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perdue27
Member
Joined: 09 Mar 2008
Location: United States
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Hi!
I own a lot of US and French DVDs
I am looking for some recommandation on a basic region free / zone free DVD Recorder.
I found some sold online, but I would prefer to buy it from known stores like "Best Buy", "Frys", "Circuit City" or on their online website ...
I never owned a DVD Recorder before and I have some basic questions.
Can you record TV shows on your DVD Recorder?
Can you record several times on a DVD disk?
If my DVD Recorder is zone free, can I make copies of the French and US DVDs?
Will I be able to play the copies in any DVD players (even those that are not zone free)?
Thanks a lot for your help,
Perdue
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lowellriggsiam
Member
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Location: United States
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If you make your DVD recorder region free, in theory, it should play all dvds.
You can record anything you want onto your DVDs as long as the programming is not digitally flagged, or copy protected.
You can record multiple shows, or videos until your dvd runs out of space, or you finalize your dvds to be playable on other DVD players.
If you make copies of your French dvds you would have likely removed any copy protection, or region encoding that already existed so you would have had to need to make your recorder region free.
Based on your desire to watch foreign films you should make sure what you buy has PAL support.
I bought an RJtech 2200DVRX, it came with an internal 250GB HDD. You can record straight to the HDD or DVD. Anything on the HDD can be edited such as to remove commercials and then recorded to the DVDs. It has great playback and only costs $200USD at newegg.com It has PAL support as well as multiple format playback VCD/SVCD/XVID/DIVX/WMA. It comes with front USB and firewire ports for digital cameras and camcorders. The only 3 drawbacks I have with it it has no DVD-RAM support, very limited DVD-DL support, and only one set of rear inputs. I have an Panasonic DMR ES40V that makes up for its deficencies.
Overall it'll come to your particular needs. They never make great looking dvd menus which is why I frequently eliminate the menus, or record to DVD-RAM and use NERO to make the DVDs.
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wabjxo
Member
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Location: United States
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perdue27
Member
Joined: 09 Mar 2008
Location: United States
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| lowellriggsiam wrote: |
If you make your DVD recorder region free, in theory, it should play all dvds.
You can record anything you want onto your DVDs as long as the programming is not digitally flagged, or copy protected.
You can record multiple shows, or videos until your dvd runs out of space, or you finalize your dvds to be playable on other DVD players.
If you make copies of your French dvds you would have likely removed any copy protection, or region encoding that already existed so you would have had to need to make your recorder region free.
Based on your desire to watch foreign films you should make sure what you buy has PAL support.
I bought an RJtech 2200DVRX, it came with an internal 250GB HDD. You can record straight to the HDD or DVD. Anything on the HDD can be edited such as to remove commercials and then recorded to the DVDs. It has great playback and only costs $200USD at newegg.com It has PAL support as well as multiple format playback VCD/SVCD/XVID/DIVX/WMA. It comes with front USB and firewire ports for digital cameras and camcorders. The only 3 drawbacks I have with it it has no DVD-RAM support, very limited DVD-DL support, and only one set of rear inputs. I have an Panasonic DMR ES40V that makes up for its deficencies.
Overall it'll come to your particular needs. They never make great looking dvd menus which is why I frequently eliminate the menus, or record to DVD-RAM and use NERO to make the DVDs. |
Great! How do you make the RJtech 2200DVRX zone free? Is it sold like this or do you need a code?
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perdue27
Member
Joined: 09 Mar 2008
Location: United States
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Also someone asked me, this is for a TV, not a computer.
Thanks!
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jman98
Member
Joined: 08 Oct 2004
Location: Freedonia
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| perdue27 wrote: |
Hi!
If my DVD Recorder is zone free, can I make copies of the French and US DVDs?
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DVD recorders don't allow you to make copies of DVDs unless the DVD source is not copy protected or you have a way of sending a video signal to the recorder that removes Macrovision.
Recording DVDs on a DVD recorder is stupid. Ripping DVDs to a PC, shrinking if necessary/desired, and burning is a better way to go. We have many guides on how to do this.
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CrazyCanuck
Member
Joined: 13 Oct 2005
Location: Canada
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Thanks jman98 for calling all of us users that backup from dvd to dvd recorders stupid, much appreciated man, really. Maybe the PC route will give you great results, but to call us stupid, that's a bit much don't you think.
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wabjxo
Member
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Location: United States
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Region settings are for playback only. Recordings made on a consumer DVDR don't set a region flag so they're interpreted as being Region 0 (region-free). If you can play a different-region program to the HDD or a DVD in a consumer DVDR, the recordings and all copies made from them will be region-free.
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perdue27
Member
Joined: 09 Mar 2008
Location: United States
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I was thinking about making a back-up copy of my kids DVDs. To my opinion, the easiest way for someone like me (who is not a computer expert) would be to use a DVD recorder.
My friend (who is not a computer expert either) owns a DVD recorder on her French PC, she borrowed me copies of French movies that only plays on a region free DVD player. As you mentioned, she was unable to copy some movies probably due to copy protection, but was able to make some others, even though the DVD said" copy protected".
So I though that I may be able to make copies of some of the DVDs I own, based on her story. But after what I read, it seams that I will only be able to record TV Shows and personnal videos from a camcorder on DVDs.
Thanks for all your feedback. That's very interesting.
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Noahtuck
Subliminal
Joined: 29 Jun 2004
Location: ®Inside My Avatar™© U.S.
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| CrazyCanuck wrote: |
| Thanks jman98 for calling all of us users that backup from dvd to dvd recorders stupid, much appreciated man, really. Maybe the PC route will give you great results, but to call us stupid, that's a bit much don't you think. |
Actually he did not call people who do it stupid, he said doing it was stupid, there is a diff.
But then again Forest Gump stated it well, stupid is as stupid does 
@ perdue27
It's easy to backup copy protected dvd's.
There are a number of free tools to do it, you would actually need 3.
Or if you want to spend 40-50 $$ DVDFab Platinum is a great choice for 1 program that will do it all.
It will rip the original removing any copy protections, compress the dvd to fit on a single layer dvdr, burn the compressed files back to a dvdr & then delete all the temp files leaving nothing behind.
You can set it to copy just the main movie wo when dropped in the player it will just play the movie straight off or you can copy the entire disc with all extra's & menus or any combination between.
I have recommend this program to many, many people and none have had a problem with it.
Another good point is that it is regularly updated for new copy protections as they come out.
_________________
Originally a member since july of 2001
so i'm not a noob!!!!!!!!!!!
LONG LIVE TARANS!!!!!!!!
& if that don't tell you anything.....
Who's really the noob ??
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Seeker47
Member
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
Location: A State of Mind, USA
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| jman98 wrote: |
Recording DVDs on a DVD recorder is stupid. Ripping DVDs to a PC, shrinking if necessary/desired, and burning is a better way to go. |
And absolutist statements tend to be stupid . . . because there are always exceptions. I had a situation the other day where the computers were tied up for awhile with something more important, but I needed to make a quick and easy copy of a couple DVDs. So I tried the "Disk Backup" function of the Pioneer DVDR, which I don't recall ever bothering with before. They came out just fine, menus and all. These were high speed copies too, which took care of the "quick" part. (Of course, there was no copy protection involved, or this would not have worked.)
_________________
When in Las Vegas, don't miss the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum ( http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ ) (http://lasvegas.wikia.com/wiki/Las_Vegas_Pinball_Hall_of_Fame_Museum ) -- over 150 tables from 6+ decades of this gradually disappearing American art form.
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hech54
CONFUSED
Joined: 26 Jul 2001
Location: Yank in Europe
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| perdue27 wrote: |
If my DVD Recorder is zone free, can I make copies of the French and US DVDs? |
French DVD's are PAL format. American DVDs and American
televisions are NTSC format....they are not compatible.
"Zone Free" or "Region Free" has NOTHING to do with PAL
and NTSC television formats. Region Free is not the cure-all
that you think it is.
I used to be just like you.
Trust me....making backup copies of your DVDs on a computer with a DVD Burner
is MUCH MUCH easier than doing it with a DVD Recorder.
DVD Recorders are VERY handy to have....but a pain in the butt for backing up
factory pressed - store bought DVDs.
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