Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => OT Knowledge => Topic started by: Poly Hive on 17 December, 2017, 01:40:44 pm
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Any suggestions for a good inexpensive unit to do this please?
Many thanks
PH
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Samsung BD-J4500. £45
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No recording facility with BD-J4500.
But I'm not sure what inexpensive DVD player will also record.
I used to have a HDD/Freesat device that also had a CD player/recorder built in meaning I could copy from HDD to CD, or just play a CD. Currently I have a Panasonic DMP-BDT380 player that allows various formats from DVD/CD/USB along with network connection option. Any recording needs are met by a Humax Freesat device with HDD.
DVD is here and I'm very pleased with it:
https://www.richersounds.com/panasonic-dmpbdt380.html (https://www.richersounds.com/panasonic-dmpbdt380.html)
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Second-hand is the answer. Search eBay for "panasonic dvd recorder" or "panasonic dmr".
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But they can be unreliable. A second hand one might not last very long.
Why record on DVDs anyway? It is usually slow, unreliable and inconvenient.
If its just TV programmes to watch later, some sort of Freeview/Freesat hard drive recorder would be a lot better.
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Many thanks fuaran hadn't thought of that.
PH
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In which case the latest Humax will do the job.
https://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/
FVP 5000T 500Mb at £229 I think.
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Why record on DVDs anyway? It is usually slow, unreliable and inconvenient.
If its just TV programmes to watch later, some sort of Freeview/Freesat hard drive recorder would be a lot better.
I knew someone who had a video DVD recorder and used it like a VHS recorder. Seemed like a very expensive way to achieve negligible benefit, but they were an early-adopter luddite with plenty of money[1].
Digital TV and hard drive recorders became mainstream a little later, making the whole concept almost but not quite entirely obsolete. (I can imagine specialised applications[2] where being able to record the output from a camera to a non-volatile portable medium is advantageous, but surely the normal workflow for putting video on a DVD involves editing/processing it in a computer first, and DVD drives for computers are dirt cheap.)
[1] Read: Apple fanboy.
[2] Oral exams, police interviews, work capability assessments, that sort of thing.
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Another alternative is using catchup services like BBC iPlayer via an Android TV box. These devices can be fiddly to setup nicely, though.
Sharing content with luddites people not into later technology is about the only good reason I can think of for recording video to DVD nowdays. (I thought that's what PH might have wanted to do). Some of the Panasonic models I referred to include a hard drive and Freeview receiver (albeit SD) as well as DVD writer - available for about thirty quid.
I knew someone who had a video DVD recorder and used it like a VHS recorder. Seemed like a very expensive way to achieve negligible benefit, but they were an early-adopter luddite with plenty of money[1].
Or they used re-writable discs?
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I knew someone who had a video DVD recorder and used it like a VHS recorder. Seemed like a very expensive way to achieve negligible benefit, but they were an early-adopter luddite with plenty of money[1].
Or they used re-writable discs?
Fairly sure they didn't, but it would be a bit more practical. Wonder if the recorder supported them? (Those where the days when computer drives were inconsistent.)
I found a box of CDRWs while tidying up recently. I used to use them for backups before hard disks were cheap.
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Sony RDR-HXD series recorders (or the Pioneer Video machines that they are based on) are very good machines which are to be found on gumtree for peanuts these days. [NB Sony DC series and GXD series machines are not the same thing at all.]
HXD series machines contain a freeview SD tuner, HDD varying from 80 to 500GB, and a DVD recorder/player that supports most disc formats. You can record TV for timeshift viewing, then edit and dub to DVD (usually at high speed, 10mins per 4.7G disc, as well as to dual layer discs) if you want to keep a copy. Series record, genre search via the EPG and other features are available. You can record/dub at vary levels of compression. There is an upscaled 1080p HDMI output
Unlike Panasonic machines they don't need a 300 page manual to work them and unlike many other machines they do what they say on the tin, easily, and without too many glitches.
cheers
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I knew someone who had a video DVD recorder and used it like a VHS recorder. Seemed like a very expensive way to achieve negligible benefit, but they were an early-adopter luddite with plenty of money[1].
Or they used re-writable discs?
Fairly sure they didn't, but it would be a bit more practical. Wonder if the recorder supported them? (Those where the days when computer drives were inconsistent.)
I found a box of CDRWs while tidying up recently. I used to use them for backups before hard disks were cheap.
Some years back I saw a great deal on 1000 DVD-RWs. Awesome, I thought (we did have an early model Samsung HD/DVD recorder complete with an editorializing no, ian, I'm not going to record that function).
Anyway, I have 999 of them rotting in the garage. I'm am not a good predictor of future technology.
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The only issue I have with my Freesat Humax box is that I cannot export files from it like i used to be able to do on the previous Humax model I had. If that's important to you, check out whether you are able to do so with your box of choice.