Need some help and input

[BG]

I have been thinking about buying a Panasonic E30. I have an extensive Boxing collection on video that I want to preserve. I orginally bought a Terapin unit and have been very disappointed with it's performance.

I have heard the the DVD recorders perform very well....but I am very worried about the different formats. I know that the E30 uses DVD-R discs.

I have heard that the industry has not decieded on DVD-R or DVD+R.
I do not want to get stuck like Beta owners did in the 80's....I don't want to pick the wrong one. I also don't want to end up having to later convert from one to the other.

Any ideas on which format will stay and which will go. Any info given will really help me out. There may even be a machine that does both....but I'm on a limited budget, so the E30 looks like it would fit my needs.

[piano632]

You don't have to worry much about format wars between + and - as both formats are playable on 85-90% of existing DVD players. Once the discs have been finalized, + and - are pretty much the same. It's not like Beta vs. VHS were you had 2 incompatible tapes that would not play on the other machine. So even if one format were to disappear off the face of the earth, you'd still be able to play all of your discs on the majority of DVD players.

I'm sure any DVD will look better than the Terapin, unless you try to put 6-8 hours on 1 disc.

BTW - I still have 2 Beta VCR's and a Beta camcorder (ha!)

[FOO]

I know somebody that has Beta tapes to
convert, and no player.
I don't suppose anybody wants to sell a Beta Player
for cheap ?

[piano632]

I don't suppose anybody wants to sell a Beta Player
for cheap ?

I'm keeping both of mine for the time being, I have about 100 tapes to copy yet. You might try the Betamax group on Yahoo:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/betamax
I suppose I could copy Beta tapes to DVD-R(W) for somebody, but I'd have to charge at least $10 each tape.