Sony RDR-HXD990 or similar?

[guyburns]

It's unlikely I'll be able to find any of the well-regarded DVD recorders mentioned on this web page, so I'll go for something that I should be able to locate and purchase: a Sony RDR-HXD990. I've got some questions about that device, but, as usual, a story first.

November 2023
Now here's the thing – at the same time as I picked up all the Hans Vonk VCRs, my partner said that Bill, her brother-in-law, had two home videos she'd like to watch on her computer: her parent's 50th wedding anniversary, and her mother's 80th birthday party, snippets of which will become part of an AV to be shown in 2025. So I got hold of Bill and ripped the DVD he made. He used a VCR to DVD recorder. I watched the video, and dismissively assumed that I could do better – if I learnt how to capture VCR. So I started my first thread on this forum.

Here's another thing. Bill worked for the ABC as a newsreader, and being surrounded by quality equipment in the studio, always had good-quality video equipment at home. He would have bought his VCR-Recorder 20 years ago, right at the high point of the quality curve, according to that web page previously mentioned. But I didn't realise the significance of the date of purchase, until I went through that web page yesterday. So I looked at the video again – a rock solid 25fps; no if or buts, and no jitters or other irregularities; running MPEG-2 at 9.67 Mbps, near the maximum allowed for a DVD. I see nothing wrong with that video, looking at it now through the eyes of a VCR lens. But last November, I was looking at it through a Blu-ray lens, all I've ever worked with in the digital video field.

Back where I started
I coming to the belief I may have spent an inordinate amount of time researching and purchasing capture equipment, only to be back where I started – use a DVD recorder, for God's sake, and forget all the capture hassles. DVD recorders were designed to work with TVs; VCRs were designed to work with TVs; why did I think an interloper called "capture" could do a better job?

That's the background to this post. Onwards to the questions, specifically directed at the Sony HXD990, but in general for other recorders as well.

Ques 1
Does the Sony work with NTSC and PAL input signals? The manual mentions both, but not in a clear way.

Ques 2
The Sony can record to HDD as well as DVD. Can I extract the files on the HDD as video files, or are they in a special format? No mention of this in the manual.

Ques 3
The Sony can output HDMI, and I can intercept that signal with my Hauppauge unit (I knew it would come in useful). Of the many Blu-ray formats, two are of interest here:

• 720 × 480i at 29.97
• 720 × 576i at 25

Does the Sony use those formats, or does it upscale to 1080P?

Ques 4
This respondent says:

I like the one I have – a Sony rdr hxd990. Amongst other things it can record on HDD in 15000 Mbps; line TBC works; supports NTSC PAL SECAM; HDMI and Component out. Great features in other words. Did I mention the proc amp options (tint, details, sat, b/w levels etc.)

Sounds too good to be true. Is it?
The mention of the bit rate is interesting. I assume he means 15Mbps. No mention of bit rate in the manual. Is that a correct figure?

Ques 5
Can the HDD be removed and replaced?

Ques 6
Assuming input is via S-video to DVD disk, is there likely to be any difference in recording quality between this Sony and a Panasonic DMR-ES15?

[hodgey]

I've only used the older RDR-HX750 (and the earlier related Pioneer DVR-440) but afaik the model is very similar

1:
They handle PAL, SECAM and NTSC input, yes. Including standard NTSC, NTSC 4.43, and PAL60. You have to switch between 625-line and 525-line input in the menu, it will auto-switch between PAL and SECAM in 625-line mode, and between ntsc 3.58, 4.43 and PAL60 in 525-line mode. If using 525-line mode you can select between stadnard NTSC and "NTSC on PAL TV" aka PAL60 output for the composite/S-Video outputs in the menus.

2:
They are recorded in standard mpeg2 format but like pretty much all dvd-recorders they use a special file system structyre that won't be understood standard operating systems. The program isobuster (which can be had for pretty cheap) is able to interpret it and recover the recordings, alternatively something like photorec can scan it for the raw mpeg2 headers but then you just get the files split up in random order.

3. Yes it supports interlaced SD, just be aware that not all HDMI capture cards support this (e.g most of the cheap generic brand HDMI grabbers don't). At least on the RDR-HX750 it didn't work without a HDMI splitter to evade HDCP but maybe it's different on this later model and it's only needed if the device detects input with macrovision on it or playing a copy protected DVD. Also be sure to use YCbCr and not RGB mode for the HDMI out.

4. It might have a higher than dvd bitrate mode but I've never really used the recording function honestly so not sure about the bitrate function. I've only really used the Sony and pioneers for the stabilizing functionality, not really worth recording to the hdd when you can just record the output to directly in lossless to the computer.

The TBC function works in all formats yeah, it's not as good as on the panasonic units but it's fine for most tapes. It's a bit more prone to dropping/inserting frames on very signals, it can pop up a "wrong tv system" message in a few edge cases (NV-HS1000 TBC active + no signal on tape is one example, did not have that issue with JVC TBCs), and very very extreme horizontal jitter the tbc also won't hold up as well as the panasonics. (See this comparison for the last example showing the older pioneer dvd-440 with a very similar chipset + same sample directly to 2 capture cards, note that this is a very extreme sample where something has gone wrong in the recording camcorder.)

On the plus side they don't have the potential issues with clipping brights that the panasonics have, they even let you adjust brightness, contrast and saturation etc.

5
It just uses a standard Sata hard drive afaik (earlier ones have IDE drives). I believe it can be swapped with a different one and formatted and initialized via a service procedure but I've not done it.

6
Afaik the mpeg2 encoder is maybe a tad better than what's in the Panasonic DMR-ES15 and other Panasonics of that era according to others here but not at the level of the LSI logic mpeg chips used in e.g JVC DVD-recorders.

I would anyway just suggest going the PC route recording to lossless and processing rather than recording to dvds if you're aiming to do something better than what you have. Whether this Sony is viable depends on what else you are using I guess. It can be a decent option if the tapes are in okay condition and you aren't using a vcr with a built in TBC already. Granted, if you have more trouble tapes, judging by your other posts you seem to be in Australia so you do have the option of using any of the later Panasonics, not just the 2005 and 2006 models which North Americans are limited to.

[lordsmurf]

Always remember: DVD recorders are not TBCs, nor TBC replacements. A few select models out there have unique passthrough abilities. But those are just strong+crippled line TBC, with non-TBC frame syncs.

Essentially, those are mostly good at taking a really high-quality VHS VCR (or better yet non-TBC S-VHS VCR) -- not any random VCR, not any random unqualifed layman idea of "good" -- and attempting to turn it into something that gives comparable results to a S-VHS VCR with TBC. Sort of, the transport still may be cheap, and that has negative affects to stability and timing errors generated by the VCR.

But these do nothing for frame TBC.

Again, my crass analogy: frame+line TBC is dual protection. It's like condom+pill. Without both, you run the risk or STDs and unexpected crotch goblins. Without one, you still risk the other. Those have very different functions.

Sony DVD recorders, used to make DVDs, have a "crunchy" quality to the MPEGs. The encoder is craptastic, lower-mid end, a 2 on a 1-5 scale (where 5 best).

All recorders have failing, with all passthrough units adding flaws and problems. Panasonic has posterization, luma exposure, etc. Sony is just weak.

When it comes to TBCs, you pay somehow. Either money, or with frustration/sanity. There's no out, no way to have cheap without hassle.

When it comes to DVD recorders, pick your poison. LSI is best at videotapes, and the only negative (in NTSC) is IRE is seemingly never accurate to any* recorder. Less of an issue for PAL users, IRE is 0. (*Zoran is the exception to the IRE rule, all rules have at least one. But it looks terrible with videotape sources. It was mostly good for analog TV/cable/satellite recording in decades past.)