DV/AV Input (desperate) question to do with recording mini dv onto dvd

Lizbetty

I wonder if anyone can help me with this, I'm going round in circles big stylie.

I have a Canon Mini Dv camcorder and want to buy a Panasonic DMR-ES20D DVD recorder (the one with freeview) as we are in the stone age and trying to get some decent technology here that we dare use.

I notice on a thread (that I can't find) that the dvd, whilst highly recommended, doesn't have a dv input, and a couple of people have written it off cos they also wanted to copy from mini dv to dvd with it. Buuuut, I understand that it has av input, and this can be used? I really can't find an answer to this, would I be better holding out for a recorder with dv input, or would av input do? Would this affect the quality of the recording onto dvd?

The man in Currys said that Freeview is better quality when it's included with your dvd recorder, and so I have my heart set on this Panasonic dvd (from Argos, natch, as it's in stock there and £169.99) but I daren't buy it without understanding this stuff. Especially as we're on a tight budget and buy things like this every blue moon! LoL! Panasonic gave me a very sketchy reply in pigeon English by email which didn't answer the question, Canon said they can't advise as they can only advise on the camcorder, not the dvd, and in a roundabout way said they didn't know (also very odd pigeon English, very strange for someone called Alison).

Any advice you could give would be soooo much appreciated, as I have a bad head and sore back from trying to find this out for the past 3 days!

Sorry it's long, I'm not known for being concise unfortunately, but I do hope that you might bear with me. Thanks in advance, Lucy

lipidicman

For mini DV to DVD you really want the digital video input for the best quality archiving. The AV input will be an analogue signal that will be recompressed to digital by the DVD player

Lizbetty

Thanks for that. Is the quality hugely different do you know? The reason I ask is that the dvd recorders in our price range with dv input don't have freeview, and I'm a little nervous about getting a separate box as Currys said the quality isn't as good as with a dvd with freeview, and we haven't got much space for lots of boxes, too! It's the same old story, there's none that I can find with everything we want..I seem to have bene researching this forever!

Would you say it's worth compromising freeview quality for the benefit of having dv input, or is the quality using av input not that much different?
Sorry to sound a bit thick on these things, but I am as I'm still learning about them..Unless anyone can recommend an all singing all dancing dvd recorder with dv input and freeview, which would be proper fab! :T

Thanks again in advance for any advice you can offer, I really appreciate it (my headache's easing already, lol!)

Lucy

lipidicman

The sony 710 has both freeview and dv. It is about £460-500 though

I would like a DVD with freeview but have yet to find one that does not re-encode the video stream (freeview is MPEG2 like DVD). The current crop seem to be good for convenience (eg recording off the EPG), but the guy in Currys is feeding you a line: with an RGB connection you will see little difference in quality.

As I understand it the DV input will allow you to make an exact copy of what you have on the camera, freeing up your tapes (I am not 100% on this), the AV input will only allow you to make a 2nd gen copy

Lizbetty

Thanks again for getting back. I must confess to not understanding quite a bit of that message as I'm not very up on these things, but the Sony sounds a bit too dear, you're right! I guess the question is then how much difference in picture quality would there be using an an input instead of a dv input? I've got the Panasonic reserved at Argos to pick up today if I can find the answer to this elusive question today - I've emailed Canon (the camcorder is a Canon) in the hope that they might be able to shed some light on it, but I'm not very hopeful after the last dealings I had with them, which was a slightly confusing and expensive experience (0870 number and a very slow speaking friend from overseas..). If anyone does have the answer to this, I would be soooo grateful. We're only wanting to do family stuff on there so the quality doesn't have to be perfect, but at the same time it'd be a shame if it's really grainy. Thanks again! Lucy

securityman

Why not get a wirefire card (dv) for your pc for about £10. Easy to fit.
As long as you have a dvd writer. If not they are cheap aswell.
Then do the back up of cam tapes on the pc.
You can do alot more editing on the pc i think.
Then you can get the dvd you want with freeview.

Sm

Lizbetty

Wey hey! Thank you. I think I will. I'm not quite sure what the firewire thing is although I've heard it mentioned, I'm much better at understanding the pc stuff than the whole television attachment thing! Lol! We have a cd writer and a friend mentioned that he has a dvd writer (I assumed that a cd writer'd do both), but we didn't like to ask too much as we were picking his brains on his birthday when he was trying to chill from all that stuff. I'll look into it and try that option. I'm just pleased I can go and pick up this dvd recorder so we can get freeview! Yippee! :T Ta again, Lucy :j

lipidicman

The firewire and the DV input on the DVD are the same thing (IE1394). However, if you are not very technical then you will find a standalone unit much easier to use than editing on a PC.

I would seriously advise you NOT to get a DVD recorder without DV if you have a digital camcorder