Which DVD Recorder?

donnajunkie

it is possible that the batch was faulty because the first one we got didnt work and we sent it straight back and it was replaced by the one we have now.

Bert_Anderson

I was in ASDA today and noticed that they had ONN 80GB HDD/DVD Recorders on sale at 99.99 with DIVX playback function.

Any opinions on ONN as a brand?

WATSOFT_2

Personally, I don’t rate Sony products, since my rubbish Trinitron TV. I’ve always found them over-hyped and overpriced. Neither would I touch a Panasonic since I bought their first Freeview box at £100 and got nothing in the way of support for their buggy software!

These days I buy everything based on functionality, price and looks (in order of my priority). If it does what I want and I can live with how it looks then I buy it. I try whatever I buy straight away and if it’s not up to par I take it straight back to the shop. Everything comes with a 1 year guarantee, so you’re covered (3 years with most, if not all of Aldi stuff). Let’s face it after a year technology will have moved on leaps and bounds, so in the unlikely event that it does fail just after the guarantee has run out...who cares? In my experience higher priced products are just as likely to fail.

I have bought ONN products before and found them to be very functional. We had a Dyson (£180) and now have an ONN (£40) vacuum cleaner that is much more powerful. I have bought cheap for years and I would say that I have always been impressed with the functionality, quality and lifespan of all my purchases.

FYI: I have a DigiFusion PVR, a product that had a history of build quality issues. It is over 2 years old and has better functionality than many on the market today.
I also have a LiteOn 160Gb DVD recorder. LiteOn’s own firmware upgrades have rendered the DVD drive useless (tries to write over pre-recorded DVD’s). It lasted a year, but I wouldn’t buy LiteOn again.

I bought a Tevion Freeview 160Gb DVD recorder, but it went straight back as it didn’t do what the web-site advertised and the user interface was awful due to the method used to implement the Freeview tuner (not tuners).

I hope this ramble helps someone in some way!

Bert_Anderson

I'm going in to Aldis tomorrow with the old unit - I'm led to believe they have a new policy of returning the products to Tevion after a one month period - since March this year. Ours was bought in December last year so presumably this does not apply?

I'll pick up one of the ONN HDD recorders assuming all goes to plan

I did a G-spot check of my latest Top Gear download and it won't play on the Tevion machine - it sees the file and recognises it but won't play. G-spot recognises it as an Xvid file.

ffym

Problem with a HDD recorder is that the recording is stuck in the machine. The Humax will let you download to a PC in real time but most of the others do not. If you want to keep a special recording or watch something you've recorded somewhere else then your stuck.

Bert_Anderson

ffym wrote: »

Problem with a HDD recorder is that the recording is stuck in the machine. The Humax will let you download to a PC in real time but most of the others do not. If you want to keep a special recording or watch something you've recorded somewhere else then your stuck.

I just got back from Asda with the ONN machine - actually got it for less than the shelf price as there is a current 10% off promotion

This particular model has the option of transferring the HDD recordings to the DVD+/-R disks which isn't too shabby at all.

I put in a Divx copy of Top Gear from the other week which I transferred to a CD - it was recognised but the machine appeared to lock up when I tried to play it. Perhaps it only likes .avi files on DVD media?

Now need to look for a region unlock code (assuming it's set on region 2 as default) :beer:

Bert_Anderson

Bert_Anderson wrote: »

I'm going in to Aldis tomorrow with the old unit - I'm led to believe they have a new policy of returning the products to Tevion after a one month period - since March this year. Ours was bought in December last year so presumably this does not apply?

There was a bit of discussion with the deputy manager when I tried to return the defective unit. He was adamant that it could not be returned for a refund as the policy changed in March this year - explained I bought it before that came into effect and hence did not apply.

He was still having none of it and said that the only thing that he could do was refer the problem to the area manager. I then said well if you give me the number for the area manager I'll call and discuss the matter with him...this appeared to be something of a problem and then the manager was called.

The manager listened to my side of the story and pretty well immediately agreed that as it was bought before March then he would give the refund :beer:

Monkeys and organ grinders and all that I guess

Bert_Anderson

Update - not sure if it is completely region free or not but it does play my US sourced DVD without any secret code entry etc.

However, this unit is 100~240v & NTSC/PAL tuner equipped so you'll probably see the same unit in Walmart for the same price in Dollars

jembie

Bert_Anderson wrote: »

Yeah I was wondering if this might actually be a better alternative at the end of the day as well...

But surely you can't keep it forever and ever. And what if you want to share with someone else? or what if I want to record something to watch on the lappy on a train or something?
I don't think that a HDD recorder can ever replace a VCR/DVD recorder. That is just my opinion of course...

BexTech

jembie wrote: »

But surely you can't keep it forever and ever. And what if you want to share with someone else? or what if I want to record something to watch on the lappy on a train or something?
I don't think that a HDD recorder can ever replace a VCR/DVD recorder. That is just my opinion of course...

I couldn't live with just a HDD recorder, but happy with my HDD/DVD recorder.

Though will be getting a V+ soon, but will still use the HDD/DVD recorder, so I can transfer from V+ box to HDD of the HDD/DVD recorder and use the editing features and then transfer to DVD.