DVD recorders
- Thread starter pure_IMC
- Start date
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I mean why spend 600 on a vcr on steroids?
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I think the big selling point is the type of media that you are recording on. A cd/dvd will last indefinetly if cared for properly. Whereas a tape will wear out. Also, I think storage is easier; 50 dvd's take up much less room than 50 vhs tapes. As for the movies they are probably encrypted. Instead of copying movies what you may be able to is play the dvd on one machine and then record from another one?
my .02
I mean why spend 600 on a vcr on steroids?
[/ QUOTE ]
I think the big selling point is the type of media that you are recording on. A cd/dvd will last indefinetly if cared for properly. Whereas a tape will wear out. Also, I think storage is easier; 50 dvd's take up much less room than 50 vhs tapes. As for the movies they are probably encrypted. Instead of copying movies what you may be able to is play the dvd on one machine and then record from another one?
my .02
triplec76
Well-Known Member
Copying DVD's isnt nearly as easy as copying from VHS movies back in the day. I really havent seen one of the newer standalone DVD recorders in action yet, but I know a little bit about the process on PC's. To me it wasnt worth it because you have to rip the movie from the encrypted DVD, convert it, then burn it back to the recordable media. That usually takes a little while and a lot of space on your HD.
Commercial DVD's also have more space for content than what you can buy. I think commercial DVDs can get something around 8 or 9 gigabytes of data on them while you can currently only buy DVDs which have about 4 and a half gigs of space. Some people cut out the special features and everything else, and then have to compress the movie (worse quality) to get it to fit on the blank DVD.
Fly4Free's idea might work, but Im not sure how well. Of course there is always the advantage of recording all of your TV shows and whatnot on DVD, but not at the price the recorders are currently at. Unless you have money pouring out of your rear end.
Commercial DVD's also have more space for content than what you can buy. I think commercial DVDs can get something around 8 or 9 gigabytes of data on them while you can currently only buy DVDs which have about 4 and a half gigs of space. Some people cut out the special features and everything else, and then have to compress the movie (worse quality) to get it to fit on the blank DVD.
Fly4Free's idea might work, but Im not sure how well. Of course there is always the advantage of recording all of your TV shows and whatnot on DVD, but not at the price the recorders are currently at. Unless you have money pouring out of your rear end.
TheWife
New Member
Well I don't know exactly how they work but I *think* you can put a DVD in, plug your camcorder in to the tv, and copy your footage right onto a DVD. THAT would be a LOT easier then uploading it in 17 minute increments on to the computer, burning the DVD and then deleting the footage. JMO.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
With how cheap hard drives are these days, why not just get a DVD-ROM for your computer, rip things onto a 300 gig HD that you use just for media storage and then ouput via an S-Video output to your TV. Now you have the movies on your computer, takes up no more space, and you can watch them on your TV.
Ripping rented movies would be of course, against the law. I'm talking about your own home collection only.
Cheers
John Herreshoff
Ripping rented movies would be of course, against the law. I'm talking about your own home collection only.
Cheers
John Herreshoff
If you want to copy movies, it can be done. Just not a push button operation. There is digital (multiple methods may be used on one disc) and analog protection schemes. Both types can be defeated by software, if you have the DVD burner in your computer. Not perfect, but it can be done.
Problems that still exist though:
DVD-9 (dual layers of info on one side, holds about 8.5gig of info, round to 9gig) is what most movies you rent/buy are recorded in
DVD-5 (single layer of info, one side, holds about 4.7gig of info, round to 5) is the best that burners will do today. Philips, LG, and Pioneer have all announced they will have dual layer burners (DVD-9 format basically) soon, as in like first quarter 2004, by end of the year for Pioneer.
So why does one care? Well, if you are going to copy, it may not fit on a current disc, so you have to compress the files further. DVD uses MPEG2, which is lossy compression. In other words, you lose quality when compressing more. And the advantage of DVD is good quality (as well as no rewind time, and being optical instead of magnetic, and being smaller than tape).
So, in a few months you'll be able to get a recorder that'll let you decrypt, then copy an entire commercial DVD (for backup of course, so the kids don't mess it all up and destroy your original
).
You can also now, pull out some of the info on the disc, like other language tracks, subtitles, menu, etc, and try and get the stuff to fit on one disc in the current DVD-5 format all recorders are, but that still may not fit.
And, to top it off, there are no standards yet. The main competitors are DVD-R(W) and DVD+R(W). The - format is being pushed by DVD Forum, which is about 250 companies that collaborate on DVD isues. The + format has about 7 or 8 companies, Sony and Phillips I believe being the big ones, that support it. DVD+R may be technically a better way to record, and currently is a minute or two faster per disc. Neither will be sure to work on all players, so be sure to test burn to see if it'll work on your player before the 30 days money back is up, at whereever you buy.
In short, unless you REALLY need it now, I'd say wait for the dual layer writers to come out, and put it in your computer.
Oh, and there is an HD-DVD standard being worked on how too, that'll use a different laser, and support more resolutions in the picture with the future thoughts of HDTV in mind, and wide aspect recording that comes with it as well. That is still a year or two from mainstream though, and will likely also play whatever you make now, so don't let that stop you.
You can get a good Pioneer DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD+R drive for around $130 nowadays to put into your computer. It'll support the current formats used, so will 99.99% be sure one of those (either + or -) will play on your current home player.
Confused yet? I can refer ya to white papers if you want the technical specs.
If you just want to put handicam stuff on disc, and don't have a computer, $400 average for a set top recorder seems high to me. Just as VHS players used to be $300 for a good one a few years ago, and are under $100 now. If you need the latest, you gotta pay.
Josh
Problems that still exist though:
DVD-9 (dual layers of info on one side, holds about 8.5gig of info, round to 9gig) is what most movies you rent/buy are recorded in
DVD-5 (single layer of info, one side, holds about 4.7gig of info, round to 5) is the best that burners will do today. Philips, LG, and Pioneer have all announced they will have dual layer burners (DVD-9 format basically) soon, as in like first quarter 2004, by end of the year for Pioneer.
So why does one care? Well, if you are going to copy, it may not fit on a current disc, so you have to compress the files further. DVD uses MPEG2, which is lossy compression. In other words, you lose quality when compressing more. And the advantage of DVD is good quality (as well as no rewind time, and being optical instead of magnetic, and being smaller than tape).
So, in a few months you'll be able to get a recorder that'll let you decrypt, then copy an entire commercial DVD (for backup of course, so the kids don't mess it all up and destroy your original
You can also now, pull out some of the info on the disc, like other language tracks, subtitles, menu, etc, and try and get the stuff to fit on one disc in the current DVD-5 format all recorders are, but that still may not fit.
And, to top it off, there are no standards yet. The main competitors are DVD-R(W) and DVD+R(W). The - format is being pushed by DVD Forum, which is about 250 companies that collaborate on DVD isues. The + format has about 7 or 8 companies, Sony and Phillips I believe being the big ones, that support it. DVD+R may be technically a better way to record, and currently is a minute or two faster per disc. Neither will be sure to work on all players, so be sure to test burn to see if it'll work on your player before the 30 days money back is up, at whereever you buy.
In short, unless you REALLY need it now, I'd say wait for the dual layer writers to come out, and put it in your computer.
Oh, and there is an HD-DVD standard being worked on how too, that'll use a different laser, and support more resolutions in the picture with the future thoughts of HDTV in mind, and wide aspect recording that comes with it as well. That is still a year or two from mainstream though, and will likely also play whatever you make now, so don't let that stop you.
You can get a good Pioneer DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD+R drive for around $130 nowadays to put into your computer. It'll support the current formats used, so will 99.99% be sure one of those (either + or -) will play on your current home player.
Confused yet? I can refer ya to white papers if you want the technical specs.
If you just want to put handicam stuff on disc, and don't have a computer, $400 average for a set top recorder seems high to me. Just as VHS players used to be $300 for a good one a few years ago, and are under $100 now. If you need the latest, you gotta pay.
Josh
MrSkyKingRon
New Member
[ QUOTE ]
Nerd.
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LOL!!
Yes, I have a Panasonic EMR 80-H DVD recorder. It rocks and I will never go back to recording on VHS again. Here's the highlights.
It is much less hassle for me to record off the sat dish and then digitally edit out all the commercials and end up with a clean program. At DVD audio and video quality no less. The unit has a built in 80 gig hard drive as well as a dvd burner built in, so no matter what source you record from, you can then burn it on a -DVD or DVD RAM. I have a serious collection of just about every Wings ch. program aired since I bought it, burned to DVD. A 1 hour show after commercial editing is 45". I then only burn three shows per cd because the DVD case that holds the DVD will only fit about three titles on my custom labels.
I have also burned off of video tape, camcorder and from my other DVD player. Most "store bought" DVD's are copyright encripted, so that limits that, but there's plenty other items that you can burn. Like the Sporty's DVD's.
The versatility of the machine is awesome. After you copy your program to your DVD's, you can also you can write your own descriptions and titles to burn to the DVD. With various backround schemes.
You can also do everything that the Tivo does such backward search and watch what you missed real time. It was a spendy buy at 600, but blows away the Tivo and is the best DVD recorder on the market. For now. There are other advantages to pc DVD burners as was pointed out. This machine only burns to DVD-. But it's compatible to my pc DVD player and my other Sony DVD player, so for me no problemo.
Nerd.
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL!!
Yes, I have a Panasonic EMR 80-H DVD recorder. It rocks and I will never go back to recording on VHS again. Here's the highlights.
It is much less hassle for me to record off the sat dish and then digitally edit out all the commercials and end up with a clean program. At DVD audio and video quality no less. The unit has a built in 80 gig hard drive as well as a dvd burner built in, so no matter what source you record from, you can then burn it on a -DVD or DVD RAM. I have a serious collection of just about every Wings ch. program aired since I bought it, burned to DVD. A 1 hour show after commercial editing is 45". I then only burn three shows per cd because the DVD case that holds the DVD will only fit about three titles on my custom labels.
I have also burned off of video tape, camcorder and from my other DVD player. Most "store bought" DVD's are copyright encripted, so that limits that, but there's plenty other items that you can burn. Like the Sporty's DVD's.
The versatility of the machine is awesome. After you copy your program to your DVD's, you can also you can write your own descriptions and titles to burn to the DVD. With various backround schemes.
You can also do everything that the Tivo does such backward search and watch what you missed real time. It was a spendy buy at 600, but blows away the Tivo and is the best DVD recorder on the market. For now. There are other advantages to pc DVD burners as was pointed out. This machine only burns to DVD-. But it's compatible to my pc DVD player and my other Sony DVD player, so for me no problemo.
Nerd? Who?
The hard drive organized, then to DVD, will likely become what the units are in the end, as hard drives just get larger and cheaper. The new all in one playstation sony is working on will have this. Hard drive, and dvd recorder. Sony, so it'll likely be the + format (which if it is popular enough, it may take off, and the DVD Forum may adopt it, and maybe we'll have a standard!) Price here sould be around $400-500 when it comes out, and will do playstation games too (but you can be sure it won't burn a copy of them
).
$600 for a $300 tivo type box, and a $300 burner, is about what it should be to put all in one box. If you need it, and got the $$, and can't wait for dual layer, or a standard, and want a nice xmas gift for yourself, go for it. In the end, it'll all look better than VHS.
Oh, and www.cdfreaks.com is a good site to visit if you want to read stuff for a while, and find some links to the latest company announcements.
The hard drive organized, then to DVD, will likely become what the units are in the end, as hard drives just get larger and cheaper. The new all in one playstation sony is working on will have this. Hard drive, and dvd recorder. Sony, so it'll likely be the + format (which if it is popular enough, it may take off, and the DVD Forum may adopt it, and maybe we'll have a standard!) Price here sould be around $400-500 when it comes out, and will do playstation games too (but you can be sure it won't burn a copy of them
$600 for a $300 tivo type box, and a $300 burner, is about what it should be to put all in one box. If you need it, and got the $$, and can't wait for dual layer, or a standard, and want a nice xmas gift for yourself, go for it. In the end, it'll all look better than VHS.
Oh, and www.cdfreaks.com is a good site to visit if you want to read stuff for a while, and find some links to the latest company announcements.
agcatman
New Member
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Just buy the program called DVD X Copy Xpress, it allows you to put the DVD in and click start, its as simple as that. This program does all the work for you.
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That'd be the way to go for quick and easy.
As for buying a DVD writer, make sure that you get a multi-format DVD writer, they're down to less than $200 if you shop around. Check out Buy.com or another good place to look is Newegg.
DVD X Copy Xpress or Platinum either one is cool. Kinda pricey unless....well, you'd have to PM me about that. But with DVD X Copy Xpress you have to use compression which results in a loss of quality. With DVD X Copy Platinum you can choose compression or you can choose to put the movie on two separate DVD's with no loss of quality.
Now if you really want to copy DVD's and you don't mind doing your homework you really don't need DVD X Copy. All the programs necessary are available as freeware. Be advised though you will need to read up on it. It's not as simple as you'd think.
I've always had good luck and found lots of information here.
Hey, what can I say. I'm a crop dustin' geek. Unrepentant too.
Just buy the program called DVD X Copy Xpress, it allows you to put the DVD in and click start, its as simple as that. This program does all the work for you.
[/ QUOTE ]
That'd be the way to go for quick and easy.
As for buying a DVD writer, make sure that you get a multi-format DVD writer, they're down to less than $200 if you shop around. Check out Buy.com or another good place to look is Newegg.
DVD X Copy Xpress or Platinum either one is cool. Kinda pricey unless....well, you'd have to PM me about that. But with DVD X Copy Xpress you have to use compression which results in a loss of quality. With DVD X Copy Platinum you can choose compression or you can choose to put the movie on two separate DVD's with no loss of quality.
Now if you really want to copy DVD's and you don't mind doing your homework you really don't need DVD X Copy. All the programs necessary are available as freeware. Be advised though you will need to read up on it. It's not as simple as you'd think.
I've always had good luck and found lots of information here.
Hey, what can I say. I'm a crop dustin' geek. Unrepentant too.
x copy will recompress the stream though, which is not ideal for a copy. If you care about quality, wait for a dual layer burner in a few months. If you care about compatibility, wait for a standard. If you care about just putting some stuff on media now, that has a 90% or better chance on working in the future, buy a dual format drive. If you wanna reuse the disc 100,000 times, buy DVD-RAM.
I think this is not the time to buy, unless you want to buy again soon.
NEC is shipping their 8x -+ drive as of tomorrow. It is going for around $140.
http://www.bensbargains.net/ktalk/1071304475,67386,.shtml
I think this is not the time to buy, unless you want to buy again soon.
NEC is shipping their 8x -+ drive as of tomorrow. It is going for around $140.
http://www.bensbargains.net/ktalk/1071304475,67386,.shtml
agcatman
New Member
[ QUOTE ]
I think it was $239 after the rebate a few months ago. Probably much cheaper. We're trying to archive lots of digital media. We've probably got 1.5 terrabytes between our office computer and three laptops, yow!
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Yow is right! Holy cow!
Doug, you mean you have ~1,500 gigabytes on one desktop and three laptops? Holy cow! How many HDD's you got on that desktop and what kind you running on your laptops?
I think it was $239 after the rebate a few months ago. Probably much cheaper. We're trying to archive lots of digital media. We've probably got 1.5 terrabytes between our office computer and three laptops, yow!
[/ QUOTE ]
Yow is right! Holy cow!
Doug, you mean you have ~1,500 gigabytes on one desktop and three laptops? Holy cow! How many HDD's you got on that desktop and what kind you running on your laptops?
Well, here's my home setup.
I've got an old laptop that just runs spam filtering software 24/7 and provides a little bit of network storage for the home network for about 80Gb. We also use that to hook up to our receiver in the den to serve media files.
We have a desktop in the office that has a 250Gb external USB 2.0 drive, another 250Gb internal drive and a 200Gb primary drive.
My wife's laptop has about 40Gb and mine has about 60Gb as well and they're all networked.
The desktop and the spam machine are hard wired to the network hub and everything else is 802.11(g) wireless.
Hmm, maybe closer to a terrabyte I guess. A little overestimation!
I've got an old laptop that just runs spam filtering software 24/7 and provides a little bit of network storage for the home network for about 80Gb. We also use that to hook up to our receiver in the den to serve media files.
We have a desktop in the office that has a 250Gb external USB 2.0 drive, another 250Gb internal drive and a 200Gb primary drive.
My wife's laptop has about 40Gb and mine has about 60Gb as well and they're all networked.
The desktop and the spam machine are hard wired to the network hub and everything else is 802.11(g) wireless.
Hmm, maybe closer to a terrabyte I guess. A little overestimation!
agcatman
New Member
[ QUOTE ]
x copy will recompress the stream though, which is not ideal for a copy. If you care about quality, wait for a dual layer burner in a few months. If you care about compatibility, wait for a standard. If you care about just putting some stuff on media now, that has a 90% or better chance on working in the future, buy a dual format drive. If you wanna reuse the disc 100,000 times, buy DVD-RAM.
I think this is not the time to buy, unless you want to buy again soon.
[/ QUOTE ]
DVD X Copy Xpress recompresses the stream, yes. But DVD X Copy Platinum allows you to copy as is (or at least I'm almost sure that's right) with NO compression.
I have it and I can choose to record a 9.4 gig multi-layer disk on two separate DVD ± R or DVD ± RW's. There is no loss of quality that way.
If you get a multi-format writer it doesn't matter what format is thrown at you. You can handle them all. No reason to wait there. I'd give it more like a 99.999% chance that it will do disks that will be useable in the future.
Any idea on what the dual layer burner will cost? I bet it ain't gonna be cheap. And I bet the media won't be either. It's certainly not worth me waiting around for the price to plummit.
And DVD RAM is great for use as a removable drive. Drag and drop, no problems, not necessary to go through the whole burning shenanigans. It comes with most multi-format drives so that's no reason to hold off either. And ever used the cassette format type? They are sweet. No worries about scratching the disk, or at least not as many as a lone disk.
I can't see there's anything at all that a DVD writer will be doing in the future that they won't do now with the exception of burning a movie on one DVD disk. I mean, so what, you gotta get up in the middle and put a new disk in. No biggie.
And the new writers STILL won't address the problems of © protected disks, that's a software issue.
So I can't see why now ISN'T the time to buy a writer. I've got a Panasonic LF-D521 and I sure can't see any reason why I'm going to be buying a new writer soon. Just this geek's opinion of course.
x copy will recompress the stream though, which is not ideal for a copy. If you care about quality, wait for a dual layer burner in a few months. If you care about compatibility, wait for a standard. If you care about just putting some stuff on media now, that has a 90% or better chance on working in the future, buy a dual format drive. If you wanna reuse the disc 100,000 times, buy DVD-RAM.
I think this is not the time to buy, unless you want to buy again soon.
[/ QUOTE ]
DVD X Copy Xpress recompresses the stream, yes. But DVD X Copy Platinum allows you to copy as is (or at least I'm almost sure that's right) with NO compression.
I have it and I can choose to record a 9.4 gig multi-layer disk on two separate DVD ± R or DVD ± RW's. There is no loss of quality that way.
If you get a multi-format writer it doesn't matter what format is thrown at you. You can handle them all. No reason to wait there. I'd give it more like a 99.999% chance that it will do disks that will be useable in the future.
Any idea on what the dual layer burner will cost? I bet it ain't gonna be cheap. And I bet the media won't be either. It's certainly not worth me waiting around for the price to plummit.
And DVD RAM is great for use as a removable drive. Drag and drop, no problems, not necessary to go through the whole burning shenanigans. It comes with most multi-format drives so that's no reason to hold off either. And ever used the cassette format type? They are sweet. No worries about scratching the disk, or at least not as many as a lone disk.
I can't see there's anything at all that a DVD writer will be doing in the future that they won't do now with the exception of burning a movie on one DVD disk. I mean, so what, you gotta get up in the middle and put a new disk in. No biggie.
And the new writers STILL won't address the problems of © protected disks, that's a software issue.
So I can't see why now ISN'T the time to buy a writer. I've got a Panasonic LF-D521 and I sure can't see any reason why I'm going to be buying a new writer soon. Just this geek's opinion of course.