Christmas is coming........and it's time to buy a DVD Recorder

[stonesfan]

Its time to buy myself a component HDD, DVD recorder.

I guess I'm going to be budgeting around £200-250 ($300-375 USD) and require a unit that:

Allows me to play/record DVD's

Allows me to plug my VHS recorder in via SCART/Composite cable to record to HDD. Can then burn to DVD or....

Desirable but not essential, to have a USB socket so I can transfer HDD recordings to my PC without needing to burn a disc. Needs to be a 'universal' format ie mp4, so I can watch the programmes on my PC.

Unit needs to be relatively quiet.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[M Bruner]

I have a DVD recorder, and it really is nice. But if I had a choice between a USB or Firewire port or no port like I have now, I definitely would pick one with a port.

[jman98]

Allows me to play/record DVD's

Allows me to plug my VHS recorder in via SCART/Composite cable to record to HDD.

Hopefully a UK or European person will respond. In the USA and Canada DVD recorders are almost non-existent. However, what exactly do you mean by saying "play/record DVD's" (sic - the use of 's is wrong for plurals in English - it's just DVDs)? If you are asking if you can play a commercial DVD from another player and record it in this unit to copy it, that probably won't work because of Macrovision.

You should be aware that Hollywood has made all manufacturers produce DVD recorders that operate in somewhat paranoid mode. Hollywood doesn't want any commercial VHS tapes to be copied by DVD recorders. So if the DVD recorder detects a commercial VHS tape (again, it's Macrovision at work), it won't copy it. In fact, some recorders are overly sensitive and they will refuse to record homemade tapes of, for example, home movies you made yourself because the recorder thinks that somehow this tape might maybe be a commercial one so it better not record anything just to be safe. It happens. Will it happen to you? Who knows? But since I don't know the nature of these tapes, I can't comment on how likely any recorder is to do this. If you want to record a bunch of old tapes you bought years ago, then you are probably out of luck. If you are just wanting to copy old personal tapes, then that will probably work OK but I can't guarantee 100% success for the reasons I mentioned.

[lordsmurf]

Read this: http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-recorders.htm

[orsetto]

The only UK-spec recorder in your price range is the Phillips DVD/HDD. Its serviceable enough, and has been the only new DVD/HDD model available in USA stores since late 2006. The US model has a digital tuner for our system, the UK model is DVB-T. It can make passable DVD dubs from VHS, but as jman98 mentions it may have trouble with Macrovision-protected Hollywood tapes. The Phillips design succeeds at copying more often than other brands, its much less paranoid, but you may still end up needing an outboard filter or TBC for some commercial tapes. The same OEM mfr (Funai) that makes the Phillips also offers attractively-priced Toshiba-branded VHS/HDD/DVD combo decks in Europe: these should be avoided in favor of the Phillips DVD/HDD. The Phillips has tighter quality control, and the VHS in the Toshiba combo introduces additional copy protection nonsense. Recorders with built-in VHS are paradoxically much harder to work with than separate VHS and DVD/HDD units.

For significantly more money, there are DVD/HDD decks from Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic with slightly better tape dubbing quality, faster more responsive operation, additional customizing features and more elegant editing systems. These run from 35-100% more than your stated budget. While preferable if you can afford one, on a price-performance basis the Phillips is really hard to beat.