What is the average life of DVD Recorder?

melbury

Just curious, as my Panasonic DVD recorder decided to die this weekend and I have only had it for 3 years 4 months, which I consider quite a short time. I expected it to last for a lot longer.

When it came to seeking out a replacement Panasonic, the cheapest I could find was £209, whereas the previous one cost £132 three years ago:mad:

Seems that they don't make a basic player to just watch and record anymore.

m5rcc

Cheap and cheerful?

macman

For short term archiving you would be much better off with a PVR such as the Humax 9300T (Freeview) or Humax Foxsat HDR (Freesat).

WhiteChristmas

The PVR killed the recorder before the market reached maturity.

Part of the reason is reliability; recorders just don't have the life span VCRs had and are pretty much irreparable once they die.

Their life expectancy is directly proportional to use; a heavily used recorder (used, say, to digitise old videos) won't last much longer than a year.

A recorder used like we did VCRs to regularly record the soaps and watch them later will last about 2-3 years.

I'm on my 4th in 10 years. The above is my experience.

spannerzone

My Panasonic DVD recorder lasted about 18months and got used about twice a month for recoding and playback - the optical laser failed. These can fail due to wear and tear or just fail through lack of use it would seem.

I think DVD recorders have been killed off, whether intentially to reduce piracy, or because they're not reliable or because of PVR's- probably a mix of the three?

Remember when DVD recorders were available for about £60 for a Liteon or £130 for a Panasonic/Toshiba etc? then they all seemed to vanish with only a few available and mostly DVD/ Hard drive recorders. Even Blu Ray recorders haven't really caught on. I guess medialess is the way to go....

googler

Seek out a knowledgeable repair man in your locale, and ask him to look at the power supply. A total 'die' seems to suggest this is the fault - I've had more than a few Pana DVD recorders, and I've had my repairer replace power supply capacitors on a couple.

Touch wood, since getting combination DVD/HDD and VHS/DVD/HHD machines, also Panasonic, haven't had the same problem.

spannerzone

googler wrote: »

Seek out a knowledgeable repair man in your locale, and ask him to look at the power supply. A total 'die' seems to suggest this is the fault - I've had more than a few Pana DVD recorders, and I've had my repairer replace power supply capacitors on a couple.

Touch wood, since getting combination DVD/HDD and VHS/DVD/HHD machines, also Panasonic, haven't had the same problem.

Yeah tried that when it first happened but replacing the suspect electrolytics didn't help unfortunately. The unit power up fine and initially refused to record to RAM discs then soon stopped recording or playing most discs..... seemed that the laser just wasn't happy and it wasn't cost effective to get it repaired seeing as how little I actually used it.

Spank

A few years ago I bought a Philips DVD recorder for about £100 from a warehouse company, it was a very old model & when it died (well stopped writing even on new disks) I assumed it was cos it was so old technology & had been sitting around for a while, now I know better.

melbury

macman wrote: »

For short term archiving you would be much better off with a PVR such as the Humax 9300T (Freeview) or Humax Foxsat HDR (Freesat).

I have ordered another Panasonic with a HDD, but please do tell me what is a PVR??

melbury

Had to replace it with another Panasonic really because it makes life easier with the Viera link thing to the TV and I have a lot of Panasonic DVD Ram disks in stock.

From reading up on it, looks like the replacement part would be in the order of £200, so definitely not worth getting a repairer to look at it.:eek:

It just started giving weird messages about not having a disk even when it did, a light staying on all the time re the disk and it kept on making a clunking noise - so basically knackered.

Must say I expected at least 5+ years out of it, keep forgetting that things don't last forever anymore:o

macman

melbury wrote: »

Had to replace it with another Panasonic really because it makes life easier with the Viera link thing to the TV and I have a lot of Panasonic DVD Ram disks in stock.

From reading up on it, looks like the replacement part would be in the order of £200, so definitely not worth getting a repairer to look at it.:eek:

It just started giving weird messages about not having a disk even when it did, a light staying on all the time re the disk and it kept on making a clunking noise - so basically knackered.

Must say I expected at least 5+ years out of it, keep forgetting that things don't last forever anymore:o

Classic sound of a hard drive about to fail, as they all do eventually.