FYI.

Consumer Reports reviewed DVRs in the November, 2005 edition. That review is online as well.

FWIW. Panasonic ranks in the top two, or more, positions in all the categories they reviewed...

TJ

Thanks, I subscribe to CR, the Nov. issue was sitting waiting for me to take a look. I'll do that, thanks.

You can read comments from people at www.videohelp.com
Most of the current models are listed there.

The disks look like CDR but are not the same.
They cost a little more than CDR.
The dual layer disks cost a LOT more.
You can get disks in the formats +R,+RW,-R,-RW
The R and RW is the same as CDR and CDRW, only it is DVD.
Some recorders will handle both + and - formats.
Make sure you know which one you need.
The - format is reported to be the most compatable.

Some day I hope to get a DVD recorder. (I have one in my computer).
Only ones we can really afford right now is the Ilo brand.
And I haven't been hearing anything really good about those.

Do you have any questions about DVD in general.

Pooh Bear

I did a fair amount of reading of consumer reviews to see what people thought about the various brands. Bought a Panasonic, based on our own experience and reviews. Before buying, familiarize yourself with the disk formats, and with what formats the intended recorder will use. Panasonic likes the RAM discs, but they cost like 5x what the others cost. Panasonic also uses +R and -R, but not +RW (I think I've got that right). I believe that anything other than RAM requires the disc to be finalized after recording. Sounds like a hassle, but it's really not so bad. I think that the lower formats also require formatting before recording, which I'd rather not bother with. I use +R to record movies from cable and once you get familiar with the basic settings, etc, it's fine. Costs less than $1 to record a movie. RAM does allow editing choices and has nice features, but I haven't gotten into them yet. Have one RAM disc that I use for short-term recordings like TV shows that we won't be keeping. The Crutchfield site has lots of good info on these and other topics; as does About.com. I would urge caution if you're considering any brand other than Panasonic. Good luck,
Steve

Just to clarify, the RAM discs cost more than the -R, +R, etc. discs, not the machines. Our Panasonic DVD recorder with built-in VCR was about $300. Also, when you finalize a disc, it is supposed to make it compatible with most DVD players, but not necessarily the older ones. Steve

Pooh Bear,
Steve A,

Thanks, I will read some but think my simple needs will be satisfied by a low cost unit, read $100. All I want to do for now is copy VHS to DVD, then make future video recordings directly to DVD. As the recording is digital, I don't have any sense that a more expensive recorder records better quality, fidelity. I may also want to duplicate DVD to DVD.
I think that maybe a higher cost unit, or one can use a DVD player and run it into the DVD recorder.
I understand the + R and - R, etc., to be simply a statement of differenct "standards", i.e., coding...
I've spent the last 20 years of my life working national and international telecommunciation industry standards. So I believe in the value of standards, and guess I'm looking now at what happens when industry can't decide on a standard. Telecom has a few agreement failure examples, e.g., wirless telephony. I read the "finalize" to be a way around the different standards.

Two things to keep in mind.

If you are recording from VHS tape,
the recording will only be as good as the tape was.
Your copy will only be as good as the source.
Recording to DVD doesn't make it better.
It may make it seem worse.

You can't copy protected VHS tapes.
The hardware won't allow it.
Not a problem for home recorded VHS tapes.

Pooh Bear

Interesting, my tapes are home made VHS. I didn't know there is a VHS hardware implementation that has been used to protect copyright. I do understand the reason and justification, I just didn't know the idustry had come up with anything. Is the same true of commercial DVDs?

Hum, that said, and thinking, it seems to me that any commercial VHS has to play into a T.V. or it is worthless. Thus any device that can take a T.V. input can record from the VHS. I also believe I saw T.V. I/O on the back of one of the DVD recorders I looked at. This would mean one or more A/D converstions have to take place, but I think it makes it possible to record any VHS that can drive a T.V. antena input.

Jerry: I believe that Pooh Bear is correct in his statements. The manuel with my DVD/VCR combo unit states that copy-protected material, DVD or VHS, cannot be recorded. However I will admit that I haven't tried. I do recall that we were able, years ago, to copy rented tapes by hooking up two machines. However they do suffer the inevitable degradation in quality. I'm quite sure that DVDs are protected and cannot be copied to VHS, but again, haven't tried. Another comment to your earlier post, and not to put too fine a point on it, but the point that I was trying to make about Panasonic was not related necessarily to quality but to reliability. I read many reviews of other brands were the owners were frustrated that their machines quit working, or never worked as advertised, and had to be returned. The reviews of Panasonic seemed to indicate more owners happy with the way the machines performed. In my case, so far, so good.

MacroVision is what protects most VHS tapes.
A signal is placed in track 21 telling the VHS recorder
that it is recieving a copy protected signal and to not copy it properly.
It will show up as alternating light and dark bars on the TV screen when played back.
A professional time base corrector will remove the copy protection.
But a TBC is extremely expensive.

A friend of mine asked me about copying all of his collection to DVD.
I told him the easier thing to do is get a DVD burner for the computer
and rent each movie and copy it.
The movies still have copy protection but you can get software to defeat it easily.
DVD Shrink is a free program and will copy a DVD perfectly.
So if you just want to move your collection to DVD then get
a DVD burner for your computer and a subscription to Netflix.

Pooh Bear

Here is a link that might be useful: www.dvdshrink.org

I just went to Best Buy, and they had something called Go DVD! by Sima. This is a digital enhancer and duplicator, designed to go between your VCR or DVD player and your DVD recorder. It allows you to make back-up copies of your VHS and DVDs (supposedly even commercial ones.) They have a big disclaimer saying you shouldn't make illegal copies (like to sell them). I haven't bought one yet but I wanted to mention that you can make copies using this thing, which sells for $99 or way less, depending on where you buy it.

My VCR is about shot and I was looking into a DVD recorder. I was excited when they got less than $100. They had a Cyberhome for $70 I was thinking about getting an Ilo for less than $100. I read horrible things about Cyberhome and I think Ilo is made by them also. Made in China. I decided to get a $40 Emerson VCR instead and it works great as far as I'm concerned. Amazing how small and lightweight those are now. I'll wait another year or two for good DVD recorders to come down in price and just stick with VHS for recording. My $40 DVD player work fine for playing movies from the rental store.

We bought an Ilo brand last month from Walmart for $99
and so far have been very happy with it.
It does what we need it to do.

Pooh Bear

Here's what scared me away from Cyberhome and Ilo. I had downloaded the user's manuals and the product had everything I wanted. I was in the store to buy it, and I balked and didn't do it. Then I read this. Long term reliability seems to be the issue. Hope you don't have that issue. I'd sure like to get one, but I'm not going to pay over $100 for one either. And you can get new VHS tapes for less than $1 now. I remember when I got my first VCR. It was a Beta and I paid almost $20 for a blank tape. That was probably $20 years ago when $20 was probably more like $40 today. And the thing was HUGE and weighed about 50 lb. I paid $400 for it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cyberhome

I remember the first VCR movie I ever saw. I believe it was Star Wars. The machine playing it was a Sony (If I recall correctly) and weighed about 60 pounds and cost about $2,000. It might have been beta.

I don't know if I will ever buy a DVD. I have over a 1000 VHS tapes and 2 spare VCRs. 80% of the movies I watch are 25 to 70 years old.

I watch less than 1% of the new movies released as they are made up of mostly computer generated scenes or use actors/actresses that are "Hollywood models". The real world is not made up of pretty faces, plus only a few can act without putting me to sleep. The present day Hollywood package is all too phony for my tastes IMO.

I bought a Pioneer about a year ago.I paid nearly $300.00 for it.But I used it to put all of my Home Movies that were on VHS and Hi 8 to DVD.Well worth the money for that alone.I still use it as I use my camcorder to put the Hi 8 videos to DVD.I never use it for anything beside this and if I replace my camcorder some day.It will probably be for a Mini DVD camcorder.At that time it will be obsolete just like my VCR and old 8 track tape player.

newjersey: I don't at all disagree with your assessment of current Hollywood movies. And maybe you'll be ok with 2 spare VCRs. But you might want to consider that for the price of a DVD recorder, and very little beyond that, you can not only record whatever you want from your TV input (air or cable), but you can preserve your movies in a more durable format (if they are home recorded. If commercial, you might have to use a computer as Poohbear suggests). I record movies for about 32 cents each now, and it could be less by buying DVDs in more bulk or with a better sale. Just a thought.

They take up a lot less room also.

Right, JD, forgot that. If you put them in the slimline CD cases (Not DVD cases), they take up very little room indeed. I was just thinking last night that media storage is becoming a major problem in our modern lives. (this is not meant to be a serious statement.) Steve

99% of the time my VCR was used for 1.) time shifting programs to watch later or 2.) watching rented movies. I now have Digital Video recorder (Tivo in my case) for time shifting programs and a DVD player for watching rented movies I don't really have a need for "DVD recorder" The only use I have for a DVD "burner" is on my PC.

Personally with DVRs, I don't see DVD recorders really making much penetration in the market. Just my own opinion...

Diane

Personally with DVRs, I don't see DVD recorders really making much penetration in the market.

Actually, I use my equipment the same way you do.
I have a DVR that I record TV shows on to watch on my schedule.
And I have a DVD player to watch rented movies.

But sometimes my DVR gets full.
Some stuff I just want to keep.
I used to record it off to VHS tape.
But the VCR starting giving us trouble.
So we got a DVD Recorder.
I can record stuff off to DVD and get as much as 4 hours per DVD.
Or I can record stuff off to DVD+RW then transfer it to my computer,
and convert it to high quality DivX files and store it on
data DVD and get up to about 8 hours per DVD.
Then I can erase the DVD+RW and use it again.

I think there will always be a need to record TV at home.
A DVR is great for temporary recordings.
But we still need to record stuff more permently.
The VCR did a good job, but now it is being phased out
in favor of DVD recorders. They go nicely with a DVR.

Pooh Bear

We have DVR, too, and a DVD player. But the DVR is in the bedroom. With our busy schedules, everyone wants to watch their prerecorded shows at the same time, and that gets us into trouble. So I am looking into a DVD recorder now so that everyone can watch prerecorded shows on different tvs at the same time. Also, there are times that we want to record a news story or something and bring it to show my parents, or show a client, or whatever. Still a lot of reasons to record things. Sounds like Panasonic is the way to go - that's what I got for a DVD player a few years ago after a lot of research, and it's worked fine. Thanks all!

I guess I'm getting too old to understand all this stuff and all the different ways to record a simple TV show. But putting on a VCR, then transfering to a DVD, then transferring to a computer, then converting it to a different format, then transferring back to a DVD, then erasing the DVD+RW. All this work to watch a TV show? Please don't take this wrong, but that just sounds like a lot of WORK and TIME to me. About 90% of the time I even record something on tape, I never even go back and watch it simply because I don't have the time. I'm busy with other things and nothing on TV is that important to me. I could NEVER find the time to do all that.

Well, most of what we record gets erased after we watch it.
It is only some stuff we want keep long term.
Like we watch a lot of series such as West Wing, Charmed, etc.
Those get erased after we watch them.
But things like Christmas cartoons, the Grinch, Charlie Brown, etc,
we want to keep that stuff permenantly.

So yes there is a lot of different ways to record a TV show.
But it just helps with what you intend to do with it.

Pooh Bear

Pooh Bear,

I'm curious how your Cyberhome DVD recorder has been. I've been through three of those $40 Emerson VCR's. They're pretty much junk. Last about a month then start skipping or shutting off. I've had several Emerson VCR's in the past that lasted 10 or more years. One thing I've noticed is the new one is made in China and the old ones were made in Taiwan. The new ones weigh a fraction of the old ones. Pretty bad when they won't even last a month. I'm giving this third one one last try. I looked at a Sanyo and it appears to be the exact same VCR. Looks the same on the outside and I even peered in through the tape window and it had all the same guts in the same places.

I'm about to make the switch to DVD recorder after this fiasco.

It has worked very well for us.
Wish we had a second one.
We move this one between two rooms, depending on where it is needed.
Haven't had any problems out of it.

We have an Emerson VCR. Had it almost 5 years now.
Rarely gets used anymore tho.

Pooh Bear

Oh, mine wasn't a CyberHome.
It is an Ilo.

Pooh Bear

Since the thread is reopened, I'll add an update. My Panasonic VCR/DVD recorder is doing fine. We've recorded many movies and programs from cable. We've also dubbed some (non-copy-protected) VHS tapes to DVD. The only issues we've had were with a batch of bad DVDs, they were +R format TDK purchased at Circuit City. After that, I did a little web research and found a good article that goes into the quality of blank DVDs in some detail, see link. Based on that, I purchased a batch of +R Memorex discs at Walmart and have been recording trouble-free ever since. Hope this helps. Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Article on Blank DVDs

This is all new to me. I just got a 100.00 DVR time shifter type unit from DISH to time shift TV shows. So far its pretty irritating in that it has this constant noise thing and I no longer seem to be able to just put a reminder on a show (switch to this channel at 8:00) without it starting to record. The book, as usual, seems to be of little help.
I think it the idea of a DVR/D Recorder is great - but not sure I would want to deal with more technology headaches.

Walmart now has an Emerson DVD recorder for about $100. Anybody have an opinion or experience with it? I've had fairly good luck with Emerson in the past until I got the last VCR for $40. I'm on my third one. I'm wondering if that's a fluke or if Emerson quality has taken a permanent turn for the worse and should be avoided like the plague.

Marys1000, I know you are probably doing all this already,
but here is a short tutorial to review and make sure.

First find the show you want to set a timer for in the listings.
In this case, The Koala Brothers.

Hit the Select button on the remote to get the set timer dialogue.
On the left you can see where I changed it from DVR (record) to autotune.

Next you choose to have it tune that channel one minute early or not.
In this case I have it checked. You can leave it unchecked if you want.

Next just highlight the Create button and hit Select on the remote.

And a timer icon will show up beside the listing in the guide.

That's all there is to it.

Hope this helps.

Pooh Bear

Ok, an update on my Ilo DVD Recorder.
I haven't looked into this problem.
I got a spindle of Maxell DVD+RW (15) to use.
It will record on each one only one time.
After that I get disk errors for each disk.
Don't know if it is the media or what.
I haven't tried using a DVD+R in a long time.
So I don't know if the problem applies there or not.

It was good while it lasted. (October to April or May?)

Pooh Bear