Need a DVD recorder- but which?

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None of the DVD recorders in the market today will record DVDs in HD. That's probably a year or so away in the US. An hour of HD material will require more memory than SD material but that's a moot point for DVD recorders today. I have a Pioneer 520H and it has an 80GB HDD. It will record 18 hours of programs at the highest setting. Going to the next highest setting gives you 36 hours of capacity. For your usage, you should be fine. BTW, if you want to record in HD, you can get a HD DVR from your cable company or a Tivo HD recorder if you use satellite. You get the PQ of the original broadcast but you still can't archive the material into HD on DVD. Just a thought.

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Do you mean DV input or firewire? If so, the Pio 520H has this as well. I am not aware of any DVD recorders with DVI inputs

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The 520H is progressive scan and a decent player and one of the slimmest stand alone recorders around. But bear in mind that these recorders typically aren't the best players. You'll have to check playback yourself to see if it works for you. Good luck

That's a good question.


I have an LG LST-4200A STB.


Could I connect the S-video out from the STB(the LG does simultaneous 480i output on HD stations, albeit with the sides cut off unless you switch resolution I think) to a DVD Recorder(With or Without an HDD) and record that material to a DVD? Almost all of my OTA/cable Clear QAM stations are in HD. Only 2 that I know of are actually SD stations(sub-channels for FOX and the WB.) Also could the above be directed to a HI-Fi VCR?


I am interested in a DVD recorder. Going the cheap route, it will probably be the Pioneer DVR-220 sold at WalMart for $248(I would love to get the 520 if it was sold locally in some store. Damn you Pioneer!!) Or I know the new Panasonics are coming out, and I may wait for the price to continue to drop on the current Panny's(E-85). Right now they go for $399 at Circuit City, and that price should continue to drop as May/June get closer for the realease of the new ones.


Thanx

The Pioneer DVD recorders do a very nice job recording the 480i output via S-Video from an HD source. The picture quality is dependent on how much compression you need to fit the program on a DVD. The Pioneer's best resolution settings allow up to about 2 hours and 20 minutes on a DVD (there are 32 quality settings available from 1-hour to 6-hour; 14 of them are in the best-resolution group). An advantage of the HDD-equipped models is you don't have to care about what fits a DVD if you're planning to delete after watching. Even so, I usually record at around the 2-hour quality mode and am happy with the picture quality.


If you want a comparison with how your HD program will look after recording at 480i to a DVD, just watch a letterbox movie on Turner Classic Movies or other SD channel. That's about what your letterboxed HD program will look like.


As for Firewire, the DVD recorders that have a Firewire input make burning an iMovie to DVD fast (i.e. real time) and easy. The Pioneer is unusual in that it also has Firewire output so you can capture video in iMovie from the hard drive or from a non-encrypted DVD. It won't export live TV via Firewire, however.

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Yes it's 480i and yes the quality approaches that of a DVD if you are starting w/ an HD source.


I just picked up the Philips DVDR 615 this weekend. It costs $250 and has a component input in addition to two S-Video ins. The remote is terrible, the GUI is pretty poorly designed but the recordings look pretty damn good. They are defintely 480i though. In fact the component input on the Philips only accepts 480i.


This is a bit of a pain for my setup - I am archiving from a Sci. Altanta 8300HD DVR. That box letterboxes all 16:9 over S-Video, which is why I really wanted a recorder with a component in. However the 8300 also doesn't output 480i over component for anything other than pure analog channels (in my area there are very few left) unless you disable all other output resolutions (480p/720p/1080i) temporarily and leave 480i as the only supported resolution. So I have to do a bit of toggling in the 8300's setup menus before recording anything.


The one major oversight on the 615 that I've noticed and contacted Philips about but haven't heard anyone else comment about is that there is no way to tell the recorder that you are recording a 16:9 program so that it properly flags the disc as 16:9. So even though the 16:9 AR is preserved when playing back on the Philips, if I play the disc on another DVD player or my computer, those players think the disc is 4:3 and the image looks horizontally squeezed. Fortunately I have a Panasonic S97 upscaling player which has a whole bunch of 4:3 zoom options and if you change one setting the image goes back to 16:9. Very few DVD players have this type of option though so the Philips may not be ideal if you are planning to make copies of things to give to other people.


Also the Philips DVD recorders have a relatively horrible track record and seem to be highly prone to breaking down. I may actually spring for the extended warranty if I decide to keep the unit.


For the price though, it's a pretty good unit - only other DVD recorder with a component input that I know of is the high-end Sony GX900 which is more than $700.