DVD recorders - can you advise please?

[peanut]

Safe storage - RAID system on your PC - saved my bacon twice in last 3 years (two HD drive failures, swap out the broken one, it fixes itself....

You need a RAID compatible motherboard, and two hard drives !

yes but hard drives fail also.
I use several USB 2.5" hard drives for storage and I clone all my hard drives using Norton's Ghost which gives me a bootable cloned drive but even these can fail in time.

There is no truly safe long term storage medium as far as I can see.

 

[Andy in Sig]

That's probably right but given that all future storage looks like being digital the best thing is to probably regularly re-save until more stable media are developed.

 

[marinyork]

yes but hard drives fail also.
I use several USB 2.5" hard drives for storage and I clone all my hard drives using Norton's Ghost which gives me a bootable cloned drive but even these can fail in time.

There is no truly safe long term storage medium as far as I can see.

That's 2.5" drives. Classicly less reliable. Anyway SSDs are still too expensive for the ever growing sizes people want.

 

[marinyork]

I've just bought a Topfield 500GB PVR (dual Freeview tuners) and it is one serious bit of kit.

Not even used all it's features yet.

You can connect it to your PC and download the programmes for burning to DVD, or copy to a USB memory stick. There is lso a User Forum for the things, and it also runs lots of software - i.e. additional programmes to make life easier (but I've not touched that).

They are about £270 on line or in a Super-Fi shop, or £350 from Currys (rip off).

The toppy is more expensive than the humaxes, always has been. You're basically paying for the TAPs so please use them .

 

[peanut]

Maplins are selling a Freeview 280Gb PVR at the moment for £99.00 which is quite a bargain .imputs /outputs are a bit limited 2x scarts UHF I/O and what looked like a USB port on the front Timeshift obviously and 2x channel so can watch one channel record another at same time.

 

[Rob S]

I was looking for, among other things, a Freeview PVR as although I have a Windows Media Centre Edition PC with two FV tv tuners I don't like leaving it on all day or night to record stuff...plus it does BSOD from time to time mid recording....I heard various thiings about older Humax being good but newer ones not being so good. Saw a £99 160GB Goodmans in Sainsburys and after rushing home to read some online reviews I raced back in and got one and it's bloody brilliant and unlike a lot of PVRs makes no noise whatsoever. There is a 250GB version in Tescos for £129. The only thing it lacks is a USB port to transfer files though it does have component out for DVD recorder connection etc or perhaps the Hauppauge HD-PVR.

I had also looked hard for some solution to digitize a couple of old commercial VHS tapes....one of which is not available on DVD but had heard the Macrovision copy protection affects copying by DVD recorder

 

[Speicher]

I went into the local independent electrical shop today, to see what they have in stock. I thought that I would have to choose between a hard drive (expensive) or a DVD recorder. They have a machine that has a hard drive, and a slot for the disks, so you can record onto the hard drive and then transfer in real time to the Disk.

She agreed with what has been said on here about not having a combined DVD and Video Cassette machine.

I could also record from my Video collection onto a DVD. The next bit, I am not sure I fully understand. There is a facility for creating Chapters, like segments ? on the disks, and then you get a thumbnail icon on the TV screen to choose which one to play. For example if you save an hour of the high lights of something? Has anyone done this, and could explain it more clearly? She also suggested I would be best using RAM disks, but cannot remember the reason for this. I know that RAM is random access memory, but how is that different from CDR or CDRW?

I hope some very kind person can explain this to me. A beer awaits you in Beer?

I would much prefer to buy the machine from a local shop, because then if there is a problem, and you can tell from my questions that I might get stuck, they are prepared to help. And also because she offers sensible advice. I think they know that's why people go there.

 

[marinyork]

No. She meant DVD-RAM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-RAM

The chapter bit is fairly normal. It's not complicated, just a way of describing it. If you had a PS3 or other console you'd see things work in similar ways for completely different things.

If you can remember what the machine was, we can probably guide you through it. If you're going this route I take it you are keen on the freeview PVR combined with DVD?

I was looking for, among other things, a Freeview PVR as although I have a Windows Media Centre Edition PC with two FV tv tuners I don't like leaving it on all day or night to record stuff...plus it does BSOD from time to time mid recording....I heard various thiings about older Humax being good but newer ones not being so good. Saw a £99 160GB Goodmans in Sainsburys and after rushing home to read some online reviews I raced back in and got one and it's bloody brilliant and unlike a lot of PVRs makes no noise whatsoever. There is a 250GB version in Tescos for £129. The only thing it lacks is a USB port to transfer files though it does have component out for DVD recorder connection etc or perhaps the Hauppauge HD-PVR.

I disagree with you and peanut as to how good value for money they are. My PVR was about £100 and did all the things you describe and that was a considerable time ago. Once you have one though, whatever you pay it's there and becomes good value in a sense whatever you pay.

With Humax, initially the PVRs weren't actually very good at all but over a period of a couple of years the software was updated until it became a mean machine. In a sense the newer ones aren't better value for money, with the changing freeview+ specs and for the time that has elapsed what more do you get? A 500Gb freeview PVR holds a lot of SD stuff but would be really useful for DVB-S2 and HD on freeview. This obviously doesn't exist yet but would be a biggie for getting more out of it.

 

[Speicher]

As I have Sky, I do not need Freeview, so no, not quite. I know not everyone likes Sky, but I like the Channels showing lots of Star Trek, Law and Order, X files, etc as well as Sky Sports.

The Sky box, video recorder and current DVD player are all interconnected, so I envisage just changing over the DVD bit? This is the plan, but it does depend a bit on finances in January.

 

[marinyork]

No my point is and always was Speicher that if you watch a lot of star trek, that's on virgin 1 on freeview and as you don't have two tuners in your sky STB that's where the pvrs come in whether they be sky ones or freeview ones . I am aware of how much stuff one records when one gets the abilities, hence the talk of additional tuners .

So there's

1) Sky standard STB + DVD recorder. Cheapest option. Can only watch one channel.
2) Sky Standard STB + Combi DVD + HD. Next cheapest option. Slightly more flexibility.
3) Sky STB, Freeview pvr. DVD recorder
3) Sky+, DVD recorder.
4) and so on and so on.

Do you remember the model? Chances are it'll have it's own users area on avforums or digitalspy etc.

 

[Speicher]

The model no. is the one thing I did not ask her. I will find out.

 

[marinyork]

No worries, I wasn't trying to overload you speicher but many of the DVD + HD recorders have freeview built in.

 

[Speicher]

I know you were not trying to overload me, you have been very helpful, so have many others. I am a noodle* for forgetting to note the model no.
It is currently very rare that I want to watch one programme on Sky and record another on Sky, but the addition of Freeview might be more flexible.

* Due in no small part to having my nearly 90 year old mother staying with me for nearly a week. My brain hurts.

 

[peanut]

something to bear in mind Speicher is if you use a single channel freeview or basic Sky you cannot record one thing and watch something different.

If you are recording anything you have to either watch the same thing all the time its recording or switch the Tv off

If you have sky+ you can record 2x channels simultaneously or watch Sky sports whilst recording ITV2 for instance
You can record one channel whilst pausing another channel you are watching (timeshift)

You can use ordinary DVD+RW re-recordable disks .The beauty of these is that you can reuse the disks many times and also you don't need to finalise the disks so they will play in other equipment.

When you record several programs onto a single DVD+RW disk each recording shows as an individual recording packet. Essentially this means whenever you put the disk into a DVD player a program menu comes up showing all your recordings as small image icons showing the first still image of that recording. You then use your remote to scroll down the icons to either select which recording to play or edit.

Hope your Mum has had a good christmas. My Dad is 86 and refuses to even use a mobile fone . He insists on driving himself down from London using a 15 year old AA map. !

 

[marinyork]

Indeed peanut, even if one doesn't use it now, it'll become useful in the future. Even if we're talking just primitive record 1 watch 1 pvrs or the more advanced record 2 and watch a 3rd on the same mux.