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08-30-2010, 04:31 PM
Sossity Sossity is offline
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can anybody recommend some good easy to use/setup & reliable DVD recorders? I would like to be able to transfer footage from VCR tapes to DVD to play on a regular DVD player, & transfer footage directly from my point & shoot digicams or a camcorder to DVDs for playback on a regular DVD player. And also record digital TV signals to DVD.

I would also like a good selection of different hookups, like multiple composites for connection to antenna signals to record digital TV to a DVD, component, HDMI, USB, & a memory card slot like SD or memory stick pro. To view content on memory cards, & burn to DVD.

I saw this one; http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B0023ZLBDA on amazon, but I know there are knowledgeable people here who may be able to recommend something better, before I jump the gun & buy something that may not be as good, or is this a good deal?

I would also like to keep the price under $200.00, but I am willing to pay a little more if it means better quality, but not over $350.00.
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08-30-2010, 11:22 PM
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There are several very important things to remember with DVD recorders:

1. When converting tapes to DVD, most machines will make the DVDs look worse than the tapes, even on the so-called "best" recording modes (XP mode, 1-hour recordings.) VHS is a noisy video format. Few DVD recorders filter the video quality. MPEG-2 is what is used for DVD-Video format video. MPEG gets really noisy (blocks, compression noise) when the input source signal is already noisy.

2. DVD recorders are touchy about "copy protection" errors, even when the tape is not "protected" in any way, such as home movies you made on your own camera. VHS video is, again, a noisy format. This extends to signal integrity, not merely one of visual quality. Anti-copy is an artificial signal error. Both actual/natural/real and fake/artificial errors will be seen by a DVD recorder as a "copy protection" in almost all cases.

3. Modern TV is all digital, not analog. You have a few exceptions, such as analog cable. As such, most coax connections are now useless. Digital tuners cost more to make, and drive up costs of DVD recorders -- a product that already wasn't selling to desired results. So many DVD recorders have no tuners. To use the DVD recorder as a "channel switcher" or to natively tune into TV channels, the recorder must have an ATSC tuner -- preferably an ATSC+QAM tuner (QAM is what cable uses, ATSC is what you get from an antenna). The only other solution is to set the DVD recorder to record from analog inputs (composite or s-video) and then change channels on a "box" of some kind -- be it a "digital converter" for an antenna, a cable box, or a satellite box.

Asking for multiple composites complicates matters.
Same for SD cards.
Creating DVDs from non-analog inputs.

Most machines have no extra frills, because it's not part of the base feature of a DVD recorder -- recording to a DVD. Photos, USB ports, SD cards, etc, etc -- totally non-essential. As such, those extras are generally found in sparse amounts, one some recorders. Ironically, the machines with the most "extras" also tend to be the machines with the worst video quality (i.e., crappy blocky DVDs).

You've basically asked for something that just doesn't exist.

All reviews and advice for DVD recorders can be found at http://www.digitalFAQ.com/reviews/dvd-recorders.htm
While it may seem brief in some ways (being only one page in length), it's actually quite thorough. It cuts through the crap (worthless features, most of which don't work well anyhow), and focuses solely on recording quality.

The specific Toshiba model you've linked to probably won't give you any of the requested features, and would likely be disappointing in terms of image quality.

I'd also state that you can almost never use the same recorded for VHS>DVD transfer as you do for off-air TV recording, and get good results for both tasks. Buy a machine for each task. You'll notice JVC DVD recorders are written about quite a bit on this site. And not just any old JVC recorder, but the models specifically referred to (DR-M10, DR-M100, DR-MV1, DR-MV5, and a few pro series models.)

On the upside, it's quite possibly to get BOTH recorders you want, for under $350 total. JVC machines and some of the others (non-HDD models) can be had for $150-200, here and there. Takes some effort to look around second-hand markets, be it Amazon, eBay, craigslist, local pawn shops, etc.

Probably not the answer you wanted or hoped for, but it's the honest one.

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