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  1. I am new to all this and hope someone can help me. My husband is deployed to Afghanistan and I want to be able to send him DVD's of our favorite shows but have no clue if that is possible and don't want to waste money buying a DVD recorder if it is not. thought about just buying them on iTunes but that won't work either bc can only put it on a device (which he will have over there) and he has little to no capability to download anything. Any help anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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  2. Banned
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    It SHOULD be possible, but as you are new to this kind of thing, I cannot promise you that you will be able to do this without help from others. Basically the idea is that you send the video output of your DVR to a DVD recorder's video input. Make sure you finalize the DVDs that you record as without finalizing them, he probably won't be able to play them.

    Note that few DVD recorders are available in the USA and Canada now. Magnavox is about the only maker left. I recommend that you mail order Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim DVDs from rima.com or supermediastore.com rather than buying blank DVDs in stores. Stores only get crap quality blank DVDs any more and playback problems are possible with lower quality media. If you're going to spend the money to buy a DVD recorder it would be foolish to then skimp and buy crap quality media, but lots of people do that. Note that anything Verbatim makes EXCEPT their "Life" series (NOT to be confused with their excellent DataLifePlus series) of discs is very good. Their Life series is the cheap crap discs they make for BestBuy and other stores because the US market demands cheap price, which means low quality. Taiyo Yuden only sells high quality blank media under their name.
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    I have had one of these for about 10 days now, and I'm pretty pleased with it. It has a tuner so I can use it to record digital channels from an antenna. I can also record the output of my cable box for digital cable channels. This is the only model left with a tuner, and the hard drive is a great convenience. Commercials can be trimmed from recordings made to its hard drive, although I have not tried that yet.

    http://www.walmart.com/ip/Magnavox-MDR-513H-F7-320GB-DVR-and-DVD-Recorder/14291489?ci_...00000003142050

    Don't wait if you want one. Prices are going up. It is $20 more than it was 2 weeks ago.

    Other than that, there are a few other models available that can only record to a DVD and they have no tuner. To use those for recording TV you must have a cable box, satellite receiver or DTV converter box to supply input. The N. American model DVD recorders in general are quickly selling out. Magnavox, and Toshiba, were the last brands still selling DVD recorders made for the N. American market, and the company that actually made the DVD recorders for both, Funai is about to end production for N. America, if they haven't already done it. This Toshoba is the least expensive tunerless model available new.

    http://www.walmart.com/ip/Toshiba-DR430-DVD-Recorder/16617614
    Last edited by usually_quiet; 19th Feb 2012 at 15:32.
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  4. Member Chef Goldblum's Avatar
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    First of all, you're an awesome wife! Thanks for doing this, and I thank your husband for doing his part over there. Hopefully he'll be coming home to you real soon.

    On to the question! DVD is pretty inefficient. If your husband doesn't have a laptop and needs to be able to play these discs on a regular DVD player then I understand going this route. The downside to DVD is that they only hold usually about 2hrs of high quality video, and you can push that to more hours, but the quality really suffers. If that's the only choice, then this recorder suggested above looks well up to the task of recording shows to DVD.

    If your husband does have a laptop your best bet in my opinion is to download the shows that he wants, burn those to a DVD as files (avi, Mpg whatver they are downloaded as) with your pc and then send him the shows that way. You'll be able to fit many more hours of video onto each disc, and the DVD drive for your pc to burn them cost about $20 on newegg.com. You probably even have a dvd burner of some sort on your machine already. It'll be far easier for you if you know how to download tv from the internet. You just download and burn, and never have to fuss with setting timers, hooking up boxes to your tv to record cable or satellite, etc.
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  5. PSCO2007
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    Originally Posted by epgnc View Post
    I am new to all this and hope someone can help me. My husband is deployed to Afghanistan and I want to be able to send him DVD's of our favorite shows but have no clue if that is possible and don't want to waste money buying a DVD recorder if it is not. thought about just buying them on iTunes but that won't work either bc can only put it on a device (which he will have over there) and he has little to no capability to download anything. Any help anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
    It is really simple to do what you want to do.

    I have the Philips dvr 3506, but there are many to choose from.
    If you want to record direct to dvd, you don't need to spend extra for a dvr with a hard drive.

    Remember to go to the settings and check "finalize" so your husband will be able to watch the dvds on his computer or dvd player.

    This unit does have a tuner - no cable box or other input necessary.

    Good luck!!
    Last edited by Psco2007; 20th Feb 2012 at 01:50. Reason: tuner info
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    When I was in the military we did get taped shows from home all the time. This is just one more word of advice about the commercials: Do not, I repeat, do not edit them out. His broadcast tv commercials from the armed forces network has military commercials on them telling what not to do and how not to act, so today's commercials are a breath of fresh air. And the fact that you may have to send several DVDs to for several shows is a non issue. They will be traded and passed around regardless of how you package them so if you send a DVD per show, that's fine as well. I still remember before I retired we were stationed in Korea waiting for my friend's wife to send us the first episode of the newest season of Star Trek to see how Commander Riker was going to deal with the Borg invasion. He has a wife like you and she did deliver. Thanks for all you do!
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    The days of there being lots of DVD recorders to choose from are over, unless one counts used models from several years ago. As with any other used item, you had better know what you are buying. Good used machines aren't necessarily cheap, and they may not have a lot of mileage left on the DVD burner.

    The selection of new merchandise made for N. America is down to a few models, from Magnavox or Toshiba, and a little leftover Panasonic stock from last year before they stopped producing N. American models. For the most part a DVD recorder has to be purchased online. Most brick-and-mortar stores won't stock any DVD recorders in their electronics department.

    The only other new DVD recorders available are a select few international models from online specialty retailers, which are not cheap, do not have a tuner suitable for use in N. America, and do not have a manufacturer warranty because they were made for use in a different part of the world.
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  8. Thank you EVERYONE for your input and advice, of course my husband is the electronic/technical guy at our home, so since I am trying to surprise him I had no where to turn. I am planning on purchasing the Magnavox that usually-quiet sent the link for. What if any special cables do I need to purchase? We have a Time Warner Cable issued DVR. I am not as worried about being able to edit out commercials, or number of disc's because with the new flat rate boxes I can send him tons of stuff all at once for a relatively low price. I figured if I recorded about 2 weeks of shows at a time and then send them out he will have plenty to watch and then loan out to all the other guys to watch as well and it seems that DVD format may be the easiest for sharing (they can play in their computers or on a DVD player).

    Again any input you can give me on the best way to do this is much appreciated, I just want to be able to do something nice for my husband and his guys and unfortunately while I am okay with technology am not as tech savvy as all of you are! Not even sure where to go to download shows from online to record. Again thank you all so much and any help you can offer will be appreciated more than you can know!
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    Originally Posted by epgnc View Post
    What if any special cables do I need to purchase? We have a Time Warner Cable issued DVR. I am not as worried about being able to edit out commercials, or number of disc's because with the new flat rate boxes I can send him tons of stuff all at once for a relatively low price. I figured if I recorded about 2 weeks of shows at a time and then send them out he will have plenty to watch and then loan out to all the other guys to watch as well and it seems that DVD format may be the easiest for sharing (they can play in their computers or on a DVD player).
    If your DVR has an S-Video connection (it's a round, 4 pin mini-DIN), an S-Video cable will provide a better video source than composite video (the yellow RCA video connection) for either the Toshiba DR430 or Magnavox MDR 513H/F7. These recorders also have an HDMI output and a component video output, which provide a better picture to your TV than composite video, if you want to use the recorder to play DVDs.

    Just to be clear, if you do not plan to use the tuner or remove commercials, you don't really need the Magnavox MDR 513H/F7. The tunerless Toshiba DR430 will work well enough for transferring shows from your DVR to DVD.

    The tuner in the Magnavox MDR 513H/F7 may not even be very useful for recording shows from Time Warner Cable without using the cable DVR. Typically there are only around 20 analog channels and 20 unencrypted digital channels available from the larger US cable providers. I happen to use the Magnavox's tuner to record my local channels from via an indoor antenna because my cable service doesn't provide all of them.
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  10. Thanks so much! The DVD recorder is supposed to arrive in the next day or two, so I may need some help if any of you are willing to do so. I hope this works and I know my husband and his men will really appreciate it! Y'all are so great for helping me out, it means so much to me to be able to do this for him and that so many of you are so supportive of our men and women overseas!
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  11. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by usually_quiet View Post
    Originally Posted by epgnc View Post
    What if any special cables do I need to purchase? We have a Time Warner Cable issued DVR. I am not as worried about being able to edit out commercials, or number of disc's because with the new flat rate boxes I can send him tons of stuff all at once for a relatively low price. I figured if I recorded about 2 weeks of shows at a time and then send them out he will have plenty to watch and then loan out to all the other guys to watch as well and it seems that DVD format may be the easiest for sharing (they can play in their computers or on a DVD player).
    If your DVR has an S-Video connection (it's a round, 4 pin mini-DIN), an S-Video cable will provide a better video source than composite video (the yellow RCA video connection) for either the Toshiba DR430 or Magnavox MDR 513H/F7. These recorders also have an HDMI output and a component video output, which provide a better picture to your TV than composite video, if you want to use the recorder to play DVDs.

    Just to be clear, if you do not plan to use the tuner or remove commercials, you don't really need the Magnavox MDR 513H/F7. The tunerless Toshiba DR430 will work well enough for transferring shows from your DVR to DVD.

    The tuner in the Magnavox MDR 513H/F7 may not even be very useful for recording shows from Time Warner Cable without using the cable DVR. Typically there are only around 20 analog channels and 20 unencrypted digital channels available from the larger US cable providers. I happen to use the Magnavox's tuner to record my local channels from via an indoor antenna because my cable service doesn't provide all of them.
    Fortunately, most of the recent TWC gear I've seen still gives you an S-Video OUT: a good thing, since S-Video connections have been disappearing, dropped from a lot of today's equipment by the manufacturers. (I did much prefer the Motorola boxes we had from TWC, back when I lived at the previous location. They were much easier to navigate and to use. Their current system software is a big step backwards in user-friendliness, in my opinion.) I had to replace a burned-out DirecTV box a couple weeks ago, and the replacement still supported S-Video connections as well, but that may be because all their replacements seem to be older, refurbed equipment.

    I would suggest 2-meter length cables, because otherwise you may sometimes find that what you got is not long enough for the flexibility in equipment placement that you may prefer. (My setups are in armoire type cabinets, where the extra cable length helps a lot.) You don't really need the more expensive "Monster Cable" type cables; more generic ones should be fine. [Not entirely relevant, but I think some of the worst prices to be found on anything are to be found at your neighborhood Radio Shack. A better bet would be Fry's, if there is one in the general vicinity.]

    Originally Posted by epgnc
    Not even sure where to go to download shows from online to record. Again thank you all so much and any help you can offer will be appreciated more than you can know!
    There are those of us who do a fair amount of this -- in my case, foreign / rare / obscure stuff that is just not available in the U.S. It has become far more difficult recently, because a cornerstone of the most accessible method -- filehosting services -- have pretty much been going onto the "endangered species" list. And then, even if you could still obtain the whatever files, there is the extra step of running them through certain programs (freely available here) in order to convert them to DVD format. I'm sure a number of members here would be willing to assist with the various phases of this.
    But this whole category of "where do you find ______ show online" falls into a grey area, for public discussion here, and might be better suited to PM communications.

    Another thought occurs to me. Many years ago, a friend of mine worked for AFRTS -- the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. I dunno -- maybe they've had some major budget cutbacks or something, but shouldn't they be able to provide a lot of the "xyz" TV material -- one distribution way or another -- to our people out in the field, however remotely, without getting into any of those grey legal areas ?
    When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ -- with over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this quintessentially American art form.
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