Great DVD Recorder Hunt

Beninio88

I really do not know why any body would want a DVD recorder!!!! Pace make a twin digital receiver with hard drive recorder top up tv ready for £170.00 (amazon.co.uk) This way you get a freeview box + top up tv and a recorder for the above sum with time slip function to boot and no fiddling to remember to put a disc in and watch one channel whilst recording another come on guys and gals think about it how many times do you actually keep anything you record off the telly?? no contest you know I AM right. hahahahaha!

I sometimes record stuff and take it round to my mates house to watch. Easier taking round a dvd then the whole recorder.

I don't know about stand alone dvd recorders, but in the computer world Sony DVD burners are actually made by LiteOn and then rebadged and the firmware tweaked.

gazbert_2

Is there any way of getting the title updated with the current cheapest find?

As these threads get longer it gets increasingly difficult to find the current cheapest and it's easy to miss out.

Alternatively, if the first post on each page listed the current cheapest and where it could be bought that'd be great.

andrew_b6k

what makes you assume cheapest equals best? I'd say 'best deal' rather than 'cheapest' should be near the top, I'd rather see a player that's worth 599 down to 299 than a player down from 119.99 (i.e. worth nothing) to 59.99.

Is there any way of getting the title updated with the current cheapest find?

As these threads get longer it gets increasingly difficult to find the current cheapest and it's easy to miss out.

Alternatively, if the first post on each page listed the current cheapest and where it could be bought that'd be great.

duputydugg

Been reading the posts with interest (and occasional amusement!). As my VCR died and won't revive I've treated my Panasonic telly to a matching DMRE55EBS from https://www.currys.co.uk . Argos are sold out of Liteons in Birmingham, so I went for the Pan. Here's the maths:

webprice £176.67
less 7.5% from http://www.hotukdeals.com/Article19.phtml
plus postage £7.99
Total £175.83
less 10% Egg card November cash back (ends 30/11)
Final total £158.25

I'm told that Currys will post you a £10 voucher when you spend £100 as well, so when that arrives the total will be £148.25 (£10worth of DVD RAM discs to play in it)
Under £150 isn't the cheapest, but not too bad for a Pan.

George_Bray

Horror, shock: I've discovered a couple of glitches with the Liteon 5005. But it isn't enough for me to lose faith in the deck for the quality of its core functionality, the crystal clear recording quality and the scope for removing macrovision.

I may, however, end up using it just for recordings, with another deck used for playback, especially of pre-recorded DVD's.

I noticed that the bottom quarter of a couple of widescreen (2.35:1) movies (Region 2) was a darker shade, with distortion which is difficult to descibe. The same mainstream movies played fine on other DVD players. Liteon's own recordings played perfectly as well. But something was wrong, so I took the machine back to Argos today in exchange for another one. Bombshell - the new one is the same. That's on scart out, S-Video out or composite video out, all into my Philips widescreen TV. But it doesn't show the same fault into a 14" Sony portable I have. Weird. Neither does the Philips TV display this odd behaviour with any other source.

The other fault is reported on the reviews at amazon.co.uk and other places, being that TVs don't switch to the Liteon automatically when it starts up. You have to find the 'channel' manually. No great effort but not ideal.

So would I do a no-cost exchange for a Panasonic 55 right now? No. I still rate the core functionality and recording quality of the Liteon.

Regards
George

wjohn228

The latest online Which? Report gives the following order for DVD Recorders. This varies quite a lot from the Which? list published previously on this website. Indeed, the only common machine in the two lists is the Sony RDR-GX3

1. Panasonic DMRHS2EBS            78 %
2. Toshiba RD-XS30                  77 %
3. Sony RDR-GX7                  72 %
4. Panasonic DMR-E100HEB                      71 %
5. Sony RDR-GX3                  70 %
6. Daewoo DQR-1000            65 %
7. Humax DRP-560/UK            62 %
8. JVC DR-M1SLB                  61 %
9. Toshiba D-R1SB                  56 %

Overall, the Sony RDR GX7 is recommended because it is quite a lot cheaper than the two machines above it in the list. I hope this helps.

MarkP

The latest online Which? Report gives the following order for DVD Recorders. This varies quite a lot from the Which? list published previously on this website. Indeed, the only common machine in the two lists is the Sony RDR-GX3

1. Panasonic DMRHS2EBS             78 %
2. Toshiba RD-XS30                   77 %
3. Sony RDR-GX7                   72 %
4. Panasonic DMR-E100HEB                       71 %
5. Sony RDR-GX3                   70 %
6. Daewoo DQR-1000             65 %
7. Humax DRP-560/UK             62 %
8. JVC DR-M1SLB                   61 %
9. Toshiba D-R1SB                   56 %

Overall, the Sony RDR GX7 is recommended because it is quite a lot cheaper than the two machines above it in the list. I hope this helps.

Thanks wjohn228, I've been waiting for Which? to update their website.  I'm a little confused though as to why you have only listed some of the machines though, and missed out the best buys?

Here is the full list of DVD recorders they tested.  As I said in my previous post, they don't recommend any with a hard disk, but I've listed them below as well to try and explain the confusing post above.

DVD Recorders (without hard disk)

1.  JVC DR-M10SEK _________ 76% (Best Buy)
2.  Panasonic DMR-E55EB-S __ 76% (Best Buy)
3.  Sony RDR GX3 __________ 70% (Best Buy)
4.  LG DR4912 _____________ 68%
5.  Daewoo DQR-1000 ______ 65%
6.  JVC DR-M1SLB __________ 61%
7.  Toshiba D-R1SB _________ 56%
8.  Liteon LVW-5005 B ______ 49%

DVD Recorders (with hard disk)

1.  Panasonic DMRHS2EBS ____ 78%
2.  Toshiba RD-XS30 _________ 77%
3.  Panasonic DMR-E85HEB ____ 75%
4.  Panasonic DMR-E100HEB ___ 71%
4.  Toshiba RD-XS32 _________ 71%
6.  Sharp DV-HR300H ________ 67%
7.  Pioneer DVR-520H-S ______ 63%

nourishment

Re: Liteon DVD Recorder

Someone suggests that Liteon is a subsid of Sony. I can't confirm that but what I can say for fact is that many of Sony's DVD writers for PCs are re-badged Liteons.

I bought a Sony DVD writer for one of my PCs (because it was black and cheap) and updated the firmware to it's native Liteon and then subsequently updated it to a Liteon Dual Layer writer (the drive I bought was not a D/L drive).

If you want details go to a dedicated forum for DVD writers such as dvdrbase.com and have a look through the hardware sections or search on google for DVD firmware updates. Whether you can update the f/w in

Bottom line; for some electical goods I suffer from brand-snobbery. For items where quality/compatability really matter (like a writer) I go for what is considered the best by those in the know.

Liteon/Pioneer (I use both) are generally considered up there with the best.

nourishment

Further to my other post (no room)...

Liteon doesn't support DVD-Ram.  Who cares?  Use cheaper DVD-R for one-offs and DVD+RW for reuse.

Easily get 25 blank DVD-R for under a tenner if you know where to look (another thread maybe???).

DVD+RW are obviously more expensive but cheaper than DVD-RAM and far more players/PCs will read them.

MarkyMarkD

Re: Liteon DVD Recorder

Someone suggests that Liteon is a subsid of Sony.  I can't confirm that but what I can say for fact is that many of Sony's DVD writers for PCs are re-badged Liteons.

I don't think they are a subsid of Sony - they are a listed company. http://www.liteon.com/investor/investorIndex.do?xml_id=3

But I have a liteon CDRW in one of my PCs and it's always been perfect.