Best DVD Recorder with a built in Hard Drive

[scustalow]

Can anyone suggest one under $700 I was going to try a Panasonic but one person said after awhile the hard drive churns alot because there is no utility to defrag the hard drive.

[pchan]

I am shopping for one also. The one that I particularly interested is Pioneer DVR-510H with 80gig HD. It cost about US$770(converted from local currency). According the sales guy, it has the most user friendly interface. I did ask what to do if the HD crash. According to this guy, just hit the reformat button. I think it's for corrupted HD and not crashed.

[handyguy]

Recorders:
https://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters

[scustalow]

Thanks handyguy
I posted this because I wanted a first ahnd opinion of the machine.As the listing does not give the option of one with a hard drive to search unless I overlooked it

[BigSteel]

Just curious as to why you would shell out almost $800 for a DVD recorder when you can buy a DVD burner for your computer for less than $100. Is there an advantage to recording using a DVD recorder as opposed to a computer DVD burner?

[overloaded_ide]

Is there an advantage to recording using a DVD recorder as opposed to a computer DVD burner?

Yes many advantages sometimes, but depends on the people and what their doing. For one thing it is basically like having a second computer in a way, (but not really). It does all the capturing work, creates the Vobs, burns the Master disk. All this time your main computer can be doing somethng else like editing the last DVD you created.

Kinda like having a helper working with you on a second sytem but you don't have the problems

Also one must consider it is far more than just a burner, it is also the capture device! So if starting from nothing you'd be paying another $150 or what ever for some way to capture to the PC also.

I like using my PC for everything, but am giong to lookinto buying a cheap settop recorder. I had an E50 when it cost $500 and did not like it for that price. Now I could get some models as low as $150?? For a cheap capture card and burner I would pay that much, plus tying up systems durring capturing.

I don't expect much from the $150 models, but if I capture with the best settings everytime it may be ok for making DVDs from VHS camcorder tapes which I will then edit and re-author on the PC adding chapters, cutting, ect...

Supposedly the ones with hardrives do alot more than just capture and burn also.