Widescreen Recording on the Panny Recorders??

[hothandiman]

I'm thinking of buying one of the Panasonic DMR or HD recorders. I have a wide screen HDTV. I know that it will not be able to record true high definition, but can any of the models record widescreen or letterbox? And what would the connections be if it could: Component, DVI? Any help would be great. Thanks

[FulciLives]

I'm thinking of buying one of the Panasonic DMR or HD recorders. I have a wide screen HDTV. I know that it will not be able to record true high definition, but can any of the models record widescreen or letterbox? And what would the connections be if it could: Component, DVI? Any help would be great. Thanks

You can record to DVD-R in 16x9 widescreen but the DVD will be flagged as a 4:3 DVD so it will look normal on a true 16x9 TV display but the DVD player will not resize it correctly if you try to watch it on a 4:3 TV ... instead everyone will be too tall and skinny looking.

However I think DVD-RAM does support the 16x9 flag but I'm not 100% positive as I've never tried to record a true 16x9 signal as I don't have access to HDTV input signals.

I'm positive though about what I said about DVD-R but I'm not sure about DVD-RAM. Perhaps someone else can help?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
These comments based on the PANASONIC line of stand alone DVD recorders.

[CHAOS]

Hmmm...
I have transfered widescreen dvd to dvd-r on my pan e30, but i always trnfer it to my hd, I'll have to try this when i get home in about 2 hours

[hothandiman]

any more comments?

[Gil T Pleasure]

The Philips DVD+RW Recorders have the ability to record in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen.

See:
http://www.dvdplusrw.org/faq/faq_video.html#20