Simple DVD Recorder

tanith

My hubby wants a DVD Recorder so I thought maybe I would get a better deal waiting till the after christmas sales... I know absolutely nothing about them and am quite happy recording on video as I just use it to record progs I am going to miss...........
He wants to eventually record all his video collection onto Disc and use it to just record the odd prog and film.. we have freeview only so could anyone please point me in the right direction for a reasonable quality and cheap to middle price range.......... also I am confused as to what Discs I need to buy there seem to be so many different types.........

Thanks I know I am a techno phobe but I try .................. :xmassign:

beachbum_3

Recommend the Panasonic DMRES10. Its fairly easy to use and gives very good quality recordings. Not the cheapest (I've seen the non multi region version for about the £120 mark) but i've tried cheaper recorders and IMHO i don't really rate them.

BB

croboy

Hi Tanith,

Im not a major authority on DVD recorders but i've got 3 at the moment (its to do with my business) and have had quite a few in the past 3 years. Basically there are two types of discs DVD+R and DVD-R. The recorders using the DVD+R discs are usually the cheapest but there is no difference between the discs just that you have to click a button to 'format' the DVD+R discs before formatting them.

Anyhow, what i wanted to recommend is ASDA's 'Cyberhome' DVD recorder. I picked one up this week when one of my machines went down. It was only £68 and quite frankly im amazed at how simple and efficient it is compared to my other more expensive recorders. Also, asda offer a full year warranty (refund or exchange) which is really worth it as if you buy a recorder online it can be a real pain to get it returned if it goes haywire (which a lot of the early models did). You can get discs from most places (inc ASDA) but ordering them online is by far the cheapest with places like https://www.blankdiscshop.com offering excellent value.

Hope this helps!

MORPH3US

Would highly recommend the Liteon models, I think I have the 5006 which records to all disks so no need to worry about compatability. Argos will have it in the sale for about £100, bargain!!!

M

Altarf

beachbum wrote:

Recommend the Panasonic DMRES10.

The DMRES10 does not have a freeview tuner (so you would need to record via a set top box), but the DMRES20D does have a built in freeview tuner so you could record direct to disc.

Few of the cheap DVD recorders have freeview tuners yet.

gizmoleeds

tanith wrote:

also I am confused as to what Discs I need to buy there seem to be so many different types.........

Okay, there are three types of DVD disk:

DVD-R/RW is the most common format.
DVD+R/RW is slightly better, and slightly less common.

Most DVD players can play DVD-R and DVD+R disks, and a lot can play DVD-RW and +RW disks as well.

(nb. R disks are recordable only once (ie. you can't delete stuff once it's on) and RW disks are re-writable (you can delete stuff and put other stuff in its place ).

Most DVD recorders will actually use both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW disks - so you don't need to worry too much here.

The third format is DVD-RAM. Very few DVD players will play DVD-RAM (so you couldn't, for example, lend them to someone with just a DVD player), but it is probably the best format to go for, as it can do a nifty thing called "timeslip" - which means you can start watching a program before it finishes recording (or "pause" live TV while you go to the loo ). About half of all DVD recorders support DVD-RAM.

Any DVD-RAM recorders will always use at least one of the other formats too (normally both). They usually cost a little extra, but I think it is well worth it.

Just look at the spec of any DVD recorder you are interested in and most should support both + and - disks, and if you can get one with RAM support, even better.

Hope this helps!

The logos by the way look like this:

DVD+R/RW

DVD-R/RW

RAM looks the same as the DVD-R/RW one but with the word RAM instead.

tanith

thanks everyone hubby suggested the Asda one but I thought as it was so cheap it would be rubbish so I will look at your all your suggestions and the explanations for the discs is excellent ta very much

MORPH3US

gizmoleeds wrote:

DVD-R/RW is the most common format.
DVD+R/RW is slightly better, and slightly less common.

Good post but would disagree with your above points!

Because the + format is available on the majority of cheaper players I would say that it was the more popular although in certain circles - is preferred.

However I would say that - was a better format because PS2 will only play - and most dvd players (especially older ones) will also only play -.

M

gizmoleeds

MORPH3US wrote:

Good post but would disagree with your above points!

Because the + format is available on the majority of cheaper players I would say that it was the more popular although in certain circles - is preferred.

However I would say that - was a better format because PS2 will only play - and most dvd players (especially older ones) will also only play -.

Okay, I admit I have never actually bothered to look up the differences between the two and gone on what I was told - I have just googled it and it seems about half of people think + is better and half think - is better. Others point out that for the vast majority of uses consumers won't notice any difference whatsoever.

As most DVD recorders support both formats I wouldn't worry about it.