RebKell's Junkie Boards

[rebkell]

What's the scoop on these things, I've been meaning to get one and I know some of you have got them. What's the lowdown on them, good ones, bad ones, etc.. what is the cost of disks nowadays?

[sambista]

i've been researching 'em, reb, and it's a big ball o' wax, i can tell you. when i get where i can do it, i'll post some links of places where i've been researching. the only real good news is that the price has come way down since they were introduced. i thought i was looking at inferior models that were priced at $150, but you can really get them that cheaply, some for even less. the trick is deciding which features are most important to you. i can pretty much assure you that you won't get everything you want in one machine, unless you're willing to pay upwards of $500. you also gotta decide how you're gonna use it. my own problem: i wanna convert old videotapes to dvd, which just about any machine will do cheaply. but i also want indexing/thumbnails, a machine that'll handle multiple media types and multiple dvd regions, etc., etc. then it gets sticky. (there's actually a machine out there that has TWO slots for media cards, like sd and compact flash, for punching up your photos on the big screen.)

anyway, i'll get you some links i've got socked away on my other computer. there's a guy who has done a whole website of his own just on dvd recorders, and now i know why: the info is all over the place and not very well-organized, even on sites like cnet. they've been mixing apples and oranges (dvd recorders, straight up; dvd recorders with hard drives; dvd recorder/vcr combos, which is what i want).

if anyone has one of the latter, please speak up!

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no justice, no peace.

[sambista]

oh, disks are getting cheaper fast. i see sales of 10 for $7.99 or so. they used to be more than $15 apiece.

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no justice, no peace.

[bigsportzbabe]

I actually got one as a gift for my birthday...it`s still in the box so I can`t tell you if it`s any good.....




this is the model


http://www.komusa.com/lionlvdvvire.html

_________________
Senility Prayer: God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference. Amen.

[rebkell]

[bigsportzbabe]

[barryi22]

I got mine for around 250. It's a panasonic e55k, it works great. I can get 50 discs for 20 bucks during the christmas sales, that is when I stock up, I'm on my final 50 discs but the 200 discs lasted a full 8 months.

[rebkell]

[sambista]

[Luuuc]

Yeah, Lite On have a pretty good reputation. They've been building PC burners for years, and actually make a lot of Sony's stuff.
I've read good things about their 'home' models in terms of bang for your buck.

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Thanks for calling. I wait all night for calls like these.

[sambista]

i found this awesome site - which, of course, now i can't find - that had a form where you could check the features you wanted on a dvd recorder. then it would list some recommended machines and present the top three recommendations. you could then re-sort the list based on other features presented in the chart. alas, this is what i had saved up in my folder (and won't you be sorry you asked?):

this one's chock full of stuff:
http://timefordvd.com/hardware/dvd/recorder/DVDRecorderBuyingGuide.shtml

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/electronics/dvd-recorders/

http://hometheater.about.com/od/dvdhardwareandsoftware/tp/dvdvcrrecorders.htm

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/reviews_subcat-76.html

http://cnet.nytimes.com/4521-6531_7-5021437-2.html

http://www.georeviews.com/reviews/DVD_Players_and_Recorders/14/

this is a good site where this guy (or gal) has put together some great links (yup, more links!):
http://www.dvd-recorder-review.com/

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,113668,00.asp

_________________
no justice, no peace.

[jammerbirdi]

[jammerbirdi]

[Luuuc]

You're half right, Jammer.
It does record to a hard drive, which makes it a whole lot more versatile than just a straight up DVD recorder.

[sambista]

see? that's why you gotta really think about what you want this thing for. there are so many iterations of the technology.

do you want just a dvd recorder that'll burn stuff from other devices (like tivo)?

or do you want a hard drive/tivo kind of thing that also burns dvds?

or do you already have a hard drive/tivo kind of thing and want to combine a dvd recorder with a vcr, so you can burn your old videos AND burn stuff from tivo?

do you want editing features so you can dress up your dvds (deleting commercials, indexing/thumbnails like the commercial dvds, titling, etc.) or do you just wanna press a button and copy shows like you did with a vcr?

do you not need those editing features because all of your serious video editing - that's what you'll do on your pc/mac and burn from there?

do you want a dvd recorder that will also be a versatile player of other discs? audio cds? mp3s? scvds? vcd? audio dvds? dvd-ram? jpegs? divx? double-sided, dual layer discs? how many inputs are on the front of the unit? do you need input ports in the front to connect your digital camcorder? analog camcorder? how many s-video inputs/outputs do you need? component video? optical digital? coaxial? do you want progressive scan? (yes, you do!) dolby decoder? dts decoder? (yes, yes!) if you get a unit with a vcr, is it stereo or high-fi stereo?

this is not your impulse buy. and you should be thinking ahead to what the next standards will be (like the double-sided dvd), so your machine doesn't become old too soon. i don't have "home theater," but if i wind up being so lucky in the next few years to have that and/or a large-screen tv, i want this little puppy to be up to the challenge. you can still get a lot of this for a relatively modest amount, but the little things are the gotchas. for me, one of the most important things is to have the right inputs in the front of the machine. some have the rca a/v ports, but s-video and iLink (for a digital camcorder) in front would be a big plus.

_________________
no justice, no peace.

[bigsportzbabe]

Wow Bibb.....

It`s just as well I don`t have to make those decisions, as a techie in training I`m not there yet...

The one I have looks like a pretty good choice for me...I think I`ll get some good use out of it and by the time I outgrow it I`ll be better able to intelligently answer all of your criteria questions.


Actually getting one with the DVR in it was a great move on their part. I can`t have TIVO (I don`t pay for my cable )

Good luck in your quest to find the right machine, hopefully we`ll be able to trade tips.

_________________
Senility Prayer: God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference. Amen.

[sambista]

a lot of this is thinking aloud because i don't have the money for the blasted thing yet anyway, and just as well because i have a lot of serious chewing to do. i could kill myself for not bookmarking that site with the huge comparison chart - it was truly the bomb (still looking). but i should've known to hunt down david pogue, my favorite geeky guy who's good at breaking stuff down:

http://tech2.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/technology/circuits/27stat.html?ex=1124337600&en=73e1059834993c3c&ei=5070

_________________
no justice, no peace.

[sambista]

btw, bsb, what you have IS a dvr (digital video recorder). what it has IN it is a hard drive for storing programs and a dvd burner.

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no justice, no peace.

[rebkell]

[sambista]

then, you and i are looking for the same thing because i have "tivo 2" - the machine that plays nice with directv. now i need something to burn what i've tivo'd, but i also want a vcr to burn old videos (and my vcr is getting long in the tooth and liable to break down any day).

but DO NOT ASSUME it has all the little jacks and features you want. that's what i'm saying. this website will curl most people's hair, but i think you can handle it, reb. it's the down-deep geeks of tivo and homemade dvrs, but also there are posts about recorders that do and do not work well with tivo and directv. i figured that whatever model(s) become my top three choices, i'll be checking here to make sure there are no gotchas:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/

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no justice, no peace.

[sid]

I've got one of the Lite-On LVW-5005 DVD Recorders - I like it because it records in both +/-.

[rebkell]

[peaceplease]

[pilight]

[Luuuc]

There are different types of DVD recordable media, such as recordable DVD-R & DVD+R, and re-writeable DVD-RW & DVD+RW.
The + and - work in slightly different ways, and initially many recorders could only record in one format or the other. It's something to be aware of, but these days you should find that virtually everything you buy can read and write both + and - formats.

_________________
Thanks for calling. I wait all night for calls like these.