AAARRRRR I am so ready to pull my hair out

Any HDD-equipped DVD recorder will do what you describe. There are few such recorders available. Look for Pioneer, Panasonic and Toshiba models. All are good.

HealeyGuy is right, if you're already programming both your VCR and your Satellite receiver to record shows, you won't have any problems with a DVD recorder.

A "Title" is a continuous recording on the disc. If you record only one show per tape, you can think of a "title" like a tape. HDD-based recorders can show you a list of titles that you've recorded so that you can pick one and "play" it.

A "Chapter" is just like a bookmark - you can put one or more of these into a title after you've recorded it. It allows you to use the ">>|" and "|<<" (skip to the next or previous chapter) buttons to move instantly to through the title without having to fast-forward or rewind like you would have to do with a tape.

As far as hard drive size, consider your VCR habits. Are you well organized and make do with just a few scratch tapes which you record on, watch, and then recycle within a couple of days? If so, an 80GB hard drive is probably fine. But if you've got tapes all over the place with things you haven't seen yet but don't want to throw out, you'd better get the biggest hard drive you can afford...

I recommend the Pioneer DVR-640H-S for recording the way you do. It is very reliable, easy to edit out commercials and has no TV-Guide On-screen (TVGOS) which isn't compatible with many satellite receivers anyway. There are several ways to set timers including an "Easy Timer" which lets you select a start and stop time from a grid which eliminates date and am/pm errors. Great unit if you can fine one. Better move fast.

I will recommend the Philips DVDR 3455/37, so long as you don't have the need to "Chase Play View" a Timer Initialized Recording. The Philips lets you Multi-task to a great degree, but you cannot FF., REW, Pause a live recording that started from the Timer Menu. It does have a 6 hour "Live TV Buffer" that lets you do all these things with whatever channel you happen to be tuned into at the time.

From what I have read and researched, the Pioneer 640 looks nice, as do the Toshiba HDD equipped models.

There are loooong review/use/info threads on most major models to be found here.

I looked for the same and settled on the Polaroid mostly for cost. The Philips has a larger HD and may support -RW which the Polaroid does not. But you can install any size HD in the Polaroid (the latest was a 500gig) and even swap burners.

It also does not allow chase play during scheduled recordings like the Philips, but I found that to be a minor inconvenience since you can do many other things at the same time that other recorders do not allow, such as watching a saved show while recording another.

But it does have a feature called time shift which makes the machine into a Tivo and you can chase play what you are watching in a one hour buffer or save it at any time.

I know you have read the different threads and there are a lot of "great recorder" and "piece of junk" for all of them. Some of the piece of junk posts are a lack of features the buyer thought they got, some are ignorance since they never read the manual (or, in the case of the Polaroid, is a poor manual), and sometimes a bad unit.

The other problem with the Polaroid is it gets snapped up just as soon as it shows up at Walmart. I have purchased two, one for my son, and want another for myself. You can buy two Polaroids for for one Pioneer, Panny, or toshiba. What you are getting with them is not necessarily better quality recordings but ease of use (like editing) and more features (FR mode, which is a very nice feature).

If you go on the Polaroid thread you will see it has some nice features such as passing through inputs when off, and has component input as well as output (plus svideo and composite). So it is a keeper for the near future.

One major fault is that the DV input does not work with video cameras. It seems that the DV input is still set up for PAL. But the copy protection seems to be a little weak for broadcasts. Lots of posts on being able to copy broadcasts and some DVDs while other machines do not. Have no idea if they are related.

It does have a mono tuner, but your setup will be stereo when recording. since you will not use the tuner.

It will not record a DVD to the HD when the DVD is in the machine. Only goes one way, from the HD to DVD.

I bought mine as an interim recorder, since the future is digital. I decided not to buy a high end recorder until the digital dust has settled. The Polaroid is a nice, low cost keeper. But good luck finding it.

beekeeper - -RW works fine with the Polaroid. I use Maxell. Also I have a time shift buffer question but I'm going to post it in the Polaroid thread.

Yes it will chase play if you are recording with the record button pushed.

It will not chase play when it is recording a scheduled recording.

It has a feature called time shift which works when you are watching any program. You can chase play without pushing the record button. There is a lot on the Polaroid thread that will help you through all the features, and yes, the manual is bad.

It does record and play to -RW media but there seems to be an issue with -RW media recorded on a panny recorder, at least my ES-20. That is also covered on the Polaroid thread.

That's really unexcusable. I guess the low price is because they never hired an editor for their manuals...

FWIW, I found the following on the Remote Central web site:


Looks like "FCVBS" is the equivalent of "Line 2" on all other DVD recorders, and "RCVBS" is "Line 1".

Sean - that link contains some bad information. The very last post that speaks to 4 options is wrong there are actually 10. There are 5 inputs with the Polaroid.

F-CVBS (front composite)
R-CVBS (rear composite)
R -SVIDEO (rear svideo)
YUV (rear component)
Tuner

And each one can be set as the power up default with the time shift buffer either defaulted to on or off - 10 choices.

The Polaroid is distributed all over the planet by many distributors under various brand names. Philips and Polaroid here in North America (and it now looks like RjTech too). Packard Bell in the UK. Denver on the continent....etc. Using something like CVBS is perhaps an international compromise? Not sure. From Wikipedia:

Composite video is often designated by the CVBS acronym, meaning either "Color, Video, Blank and Sync", "Composite Video Baseband Signal", "Composite Video Burst Signal", or "Composite Video with Burst and Sync".

The problem with most stuff coming out of China is the manual. Even the Philips manual leaves a lot to be desired. But with Polaroid it is worse. Polaroid is just a branding company. What is surprising is that absent of the manual they really got it right with the 2001G.

Thanks for the additional info!


I think it's more likely to be a case of unvetted documentation and firmware written by the techies. I might buy "FCVBS", etc. as an international compromise if the jacks themselves are clearly labelled with "FCVBS", but I'm thinking that they're more likely to be labelled "Line 1", or "Input 1", or something along those lines (can anyone confirm)?

Whatever the jacks are physically labelled with should be what the manual and the on-screen menus refer to. (And even so, I've got to believe that "FCVBS" is a lot less helpful than "Line 1"), even for those who don't speak English).

What media are you using? For example with -R on the Polaroid if you do not manually finalize then you will be unable to view that DVD in a standard DVD player.

In order to finalize with the Polaroid, insert the DVD in the drive and allow it to load, press the up arrow, then the right arrow, then pan down and choose "finalize DVD".

If you are using +RW discs, you will not be given the finalization option because it is not required with +RW.

Even though the manual is not well written you should still page through it. In order to finalize a -R disc you need to do the following:

When in the title menu of the unfinalized disc press the up arrow. Once done press the right arrow. Your finalize option will now be available. This process is explained in the manual.

When you are in the dvd title menu you can go to two other menus. If you press the right button you go to one and the up button to another. Try both and you will see. I believe the finalize is in the up.

As noted, if you want to use it in other players you have to finalize it.

Believe it or not, that is in the manual. The problem is that it is confusing.

I strongly suggest you look through all the posts on the Polaroid thread since there is much more that the machine can do than is in the manual. Ask there. Lots of help.

Good idea. The Philips manual is a great source for information. There are differences between the two machines but a lot of similarities.

In the Polaroid manual it is covered on page 38.