Recording TV on Liteon, Philips, or Sony? Which DVD recorder is best?

[Giana]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpmedia

It's an extremely easy DVD recorder to use. It has a single menu screen, with a few tiered menu options. It doesn't really have any fancy features, but it does have a Zoran encoder chipset inside that gives it the awesome clarity and quality. It's one of the most user-friendly DVD recorders I've ever seen, second only to LiteOn (which I would not suggest for your needs).

DVDr Liteon are good for direct recording from TV? Or better a Sony/philiphs 2007 DVD recorder?

I think LSI is best for recording directly from TV.!?

[lordsmurf]

LiteOn DVD recorders

• Pros: Easy to use, have LSI Logic chipsets (able to filter chroma noise out of VHS transfers)
• Cons: CVBR bitrates that run a bit low, issue with green tinting and image vibration in some models, no ATSC/QAM tuners (DTV/HDTV)

Philips / Magnavox DVD recorders

• Pros: HDD recording, ATSC/QAM tuners (records cable/antenna DTV), clean quality encodes from non-tape sources
• Cons: No filtering of quality from tape transfers.
• Important: Older pre-2007 Philips and Magnavox DVD recorders are absolutely terrible quality, and should not be used for anything (outside of a boat anchor). The "good" Philips recorders were manufactured in 2007 until the end of the line, beginning with the DVDR3575 and 3576. When Philips ended their line, Magnavox models took over. The oddity here is that Philips owns Magnavox. The MDR513H is the current 320GB model, available for $330 from Amazon. The MDR515H is the current 500GB model, available for $600 from Amazon. Technically neither of these appear to be manufactured anymore, so new models are existing warehouse stock.
  

Sony DVD recorders

• Pros: Some models have ATSC/QAM tuners, clean quality encodes from TV
• Cons: Hard to find, no filtering of quality from tape transfers.
• Important: Older pre-2009 Sony DVD recorders are absolutely terrible quality, and should not be used for anything (outside of a boat anchor). The quality on older Sony recorders is extremely grainy and blocky. The specific Sony model regarded as decent is the RDR-GX257, which is still available from Amazon for under $200.

.......

Regarding tape transfer, the "no filtering" doesn't just mean the DVD version will not be better, but it generally means the DVD made on that recorder will look worse than the original tape did! These machines poorly handle noisy tapes (VHS, Video8, etc), and will create blocky and crappy DVDs that really are not enjoyably watchable.

The LSI Logic chipset is best with old VHS tapes. It does work fine for off-air broadcast recording, but all existing LSI Logic chipset models are using analog-only tuners, and recording in 4x3 aspect ratio. For DTV compatible recorders, with 16x9 options, you'll need one of the new Philips/Magnavox (or Sony) models.

[Giana]

LS thanks the answer. I live in europe
How about these philips dvd recorder?
In Europe's DVB-T. Only these have philips dvb-t.

1)DVDR5500
2)DVDR5520H

Are from 2007, but they are different from Philips USA.

[Giana]

Quote:

The LSI Logic chipset is best with old VHS tapes. It does work fine for off-air broadcast recording, but all existing LSI Logic chipset models are using analog-only tuners, and recording in 4x3 aspect ratio. For DTV compatible recorders, with 16x9 options, you'll need one of the new Philips/Magnavox (or Sony) models.

LSI are still used by LG in Europe. Record in HQ, SP, LP.
LP is pushed to 4 hours at 720x576. Wrong resolution for VHS This is a lg rh388 chipset MAGNUM

SchedaMain.jpg

[kpmedia]

I've never heard of a Magnum re-brand/rebadge of an LSI Domino chipset! Interesting.

What you have to always remember is this: While the LSI Logic DMN chipsets are stellar quality, that only refers to their potential and under ideal usage conditions. Companies can, and do, choose the wrong settings. There was this ridiculous notion some years ago that long-play DVDs needed "more detail", but somehow overlooked the fact that such a thin bitrate would yield ugly/blocky video quality. You simply cannot record consumer-source video at 720x480 in sub-4Mbps bitrates, using realtime MPEG compression. While LSI is good, it's not a miracle worker. You have to give it something to work with.

A lot of recorders are designed to be used as "SP mode" (fake 2-hour terminology in the digital realm, borrowed from NTSC VHS), and nothing else. Other modes are simply SP mode with more or less bitrate. Nothing has been optimized. Panasonic was a chronic offender here, both with it's own chips (WORST QUALITY EVER!), as well as the later LSI based models.

Even the LiteOn wasn't using LSI at peak performance, because it was CVBR encoding. A number of "no-name" brands even used CBR, which was simply atrocious. I don't think the LSI chipsets were designed with CBR usage intended, based on testing.

##

Zoran made gorgeous chipsets, too. Look at select RCA models. But no VHS clean-up, best used for clean off-air TV recording.

[Giana]

Kmedia I live in europe. LG is still producing dvdr with DVB-T .. I think it's the only one to mount LSI chip set, but with LP in 4 hours .. To register go on television got a Philips DVDR 5500 with DVB-T. It has the same NTSC recording speed of 3537: HQ, SP, SPP, etc. ..1-2-2,5-3 hours.

This is without a hdd recorder.
1) I have an intel atom netbook, Aspire One, Windows Xp. Can I use Womble to cut advertising (TV commercials)?
2) Should I buy a usb external burner

[lordsmurf]

For anybody else following the conversation, I've answered the above two questions here in dedicated threads:
- http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/medi...-recorder.html
- http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-mpeg-vcr.html

Note: Remember to keep unrelated topics in separate posts.
Only the workflows area should have mixed-content threads, because it's going over the overall workflow logistics.

Correct, Europe is DVB-T, which is a nice MPEG-2/MPEG-4 based transmission and video format. It's actually more than just Europe, too! A lot of Africa and the Middle East use the same video system. North America and Japan are the worldwide oddballs, when it comes to video formats and transmission systems.

Take care.