay channels may require a filter even with a Maggy or Pioneer, you'd want to put the filter between your STB and the recorder's S-video input.
AFA cabling I'd go S-video and audio from your STB to DVDR and HDMI from DVDR to your Plasma. Since you have such a large TV I think you'd be more happy with the picture quality of the Pioneer. Some people including myself found the Funai DVDRs to be rather lacking in contrast and overall picture quality compared to a Pioneer or Panasonic. YMMV
Just wanted to point that out since some people think the picture quality of all DVDRs are the same, their not.

[samijubal]

3-4 hours of SD satellite material on a 50" plasma would be unwatchable to me. I can barely watch 2 hours or less of SD satellite recordings done with a Toshiba recorder on a 50" plasma and the Toshibas have the best PQ of any recorder ever made. 3-4 hours on a Funai would be terrible. I couldn't stand the Funai at 2 hours.

[jman98]

You don't need DVD-RAM. Price the discs and you tell me how good an idea it seems after you see what they cost and how hard they are to find.

DVD recorders have various settings like old VCRs did so you can put more video on a disc, at lesser quality, if you wish. It varies from recorder to recorder, but some top out at 4 hours per single layer disc and a few might go up as far as even 6 hours. Don't expect miracles at 4+ hours per single layer disc.

I record to my PC and my TV cards don't obey anti-copy signals on TV shows, so I have no personal info on how, if at all, you can defeat this. I don't think this is like the old VCR days when you could just buy a TBC and get rid of Macrovision.

We had a great thread on Philips DVD recorders but the jackass that provided the vast majority of information in it got into some kind of hissy fit with the forums here and he deleted ALL of his comments (over 500 posts worth) and replaced them with a link to another forum. The forum he linked to, in my opinion, sucks big time, but you can get good info from it. You'll just have to read through hundreds of posts to glean the good bits and that's what sucks.

[chuckliddell101101]

jjeff so your saying pioneer, if so which one is the best that has the hard drive with dvd recorder

to sum it up, my 50" plasma replaced a old 27"regular tv with vcr, so i want to upgrade my vcr, i do so much recording i would hate to keep buying stacks of dvds, so i want a hard drive, and then if there is something i need to keep i want to burn it to a disc and have it forever, i want to record all channels on sat an cable and dont want the copyright protected stuff
just like vcr, tape something, keep using same tape over and over, then if something comes up i want forever put on different tape, i want to do basically the same with dvd recorder, i also put lots of events(football games)on a 6 hour tape so i can fit the whole game on there, i heard dvds can only fit 2 hours max
something that is durable and will last long and basic, dont really care much about extra features, if it records on a timer and the pic quality is great im fine

i dont know anything about this stuff AT ALL, so i really need help

[lordsmurf]

I've not run into any such errors on my Philips 3575.

[jjeff]

I'm no Pioneer expert but I believe there current models are 460, 560 and 660. I think Future Shop frequently puts either the 460 or 560 on sale for ~$300 CND. From what it sounds like even the more basic 460 would cover all your needs. Within a particular brand the higher model numbers don't give you any better picture quality but just more features and maybe a larger HDD. The beauty of a HDD is you're able to capture at a higher speed than would fit on a DVD and then edit out your unwanted bits and finally fit it all on a nice speed on a DVD.
As others have alluded to 4hrs/DVD is really too much to expect especially if the program matter has a lot of fast movement such as a sporting event.
Of the current models available in Canada I'd probably suggest a Pioneer mainly because it should provide you better PQ in the 2+ to 4- hour range. SP is better but most sporting events can be recorded to the HDD in a 2 or 3hr mode and then have the unwanted material removed and it should fit nicely on a standard DVD high speed copying (which you lose no PQ from HDD to DVD).
The Philips is a decent machine too but I just don't think you'll be pleased with the PQ fitting 3-4hrs/disc especially on your large HDTV. Also Lordsmurf said earlier not everyone gets CP issues with the Philips, it's just something to keep in mind.

[orsetto]

jjeff has covered most of the answers for you that I would give. Since you are in Canada, and have the option of easily strolling into a Future Shop to buy a Pioneer, this is a no-brainer: get a Pioneer . In the USA we have two complications that make Pioneer a more difficult choice: they are no longer sold here, and its tricky for us to import them from Canada. Plus we have the obnoxious ATSC transition to deal with. The ATSC tuner is what makes the Phillips/Magnavox very attractive in the USA: it is the only DVD recorder with both HDD and ATSC. In Canada, this means nothing: you are not switching to digital broadcasts for another few years. If you don't need ATSC, the Pioneers are better built and have a much better editing system. The basic recorder design has not changed for three generations: its been perfected to about as good as Pioneer can build. So far there are not many reports of Pioneers being hypersensitive to copy restrict signals, but they will react if your satellite service transmits those signals so you may still need to add a video filter between your satellite box and your recorder.

My advice is get whichever one you can find for $299 or less. The 660 is the least desirable of the three because its a one-off model- the only Pioneer ever made with an ethernet port. One-off models are more expensive and parts are harder to come by later if you need repair. The 560 is the most popular and the one usually seen on sale for $299. The 460 is identical to the 560, except its an "exclusive" model sold only thru CostCo. Since the CostCo customer tends to be a little less tech-oriented than the Future Shop customer, CostCo gets a lot of customer returns on the 460. Until recently, you could walk into CostCo and ask the manager for a good deal on one of the returns, but I hear they no longer offer them. Instead CostCo now releases them thru third-party stores and liquidators. There are two that I know of in Montreal and probably others elsewhere in Canada. The two in Montreal sell a lot of 460s via eBay listings, and also have a retail presence, just run a search for "pioneer dvd recorder". Family, friends and I have picked up a number of 450 and 460 Pioneers from these dealers at an average $240 and never had a problem: condition ranges from totally unused but open box to very slight signs of use but otherwise new in box.

Finally, any recorder you buy will record at a quality level that looks awful on a 50 inch display. The fatal flaw with flat screen TVs is they can't hide anything or match their resolution to the video input like old analog CRT sets did. Big flat panels are only watchable with a full-bore HD cable or satellite feed. Any recordings you make from your decoder box outputs will be converted to standard def. Although at least you opted for plasma over LCD: plasma performs a bit better with standard-def material than LCD does.

[jman98]

i heard dvds can only fit 2 hours max

This is not and never has been true. It's something that manufacturers say to make things easy for the non-technical people, but it's not true. The lower the bit rate used to encode the video, the more video you can put on the disc, but the lower the quality of that video. Saying "2 hours per single layer DVD" is roughly the best tradeoff between high quality video and length, but longer times are possible. 12 hours or even more is possible, but anything above 6 hours is not going to be very watchable and even 6 would be considered "unwatchable" by some. I have seen some DVDs that were recorded in 4 hour mode with a DVD recorder and they looked great and I've seen others recorded with a different DVD recorder in 4 hour mode that looked very bad. Quality is in the eye of the beholder so while 4 hours per disc might be perfectly fine for you, someone else might find it unacceptable.

[chuckliddell101101]

so my best bet is either philips 3575 or the pioneer 460
lordsmuf what are u running with your philips, dishnetwork/directv/etc and does it record any channel

[chuckliddell101101]

and in your opinion which one(philps 3575 or pioneer 460)is the best for me, i only watch sat channels, everything is satillete, and i record lots everyday, and once in a while want to burn something to disc, i record sports, movies, etc
example-idol is on tonight for 2 hours, i want to record to hard drive and if i want have the option to save it to disk and edit it
im ordering online so it doesnt matter canada or not

[Seeker47]

Finally, any recorder you buy will record at a quality level that looks awful on a 50 inch display. The fatal flaw with flat screen TVs is they can't hide anything or match their resolution to the video input like old analog CRT sets did. Big flat panels are only watchable with a full-bore HD cable or satellite feed. Any recordings you make from your decoder box outputs will be converted to standard def. Although at least you opted for plasma over LCD: plasma performs a bit better with standard-def material than LCD does.

What would you say about 42" or 46" -- what is the dividing line ? I've been reasonably well satisfied with most of my Pio-recorded SD material, when viewed on the 32" LCD. And I tend to be fairly critical about these things. It might make a difference for the plasma set I may get next. (There are furniture and other reasons that would argue for my not going any larger than 46".)

The quality of the source signal plays some role here too. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I think one reason I've gotten the results I've gotten has been recording the HD version of many channels / programs. The Pio only records in SD, of course, but I feel the signal is usually a lot cleaner. A lot of cable providers seem to be really letting their "regular", non-HD channels go to crap, whittling their bandwidth down to the bare minimum they can get away with. I also see bad stuff happening on the HD channels, but not that often during primetime. (Weekly shows, that is -- movie channels are another story.)

[Seeker47]

and in your opinion which one(philps 3575 or pioneer 460)is the best for me, i only watch sat channels, everything is satillete, and i record lots everyday, and once in a while want to burn something to disc, i record sports, movies, etc
example-idol is on tonight for 2 hours, i want to record to hard drive and if i want have the option to save it to disk and edit it
im ordering online so it doesnt matter canada or not

Having the HDD model is great -- essential, in my opinion -- but it's not a panacea, since it seems you will be making heavy use of the unit. You may find the 160G HDD fills up fast on you, if you're not fairly methodical about dumping material off to DVD. I haven't been doing this like I should, and am constantly struggling, trying to keep about 10 hours worth of recording free space on there. There are good reasons to leave yourself some decent headroom. And I don't like to keep recording -- over and over again -- to what is presumably the same portion of the HDD. I'm thinking it is probably better to free up space in different areas, and thereby vary the HDD usage.

[chuckliddell101101]

is there a HD only thing i can get, then if i want connect a different dvd recorder to it if i want to keep the program
i mean buy a big HD only that can record anything then plug in the recorder manual to record it

also can anyone tell me the exact differences between pioneer 460 and philips 3575, i have no idea what all this digital stuff or 16:9 means, i have a regular non-HD satillete receiver and often use my brothers which is the same except different sat, like dishnet and directv, both, basically any sat channel i want to record off of

[orsetto]

Digital (ATSC/QAM) tuners are designed to pick up the new 16:9 digital broadcasts here in the states: a necessity for users who only have a roof antenna (Canada is not switching over to DTV for awhile yet). An ATSC/QAM tuner can also pull a few channels directly off the cable wire, but this is useless with satellite which requires a box to work. The difference between 16:9 and "normal" recording is that 16:9 recording uses all the available space on the DVD to recreate a high-quality screen-filling widescreen image for your big fancy TV. "Normal" recording gives you a 4:3 letterboxed image, which means you will see a smaller 16:9 widescreen image surronded on all four sides by a black border when you view the recordings on your big screen. You can use the TV controls to zoom in on the actual picture area, but this drops the quality and is not the same as a "true" 16:9 signal which fills the screen correctly. This is extremely confusing to people and its impossible to predict what you will get from any given decoder box or station, which is why the big 16:9 flat screens have completely killed off sales of DVD recorders. There aren't that many standalone HDTV recorders that are hard-drive-only anymore, because cable and satellite companies started renting them so cheaply integrated into the box itself. And in any case having the HDD built into the DVD recorder makes many things possible or easier than can be done with separate pieces.

The Pioneer has fixed recording speeds of 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 hours and infinitely variable in-between "MN" speeds. Quality holds up very well to about MN19 (2hrs 20mins) which will acyually give you closer to 147 mins on a single-layer DVD. PQ dips very slightly between MN19 and MN15 (3 hours). Between 3-4hrs you will begin to see a more noticeable change depending on the source material, and anything more than 4 hours will be more obviously compressed. Realistically you'll want to stay between MN21 (2 horus 5 mins) and MN18 (2 hrs 35 mins) whenever possible. The Phillips has fixed speeds of 2, 2.5, 3, 4, and 6 hours. Up until 2.5 hrs its roughly the same PQ as the Pioneer, at 3 hrs its a hair softer and at 4 hours the Pioneer is arguably a bit clearer than the Phillips. The deciding factor between the Phillips and the Pioneer really is the Phillips ATSC tuner, which makes it a miracle machine for USA. Without the tuner, it would be considered a bit more low-rent than the Pioneer, which offers the variable speeds and more disc options (you can use dual-layer DVD-9 and DVD-RAM media).

The Pioneer is also a much safer bet if you plan to do extensive rerecording and offloading to DVD: it has more flexible and stable editing software than the Phillips, which can tie itself into knots and corrupt a recording if you don't follow its finicky editing rules precisely. Don't get me wrong, the Phillips is a nice machine, but if you live in Canada with easy access to cheap new Pioneers there's no reason to buy anything else. Especially since its starting to look like Pioneer will folow Panasonic out the door and not release any new DVD/HDD models in North America *at all* after the current x60 series. The Phillips is also scheduled to be dropped this spring with no replacements: whatever you want, buy it now while you can get it easily and cheaply in a store. Sky-high eBay prices for discontinued models show the folly of waiting too long.

I find DVD recordings from SD cable box output unwatchable on any flat screen bigger than 32", and even then I'm not enjoying it much- I'd rather use aa 32" CRT Trinitron. With a 50" screen, you really need to exchange your SD decoder for HD: as seeker47 mentioned, downconverted HD records better than straight-across SD, which is pretty bad on most cable/satellite systems. Bear in mind DVD recorders do not consistently record in complete 16:9- most of the time you'll end up with a 4:3 letterboxed recording of 16:9 material. The better the signal you start with, the more you'll preserve in the letterbox window.

[chuckliddell101101]

so what your saying is anybody that has a 50" plasma like myself can not get a recorder that has good picture, my plasma looks great on regular SD, maybe not HD but everything is clear and no grainy at all
i understand im not going to get HD on my recordings, but as long as they stay clear like they are now on SD im happy, and that it fills up the whole screen

bottom line-forget canada or US , what is the best recorder with hard drive for me and why, a direct answer and basic reasons why
also is there anything else i can get, maybe just a hard drive that works and then hook it up to dvd recorder if i want keep something, im open to anything

here's my situation
-record 2-4 hours tv a day, usually tape over most of it, sometimes save to seperate vcr tape, only for superbowls, special events, etc, 90% i tape over but still want to save my favorites once in a while
-dont care much about extra's like blue ray and high def, if it does the basic timer recordings and never misses a beat im happy
-im pure satillete, think directv,dishnetwork, etc, thats all i intend to record off of
-when i record say the superbowl, when i rewatch on hard drive or record to dvd i want to watch it in same widescreen 50" plasma that fills it all up, just like watching live
-forget that im in canada, canada or the states whats the best, im pure sat so im the same as anybody in the states who watches sat which im assumings everybody

please explain like im a newbie, i know nothing about this

[victoriabears]

This is afriendly forum, do not double post.

If you do not archive and think you will stay with your TV service provider, get a PVR or a Tivo (Not yet HD in Canada)

DVD recorders are for those who wish to keep the recording, that in itself is becoming more difficult with copy protection.

DVD recorders with hard drives are liked by those who wish to avoid paying cable providers fees.

[chuckliddell101101]

ok but on the ones with hard drive you can still keep the recording just like on a basic dvd recorder cant you?, so wouldnt one with hard drive be a no brainer

[victoriabears]

Yes you can, as you can with a PVR, the only possible downside with either is hard drive failure.

[Seeker47]

We had a great thread on Philips DVD recorders but the jackass that provided the vast majority of information in it got into some kind of hissy fit with the forums here and he deleted ALL of his comments (over 500 posts worth) and replaced them with a link to another forum. The forum he linked to, in my opinion, sucks big time, but you can get good info from it. You'll just have to read through hundreds of posts to glean the good bits and that's what sucks.

I would agree that was a very bad decision, and it's hard for me to imagine what could possibly justify it, but I'd also object to your characterization. That poster was very helpful to me many times -- and to numerous other members -- on both forums.

[Seeker47]

I find DVD recordings from SD cable box output unwatchable on any flat screen bigger than 32", and even then I'm not enjoying it much- I'd rather use aa 32" CRT Trinitron. With a 50" screen, you really need to exchange your SD decoder for HD: as seeker47 mentioned, downconverted HD records better than straight-across SD, which is pretty bad on most cable/satellite systems. Bear in mind DVD recorders do not consistently record in complete 16:9- most of the time you'll end up with a 4:3 letterboxed recording of 16:9 material. The better the signal you start with, the more you'll preserve in the letterbox window.

Thanks for weighing in on that. But it's not good news for us DVDR fans. I'm o.k. with the 32" LCD, even though I've had some intermittent problems with it, and I'd probably stick with that size for that room if I had to replace it. This tends to reinforce my inclination to keep the 11 year-old 27" CRT, which still works well and is pretty good for what it is. The CRTs are receding into history, and you probably could not find good ones today, except on the used market.

So, what does one do for a 42" or larger flat screen ? Pairing it with an HD PVR won't be the answer, if one can't move any recorded content off of it. A friend of mine swears by Tivo, which may have an HD version, and I've been told several times (here) that there is something called Tivo2Go. It would require making a large wager on the survival of one company, though. Maybe not the best thing to be doing, especially in these times.

Could something like one of those fancy Faroudja boxes make any significant difference in how good the material from our SD DVDRs would look on those larger flat screens ? I'm just trying to get a handle on what all of the options might be.

[chuckliddell101101]

so im guessing the two best options are philips dvdr3475 or pioneer 460

straight up whats the difference if any between them and which is best suited for me, and if you have either one how is it

[chuckliddell101101]

from what iv read the pioneer seems to be the best one, it has better pic quality for bigger screens and has more options, my only concern is will it be able to record any shows i want on sat, like hbo/abc/ppv anything and everything, and copy them to dvd if i want without any copy protection stuff

[chuckliddell101101]

and which os the pioneers is the best , i heard 460 but are there older models that work the same , i dont care much about extra's, as long as they have a hard drive and dvd recorder and the timer never misses

[samijubal]

I find DVD recordings from SD cable box output unwatchable on any flat screen bigger than 32", and even then I'm not enjoying it much- I'd rather use aa 32" CRT Trinitron. With a 50" screen, you really need to exchange your SD decoder for HD: as seeker47 mentioned, downconverted HD records better than straight-across SD, which is pretty bad on most cable/satellite systems. Bear in mind DVD recorders do not consistently record in complete 16:9- most of the time you'll end up with a 4:3 letterboxed recording of 16:9 material. The better the signal you start with, the more you'll preserve in the letterbox window.

Thanks for weighing in on that. But it's not good news for us DVDR fans. I'm o.k. with the 32" LCD, even though I've had some intermittent problems with it, and I'd probably stick with that size for that room if I had to replace it. This tends to reinforce my inclination to keep the 11 year-old 27" CRT, which still works well and is pretty good for what it is. The CRTs are receding into history, and you probably could not find good ones today, except on the used market.

So, what does one do for a 42" or larger flat screen ? Pairing it with an HD PVR won't be the answer, if one can't move any recorded content off of it. A friend of mine swears by Tivo, which may have an HD version, and I've been told several times (here) that there is something called Tivo2Go. It would require making a large wager on the survival of one company, though. Maybe not the best thing to be doing, especially in these times.

Could something like one of those fancy Faroudja boxes make any significant difference in how good the material from our SD DVDRs would look on those larger flat screens ? I'm just trying to get a handle on what all of the options might be.

I watch SD satellite recordings on a 50" plasma. Sometimes they look fine, sometimes they don't. It basically comes down to how dark the movie/series was. If it's a dark movie it looks pretty lousy, if it's bright it looks fine. To say that any SD recording looks like crap on anything over 32" just isn't true. I only use Toshiba recorders though which have the best PQ of any recorder ever made. The Toshibas record 16x9 every time, I've never had 4x3 recordings when the recorder is set to 16x9. Plasmas are considerably more forgiving on SD material than LCDs. I gave up watching VHS on CRT many years ago, even on a 27" TV it was just too poor looking for me, I don't mind too much watching VHS on the plasma, it actually looks better on a 50"" plasma than it did on a 27" CRT to me.

[zanos]

What is the picture quality like in LP mode on the phillips? I've read some dvd recorders look slightly better than others because of their chipsets. Is the phillips better or at least equal to the panasonic?

[lordsmurf]

The Philips encoding quality is superior to the Panasonic, by a large margin. The only weakness of the Philips (and a number of Panasonics) is the ability to filter VHS chroma noise and grain (like JVC LSI or Toshiba XS).

The Philips is 352x480 in LP (3-hour mode), so it create a video that is free of blocks or other noise. The Panasonic forces high resolution, which gives a noisy signal.

[oldfart13]

Try to do True Blood or any other HBO show from HDD to Disc (at least from Dishnetwork). I can't with the Daytek. Since I also can't read the drive in the computer once I did the firmware upgrade, that show is now useless to me unless I record it directly to the DVD disc when it's on and hope I don't get any errors on the disc. Ripping and editing to the computer from that disc is okay though. I don't know about the Pioneer decks though as I don't have one and my old Panny E80H has been retired (it still works great though...they built those old units to last). The only unit I can get that's a cheapie is the Magnavox 2080 (recently reduced in price at Wal-Mart here) but I don't want one of those.