HD DVD Recorder to PC through USB or Firewire ?

[Zetti]

Hi all,

I've searched the list on the left, but I'm still confused;

Please, is there any kind of desktop DVD RExcorder that should allow direct connection to a PC ?

I mean, what's the firewire port all about ? Does it allow ONLY the transfer from camera to the HD recorder, OR does it also allow to transfer recorded programs from the Recorder HD to the PC HD ?

Shouldn't it exist an USB connection for that ?

Thanks,

Zetti

[bugster]

AFAIK, there is no DVD recorder that allows connection from recorder to PC, via nay sort of digital connection, for transferring video from recorder to PC.

I believe that it is possible, in some cases, to persuade a recorder with FW to accept input from a PC, but not the other way round.

[Zetti]

Hi Bugster,

Thanks for replying, this feature is so "obvious" that I think it's just a question of time until any Company realizes it'd be high desirable;

Also, it's weird that no desktop recorders accept DL yet....

Zetti

[bugster]

Hi Bugster,

Thanks for replying, this feature is so "obvious" that I think it's just a question of time until any Company realizes it'd be high desirable;

Also, it's weird that no desktop recorders accept DL yet....

Zetti

It may be highly desirable from a users point fo view but look at it this way.

A standalone DVd recorder is supposedly a newer technology, higher quality replacement for your VCR. They do not want to upset the movie studios and TV companies by making it even easier to take your recorder material and make it easily available it over the internet. Of course all you have to do today is transport the disk from your recorder to your PC, rip and maybe encode to divx in order to do this, but a direct firewire or USB connection would make it too easy for too many people.

[handyguy]

What would be the point of connecting it to your pc anyway? A dvd recorder is a computer with a dvd writer, same thing as a regular computer with a writer.

If you want to share files just put them on a dvd.

[Zetti]

Isn't it clear - actually, as clear as it gets :P - that, on the PC, it's possible to edit the video and audio as desired, build nice menus, make a 5.1 mix, among hundreds of other things ? :P

Then, one would say "Copy to disc and take it to the PC", OK, but it means using AC3 instead of LPCM to have room, which means lossy compression, and bla-bla-bla;

I've noticed that the latest Panasonic model includes an Ethernet port, shouldn't it allow connection to a PC ?

Zetti

[sullen]

If I remember right you can record from the Pioneer units to the PC, but it is recording into an DV file, right?

I remember someone recording both ways using the Firewire on a Mac. But if you are talking about transferring actual content via the Firewire from DVD recorder to the PC, as mentioned no recorder does this.

[Capmaster]

What would be the point of connecting it to your pc anyway? A dvd recorder is a computer with a dvd writer, same thing as a regular computer with a writer.

If you want to share files just put them on a dvd.

Oh I don't know, how about for doing some serious editing, framerate conversion, NTSC-to-PAL reencoding and vice versa, authoring with a different audio format, doing 4-pass encoding instead of just 1-pass, storage on a larger HD .....the list is long

[Frobozz]

I have the Pioneer DVR-510 and a Mac. I can record DV video from the Pioneer via Firewire into iMovie. The video must be playing from the Pioneer's hard drive or from a DVD. In other words it has to be MPEG content, not live feed. The Pioneer converts it to DV for export.

[Zetti]

Yeah......thanks to you all that replied on this post...

Well, I definitely won't buy a stand alone recorder until this capability comes alive - and I'm talking about a USB connection to transfer the "actual" content, withou MPEG to DV reencoding;

Also, it's still unclear why DL capabilities haven't already been seen on stand alone..

Anyway, I'm still confused, considering that the latest Panasonic model includes an Ethernet port, shouldn't it do what I want ?

Thanks,

Zetti

[bugster]

Also, it's still unclear why DL capabilities haven't already been seen on stand alone..

Zetti

They have. Can't quote make and model No's right now, but I have seen them mentioned here and elsewhere. Perhaps only 2 or 3 at the moment.

[gshelley61]

I capture everything to -RW with my DVD recorder, then edit and author finished DVD's on my computer. I don't see how transferring the MPEG2 via firewire from the recorder to the PC makes any sense... I just read the -RW with my computer's DVD-ROM and extract the files directly.

[Zetti]

....I don't see how transferring the MPEG2 via firewire from the recorder to the PC makes any sense...

Thanks, but saying the obvious just doesn't help

Are you a music fanatic ?

Do you record audio as LPCM, so you can have best quality possible for later making a 5.1 mix at Acid Pro ?
OK, so you have few room on disk;

Ah, you use lossy AC3 for later conversion to LPCM at PC and then make a poor 5.1 mix ?

Recording to a disc and take it to PC IS senseless

Zetti

[Frobozz]

Zetti,
I'm not certain what all that was about, but I can record about 7-8 hours of video-less PCM audio to a DVD with my Pioneer DVR that I then can transfer to my Mac. Why is that senseless? Because it isn't 5.1? Forgive me, I'm lost.

[gshelley61]

It's not senseless at all. My DVD recorder does a much better and more accurate job of capturing analog video than any method I've tried with the computer. When I transfer a laserdisc to DVD-RW with the DVD recorder, I can then seamlessly edit the LD sides together with no quality loss (no re-encoding) on the computer with Womble and author a finished DVD-R. I never was satisfied with the results I got capturing to the PC. The basic video quality was lacking.

[Zetti]

Hi all,

OK, let me try to explain better the reason for my interest in a DVD stand alone recorder like that;


First of all : I'm a music fanatic, I only do music.

Last year, the TV broadcasted here in my Country a 2 hour Clapton concert,

As a music fanatic, what would I do ?.....

Record video as MPEG2 real time, no problem for that, and - here's the rick - record audio as LPCM, so I could later EDIT it as desired, normalize it, make a 5.1 mix, etc, etc;

Now, suppose I had a recorder with no HD.....I'd have to record it to DVD media, right ?

So, if I choose LPCM audio (lossless), I'd have no room on disk for the 2 hour gig at a decent bitrate - say higher than 6500kbps;

If I'd choose AC3 2.0, I'd have room on disc, but would start my audio mix from a lossy poorer format;

This is why, for example, with a HD recorder, I could hook it up to the PC, transfer the files and work on the pC, without reencoding of course;

Zetti

[bugster]

OK, let me try to explain better the reason for my interest in a DVD stand alone recorder like that;


First of all : I'm a music fanatic, I only do music.

Last year, the TV broadcasted here in my Country a 2 hour Clapton concert,

As a music fanatic, what would I do ?.....

Record video as MPEG2 real time, no problem for that, and - here's the rick - record audio as LPCM, so I could later EDIT it as desired, normalize it, make a 5.1 mix, etc, etc;

Now, suppose I had a recorder with no HD.....I'd have to record it to DVD media, right ?

So, if I choose LPCM audio (lossless), I'd have no room on disk for the 2 hour gig at a decent bitrate - say higher than 6500kbps;

If I'd choose AC3 2.0, I'd have room on disc, but would start my audio mix from a lossy poorer format;

This is why, for example, with a HD recorder, I could hook it up to the PC, transfer the files and work on the pC, without reencoding of course;

Zetti

So, you take a music concert, broadcast over the air (or cable), for the sake of argument lets says it was a digital broadcast. So the audio was quite probably broadcast using mp2 or if you were really lucky, Ac3 5.1.

If it was already 5.1 when broadcast, then that is how you want to record. If it was mp2, then that is the best way to record it.
Unfortunatley, AFAIK, no DVD recorder on the market records the digital broadcast stream directly off the air. It is converted to analog by the receiver, sent to the recorder by component/s-video/composite or whatever and then re-encoded. The same is true for the audio. (I expect you know all this). So by the time all these conversions have taken place, recording the audio to LPCM in order to 'preserve quality' is probably a waste of time/effort/disk space anyway!

[Zetti]

.....for the sake of argument lets says it was a digital broadcast....

It's obvious I'm talking about regular, analog broadcasts......

Zetti

[Frobozz]

Zetti,

I'm unclear if when you say you're audio only if that means you don't want the video portion of your hypothetical 2-hour Clapton Concert. If all you want is the PCM audio then the solution is simple on my Pioneer. I just record through the line input but don't connect a video source. That way I could record nearly an 8-hour Clapton concert in PCM to a single-layer DVD.

But I believe you want the video as well because you mention wanting its bit rate to be over 6 mbps. And you want this ultimately to be on your computer. The most obvious solution is to forget about standalone DVD recorders and get a Canopus analog-to-digital converter to bring nearly lossless video and audio straight to the computer. Then you can author to dual-layer DVD with PCM audio.

The control you want over the standalone DVD recorder is more than consumer-level machines are providing. Maybe there is a more professional level out there (but aren't the professionals using computers rather than standalones?).

As for me, I'd record the Clapton concert to fit on two DVDs if PCM audio was essential. The Pioneer has a feature to divide the MPEG into two titles. I understand it would be nice to extract this directly to my computer without having to burn the DVDs but it really isn't much of a hassle to copy from the DVDs instead.

[Heavensent]

Zetti ,
if you really want to get the best possible audio qulity, you should capture with PCM and thats it !
any other conversion will only degrade the audio.
so why whould you want to transfer the audio to the pc and then make it sound worse ???
converting a pcm wav to 5.1 will not give you better qulity, it just gives you the surround sound.
the audio is actualy worse then it originaly was!

[Capmaster]

Zetti ,
if you really want to get the best possible audio qulity, you should capture with PCM and thats it !
any other conversion will only degrade the audio.
so why whould you want to transfer the audio to the pc and then make it sound worse ???
converting a pcm wav to 5.1 will not give you better qulity, it just gives you the surround sound.
the audio is actualy worse then it originaly was!

That's an awfully costly way to capture, space-wise. Fine if you don't mind giving up 1 or 2GB of DVD space for the audio

AC3 (DD) ought to satisfy most everyone. Want better quality, bump up the sample rate And it's still 10% or less of the size of LPCM audio

[Zetti]

Thanks guys, it seems that finally I've made myself understood here

Well, I have a Canopus ADVC100, but I've realized that the BEST quality comes from satnd-alone real time recorders, definitely.

The latest Panasonic has an Ethernet port, I'll check its details;

My way of doing DVD's is to CAPTURE audio as LPCM, edit it as desired, and build 2.0 and 5.1 AC3 streams to burn on DVD, using the 2 audio streams;

LPCM is useful for capturing and editing, at the final step I convert to AC3.

Thanks,

Zetti

[bugster]

.....for the sake of argument lets says it was a digital broadcast....

It's obvious I'm talking about regular, analog broadcasts......

Zetti

To you maybe, certainly not to me.

Either way, the audio quality is questionable at best. The point I was trying to make was that you can't take broadcast quality audio and expect to turn it into CD or better quality result.

Why not use you standalone DVD recorder to capture the video and connect the audio source to something like a CD recorder or even a PC souncard. SYncing up later may be a slight problem but shouldn't be too difficult.

[Heavensent]

Capmaster wrote :

That's an awfully costly way to capture, space-wise. Fine if you don't mind giving up 1 or 2GB of DVD space for the audio

yea, i know !
but the guy said he was an audio freak or something like that, didnt he?

so pcm is still the best way to get what he wants.

[TEXAVERY]

Has anybody tried the USB interface on the Yamakawa 628 DVD recorder?

Basically it seems to be the only model that has USB capability but I wonder if it can behave like a USB BURNER/WRITER or a USB HOST(like a PC so that it can recognize whatever USB clients attached to it,like cameras):

If it behaves like a DVD burner , it's perfect that 's what I am looking for :I won't need to buy a separate PC DVD burner because then this DVD recorder will be doing the job.(in addition to recording/playing)

If it behaves like a USB host , I have doubt that it will be able to recognize all USB devices that can be attached to it since it will require like a PC software drivers associated with that particular USB client ,ie cameras.Besides we already all likely have a computer to do this kinda stuff.So much less desirable.

thx,texavery

[alsyed]

I too am waiting for a hard disk recorder/dvd recorder with usb2 interface. For example, if you record stuff on your machine, and you want to transfer it across by usb2 to your pc, it would in my opinion, be much faster to transfer by usb2 to your computer for further editing than if were using dvd+rw etc, then you have 14 minutes of so for a full disc at max 4 speed burning, then you have to rip it to the pc. Now if i'm correct, copying by usb would be a lot less than that.


I have little knowledge how dvd recorders work at the moment, still researching, but i know i wouldn't really want to transfer across as dv (firewire) as then i would need to re-encode.

in a way then, i probably wouldnt' need to have the dvd recorder part in it then heheh

[dr-rjp]

I too am waiting for a hard disk recorder/dvd recorder with usb2 interface. For example, if you record stuff on your machine, and you want to transfer it across by usb2 to your pc, it would in my opinion, be much faster to transfer by usb2 to your computer for further editing than if were using dvd+rw etc, then you have 14 minutes of so for a full disc at max 4 speed burning, then you have to rip it to the pc. Now if i'm correct, copying by usb would be a lot less than that.


I have little knowledge how dvd recorders work at the moment, still researching, but i know i wouldn't really want to transfer across as dv (firewire) as then i would need to re-encode.

in a way then, i probably wouldnt' need to have the dvd recorder part in it then heheh

It essentially reads any removable media connected to the USB like digital cameras, and jump drives. It cannot used for any other purpose such as trying to record streaming video.

[lacywest]

The idea of having firewire or USB 2.0 outputs from my DVD Recorders for connecting to my PC ... would be cool ... that would be a great feature.

What would I do with this feature ?? Well ... at the moment nothing because this feature isn't available.

Now how about the Comcast Cable Box ... the Motorola DCT 6412 [DVR]... in my living room has a USB 1.0 on the front panel.

... but I added a second one in my bedroom and it's a DCT 6412 III and it has a USB 2.0 on the front panel.

The one in my living room is screwing up ... doesn't record correctly anymore ... as soon as I remove what I recorded in the beginning when I first got it ... I will return it.

But the second one I got ... the newer model ... when I record a TV show ... Smallville ... the playback quality is terrible ... squiggly lines and bad reception is what I see ... even though it looks just fine as I am viewing it live.

Weird ... huh ?? .... I'm now recording to the Panasonic DMR EH50 ... good ol Smurf ... will probably speak out ... but ... at least it works better then the unit Comcast gives us to use ... ugh !!

[ktnwin]

Simply put, what do DVD recorder manufacturers have in mind.

They certainly aim at people who want to record TV shows (antenna input), VHS tapes (analog video/audio inputs) , DV tapes (Firewire input, S-video would be fine) or any other analog video to DVD discs for many obvious reasons (maybe not so obvious). And those features sell (especially the price drops dramatically to as low as 100$).

Only this special group (the ones in this forum) cares about editing video with the PC. And this is a very small percentage of the population. Businesswise, it does not make sense to provide a feature that very very few people care about. And since there are ways to port these MPEG2 files (VOB files) to the PC via a DVD disc, another reason for not bothering with providing it. I doubt that this feature will help to sell more units. The selling points are usually: price, quality of the recorded video/audio, product quality, able to use re-writable media (+/-RW), macrovision hacks, Firewire input (not really that important for many).

You may argue that some DVD players now support Divx format to help selling more, this is simply a firmware feature that is free to provide and virtual no assistance is needed (it just plays Dvix file on the TV, no question asked). On the otherside, transferring MPEG-2 data from the DVD recorder to the PC will certainly call for a lot of technical support from the manufacturers.

[dr-rjp]

There is a great freeware program called SUPER, and it will convert just about anything into anything, avi divx xvid dvd vob vro mpeg wmv asf rm mov 3gp 3gp2 mp4 pal ntsc dv, h.264, and aac, mp3, etc.

Just drag-and-drop the files. It even comes with its own media player.

I use it to convert my DVD files into Divx, MPEG-4, and MPEG-II.