The state of standalones?

[heavyharmonies]

So how good are the 3rd generation standalone DVD recorders, specifically the Panasonic DMR-HS2 and the Toshiba RD-X2?

I've been using a computer-based solution (Canopus ADVC-100 input to my PC, TMPGENC). But it's very "hands-on" and time consuming. I'm looking for a process that won't tie up my computer so much.

My biggest concern:

The material I'm recording are 10+ year old VHS tapes, sometimes laserdiscs. Using TMPGENC, I'm achieving MUCH better results using an XVCD (352x240, CQ 100, 2500 kbps max, deinterlace) template and burning it to CDR than using a NTSC DVD template and burning to DVD-R. Doing DVD to DVD-R dubs using the DVD spec look fine, but recording VHS at that spec just looks awful.

Is this because of the source material, or that I'm somehow doing something wrong? Will I run into this exact problem if I shift to a standalone recorder?

What kind of results are you seeing recording from VHS to DVD-R?

Thanks in advance,

-Dan

[gobama]

A friend of mine has the Panasonic DMR-HS2 and all I can tell you is, I want one hehe. It's that good. He's done some old movies that were on VHS and they look nice on DVD. Of course it all depends on the quality of your source material. If you have a good original VHS tape that looks and plays nice, then it will look good on DVD-R. Plus, the Panasonic player has some image enhancements when transferring VHS to DVD; least that's what I read. Not sure on the Toshiba, but I'm sure it's good. 8)

[oldfart13]

The HS2 will be considered defunct in a couple months according to info from the CES. New recorders from Panasonic, Pioneer, Toshiba, etc. will be out starting in only 2 months. Toward the end of the year, Pioneer (I believe) will have a recorder out able to do 5.1 audio recording as well! I might wait for that one...

[gobama]

Yeah, I'll wait because the newer recorders will be much better. But I was impressed watching my friend's recorder, it looked nice.

[pluche]

I have an (older) Panasonic DMR E20 and have converted many old VHS tapes to DVD; basically the quality from VHS tape to DVD will remain the same as on the original tape or slightly improve if your DVD recorder has a built in time base corrector; this is totally in contrast to the past when copying VHS (or even sVHS) tapes to another tape: quality was always suffering badly !

[gobama]

I'd just like to have one because they're really convenient. But the price will have to come down a bit before I take the plunge. Money is always a problem unfortunately

[piano632]

I would wait to buy one of these things. Over the next few months there will be many better models to choose from including:

Sony RDR-GX7 (with DVD-R and DVD+R support !)
Pioneer DVR-001h, DVR-002h
Philips DVDR75, DVDR80, LX9000R
Apex DRX-9000
MET PV2400i
Panasonic DMR-E50, DMR-HS3

The Pioneer DVR-002h will have an 80GB hard drive (due in summer 2003) and the Panasonic DMR-HS3 will have a 160 GB hard drive !! (not sure when this one will be out). A new Toshiba model is due in fall which has built-in Tivo. The present Toshiba RD-X2 seems flaky - no time base corrector, no progressive scan, records in constant bit rate only, even uses a Panasonic burner (apparently they don't trust in their own Toshiba burners)!

Hopefully many of the bugs in the current state of DVD burning software will be corrected by the time these models come out.

[Gil T Pleasure]

Although the Sony RDR-GX7 can read DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD-R, it can only write to DVD+RW, DVD-RW and DVD-R.

Panasonic do have a replacement for the DMR-HS2, but from what I understand, it will not be called HS3. The replacement models, DMR-E80H will have 80GB built-in HDD and the DMR-E90H will have 120GB built-in HDD.

It's actually the Toshiba RD-X2's replacement (RD-X3) that will have a 160GB built-in HDD. But it's available only in Japan. No word if and when Toshiba will release the RD-X3 worldwide.