DVD Recorders
 

I'm in the market of getting one of these..Dont know anything about them, done all of my work on the PC. I'm getting Dish Network this week w/ the DVR and I think a DVD recorder will go well with it..Whats the best u can get at the best price.
Thankx
Billy
[88]

If you do stuff directly from DISH to the recorder, or the DVR to the recorder, and NO TAPES are ever involved, you'd be happy with the PIONEER that is sold at Walmart for just under $200. Easily do 3 hour recordings at flawless quality.

If you want to work with tapes, get an LSI-chipped machines, the ones from JVC are best ($300) and the ones from ILO work decent and are cheap ($120). On the JVC, up to 4 hours flawless quality, the ILO up to 3 hours. The LSI chips have the ability to remove noise and chroma errors found on ALL video tapes.

Machines you DO NOT WANT include Philips, Panasonic, Cyberhome, Magnavox. Do NOT get the ILO "05" units, those are re-badged Cyberhomes.

Machines not mentioned here work alright, not the worst, but also far from the best. And best is either the same price or cheaper in most cases.

Yep..I will be recording straight from the DVR..Only thing i will need to figure out is hooking up the DVD recorder..Is their a certain model # for the PIONEER.
Thankx
Billy

Walmart only carries one model.
At any rate, any PIONEER unit is fine.
I think the one they has is the 220-S or something close.

Cool..Will look onto that..
Thankx
Billy

yeah right now at most its $198, a lot of walmarts also sell a very nice Sanyo on $99 clearance that will do good SP and I am guessing decent 3hr but if I had to go for good and not in the $$ I would get the Pioneer, you can layaway it even if you need to save money or use multiple pay checks

Well I'm sold on that one then, I may need some help on hooking the thing up to my satellite and tv.
Thankx
Billy

Does this recorder use both +/- DVDs.
Thankx
Billy

I never understand this question. Get a good recorder, forget the discs. Just use what it needs. In the case of the Pioneer, it uses DVD-R and DVD-RW in DVD-Video mode. Don't use DVD-VR mode.

hi, just wondered why you don't use dvd-vr mode. let us know. your input always appreciated. thanks

DVD-VR mode is not 100% to the DVD-Video spec. It's an "active" mode made only for DVD recorders. Not all DVD players will play video in this mode, due to how it handles resolution and bitrate. It depends on the recorder, some ONLY do VR and are therefore more "compliant" to video settings, but in general, use video and avoid VR when at all possible. Plus VR is a lot harder to edit, sometimes the audio packs don't line up properly (panasonic has this problem BAD!).

I can affirm the quality of this unit. The TV recordings are great, and any VHS to dvd transfers have come out perfect. The remote is a bit cluttered, but once you get used to it, it's a breeze.

it up to my HD cable box, I have regular cable going through it..I will be getting DISH tomorrow,surely they know how to hook it up to the reciever if it hooks up the same as my cable box. Its hooked up with the 5 monster cables and i have no idea how to make it work. Any ideas, just in case they dont know.
Thankx
Billy

I got it all hooked up and running..Thank you to all that responded.
Thankx
Billy

Well I had a tough time locating a Pioneer 220-S at Walmart, because now they are carrying the 231-S which has fewer inputs and outputs, but I found one and it is sweet.

Guys I'm more confused than ever on what type/brand of DVD recorder to get. If you read the reviews on the Pioneer they are not all that flattering.

Don't waste your time reading reviews. They are mostly written by nitwits. Magazines judge on floopy things like the color of the remote and how the menu is laid out, they give little regard to video quality. People reviews (like at amazon) tend to be morons, happy people leave less reviews than pissy ones, often folks that don't read the manual or are just dumb to the tech.

Honestly, forget them. Listen to us. We're your people, collectors that make and watch countless hours of footage. Those reviews often have less than 10 minutes usage under their belt.

- For the best video quality, get the JVC.
- For a runner-up machine, get the LiteOn (or ILO "04" clone), or a Pioneer.
- Sanyo and Toshiba might work, but we're looking at third choices here, farther down the list.

Unless you like your video to look like crap, avoid Panasonic and Phillips for sure. Those machines have to be used in 2-hour mode for the most part, and they almost ALWAYS butchers VHS source. If you go farther than 2 hours (which is a ridiculous limit, digital tech is not like VHS tapes were), the footage has to be still and low motion, but even then, these two machines can cause LOTS of imperfections.

The JVC is excellent for 3-4 hours of footage in top quality.
The Pioneer, if fed a clean signal, also 3-4 hours.

If you want to work with VHS stuff, Pioneer is out of the question, it doesn't fix VHS noise at all. JVC and LiteON are what you want for transferring and cleaning up VHS. Just for the sake of reference, the specs of a 3-hour or 4-hour MPEG-2 video files are STILL higher res/bandwidth than a VHS tape ever was, even on SP mode using the best tapes on the best equipment. Merely find a machine that makes the spec theory into a reality, some of them can, some cannot.

I can't lay it out any better for you. I've owned most of these machines, tested them extensively for a couple weeks, always kept ones that performed well (JVC, LiteOn). Both of us have likely seen various sets made on various machines, that's another good indicator of what it can do.

You and I, we already know more than those reviewers, so to hell with them. Use what we know already, from our time in this hobby, using our own two eyes.

Thanks LS, I've been planning on buying one for quite sometime. It just gets so confusing trying to get your monies worth and not get screwed. I've heard a lot of good things about Liteon and they are reasonably priced!

The LiteOn is a decent unit. Be sure you hack it and enable the 3-hour mode, as that is the best one. I try to not use 4-hour too much on my LiteOn 5001, as it can get a bit blocky at scene changes or during extreme fast action. The LiteON can also be hacked region-free and Macrovision-free. And on the playing side, the LiteOn is easily the best PAL DVD player I have ever used.

LiteOn is not perfect, no machine is. See this:

Don't let that scare you away, but I just wanted to arm you with all the facts. Most of those things most people never see. It's almost like the disclaimers on medicine "diarrhea, death, decapitation".

Hacking the drive info is here:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/...liteontips.htm

I cant find the LITE ON version 04..Only the 05's.