What is the REAL deal with this?

[chris98007]

I have a dvd burner on my pc. I also have a All in wonder pro. What i am looking to do is record weekly shows at the higest quality.

Here is what i have done. I have recorded using my pc with ok results, not bad but not really dvd quality. I also like to have CC info becasue i watch the shows late at night. Getting CC through the PC can be done, but it is a long proccess that i do not really have time for. The PC is stable and reliable.

What is the deal with these DVD Recorders? Seems all of them have fundemental issues. JVC's give great quality but i have seen the "loading" issue several times to make me beleive there is a problem or atleast you have a 50/50 shot of having it. Others including liteon, toshiba and panasonic also have issues.

Am i correct that the quality of video is far better then PC? I know there are always some issues with technology but this seems more like 1st generation issues.

What are my options????

Thanks

[freebird73717]

What is the model of ati card you have. Is is an AIW radeon? I have an ATI AIW radeon 32mb and have been very happy with my capture results. Also do you use the default settings for capture or do you adjust your settings. www.digitalfaq.com has some great guides for capturing with ati cards. I have never used a dvd recorder so i can't comment on that issue but I have been very happy with my ati card!

[chris98007]

no, it is an older card ati all in wonder pro 128. Even if the capture was "great" there is still not an easy way to get cc

[Capmaster]

Pick the model that has the best feature set for you. Most people are amazed at the quality compared to PC MPEG capturing

I would advise getting a model that has a variable bitrate so you're not locked into using "2 hour" or "3 hour" mode. A VBR unit will adjust the bitrate so as to fully fill out the DVD, and there's no quality hit for a movie that's ...say ...2:07 in length, which requires the "3 hour mode" on a block-select bitrate model

[chris98007]

nobody has an opinion on this?

[Epicurus8a]

I live in the US, and have owned two Pioneer DVR-210s DVD Recorders for six months. Both have been 100% trouble free. The best feature is "Manual Recording," which allows you to select the bit-rate. (MN19 or higher for best quality.) I wish there were a few more features: More menu backgrounds (only 9 available), and an MPEG Audio option. Very few machines have not been able to play the discs I've recorded. (I have not tested VR mode or the DV in/out.) TIP: Don't buy cheap discs. That would be almost like buying cheap fuel for your automobile, then wondering why it performs poorly.

[chris98007]

Thanks for the info, no i use TDK disks and they work great in my other stand alones.

I have head so many issues with these that i am not sure if i want to go for it. Cannot really afford to toss mony into the trash.

[edthesped]

My opinion based on 3 days of owning a set top recorder, iLO DVDRHD04, and a 9800 AIW pro for more than a year. I was never truly happy with my captures from the AIW but they were acceptable. I used the AIW to capture only occasionally because the whole process was a royal PITA and the quality just wasn't worth the effort. Three days ago I purchased the iLO and, in my opinion, the quaility of the video captured from the iLO is an order of magnitude better than the AIW. At this point I don't forsee using the AIW to capture TV again.

[lordsmurf]

If you want to match ATI AIW captures, a LiteOn can do it. If you want to surpass ATI AIW quality, grab a JVC.

[edthesped]

In my case the LiteOn by far exceeds the AIW but that may be becuase I'm using component in from a digital cable box to feed the LiteOn instead of the built in tuner or because I was doing something wrong with the ATI. Now if the JVC is that much better than the LiteOn I'd be truly impressed and if iLO doesn't fix their bugs by the time my return period is up I'll surely be looking at the JVC. Out of curiosity, which JVC would you recommend? My requirements are firewire in and a hard drive.

Thanks

[chris98007]

ok, so quality better then capture card. What about quality of machine? Sure i have problems every now and again with my xbox or dvd player, but it looks like to me these are still very 1st gen machines. Are they going to last atleast a year without being shotty? Lets be real, if you have a problem recording 1 out of 4 times you try, eventually you wont do it anymore. I need feedback on what people are finding about this.

Another question is if only standard cable, what should i expect for results? I have a Cablecard that is in the back of the tv, so there is no way to route that to the DVD recorder.

Thanks

[midnightsun]

Out of curiosity, which JVC would you recommend? My requirements are firewire in and a hard drive.

Thanks

JVC DR-MH20 and 30. Only difference is the former has an 80GB HD, whereas the latter a 160GB one.

http://www.jvc.co.uk/product.php?id=DR-MH30SEK&catid=18&lid=

[edthesped]

chris98007 I can only speak for the iLO / LiteOn and even then my experience is less than one week. I mainly burn shows for my kids, I then edit out the commercials to minimize the "I need brand x to be cool" mentality. As far as the iLO is concerned it takes me between 5 and 10 minutes to split the shows remove the commercials and re-join the show, I'm still in the learning phase so that may improve. I've yet to have any problems with recorded material especially on the very picky 7" player in the car, (it won't play half of the disks I burn on the computer). I'm considering editing the disks on the computer but then I'll likely have the compatability issue with the portable unit. Another plus is having a ton of shows on the hard drive, I don't have to looks for DVD's anymore. I'm seriously considering a removable HD setup like Normando has, I just need to get the iLO to recognize different sized hard drives and I'll do it.

At this point I don't forsee ever using my AIW card to capture again.

[edthesped]

midnightsun, if the iLO doesn't do what I want I'm definately going for the 160 GB version. I have to say that for the ~$280 I spent on the iLO I'm very happy so far.

[chris98007]

Thanks for the post. Do you have regular cable or digital?

[Epicurus8a]

I have no regrets purchasing the Pioneer DVR-210s. In fact I was so happy I purchased a second one. As an added benefit, I'm able to use my computer while the DVR is recording. If I'm in need of a special menu or precise chapters, I'll rip the DVD to my computer and re-author it with TMPGEnc DVD Author. I consider the money spent on the Pioneer(s) to be a worthwhile investment.

[edthesped]

Thanks for the post. Do you have regular cable or digital?

I have digital cable.

[chris98007]

Do you think it would be worth it for regualr cable? I did notice that my tv has an svideo out that maybe i could hook up to and svideo in on the back of a dvd recorder.

[edthesped]

Do you think it would be worth it for regualr cable? I did notice that my tv has an svideo out that maybe i could hook up to and svideo in on the back of a dvd recorder.

I don't know, I'll try to record a show via the tuner when I get home tonight and report the results.

[macleod]

edthesped wrote:

"I need brand x to be cool"

What a great idea!!! I have a 3yr old boy where all I hear is "I want that" during every commerical. Great idea, especially with Christmas coming up!!!!!

I ahve the panny E30 and am very happy with the results over my ati-tv wonder PCI card. What I do is record from VHS to DVD-RAM (reusable 10,000 times) and then throw it into the PC, let TMPGENC DVD Author it and then it burns.

Will never go back to card capturing. I know that there are better cards out there, but timewise and paind wise, the dvd recorder is the way to go.

[lordsmurf]

JVC DRM10S.

[chris98007]

Ok, so what i am hearing is that the settop records are far better then the "average" capture cards.

I also know that JVC's picture is very good. Panasonic, toshiba and sony are right there in #2.

What i am not hearing from anyone is do you feel like you are 1st gen buyers? This technology is a few years old with products on the 2nd generation. If you sit down to record a show, how many times do you have a problem? how bad is the problem?

I would put everything on a RW then edit on pc a burn it there. Yes i know that there is nothing fool proof, but i have had my plextor pc dvd burner for 2 years and never had a problem.

To me i am looking at the JVC, however not comitted. 250-300 is alot to spend in my mind if i am going to have issues.

Perfect example is when i bought my first xbox. I paid 300 i think, after about 4 months the lazer began to bad, disks would not read. I would want to play and would fire it up and then it would not work. End result is that i did not even try out of frustration. 10 months later bought another one and all is fine. Maybe i bought a 2nd gen.

I need to know what you all think about the purchase and the money you spent vs waiting and issues you have.

[edthesped]

I don't feel my unit is a first generation unit, but it does have it's share of bugs. So far recording to disk has been painless and flawless, I've burned about 15 disks so far. Recording to the HD on the unit is fine if the show is less than 1 hour, anything over one hour and I get an audio glitch every half minute. However, when I record the video from the HD to disk the audio is perfect. I'm hoping iLO fixes the problem but if not I'll return it to Wal-Mart, which leads to another advantage of the unit, Wal-Mart has a very liberal return policy so I have 90 days to decide whether the unit is worth the money and iLO has 85 more days to to fix the audio problem before I return my unit. FWIW the dvd+r drive in the iLO is a standard off the shelf LiteOn PC drive and I'm sure I could find a way to make any dvd drive work in the unit if I had to.

See
http://www.pbase.com/dvdrhd04/image/35716583/original

for an image of the drive used in the iLO.

[lordsmurf]

I definitely feel like a bit of a first-gen user. All of this non-PC stuff is still new and far from perfect.

[edthesped]

I would say set top DVDR's are not mature but I'm not sure I'd consider them first generation either. Set top units have gone through quite a few iterations since they've been out and with the exception of the audio glitch the ilo seems as functionally sound as any VCR I've owned, (watch I'll be singing the blues about all of the problems I'm having with my set top unit next month ) With that just said take my opinion with a grain of salt because I'm still smitten with my new toy.

[spiderman2k1]

I have the Panasonic E80 DVD recorder very happy had it almost one year no problems.