Are DVD recorders reliable?

Donzo Bonzo

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My video recorder packed up today. I took it to a shop to be repaired, and when he quoted me £50 for a repair, I took it home and put a hammer through it.

I then rang my catalogue and ordered a new Nicam VCR for only £49.:)

Many people will wonder why I am still into video when the DVD market, both players and recorders, is exploding...

The reason is although I have a Phillips DVD recorder, I rarely use it because it's so unreliable. It misses frames out and sometimes there are errors on the discs.

I nearly always record my favourite TV shows to video first, and then if I want to transfer them to DVD, I can. I sometimes do this with my stand alone DVD recorder, but most of the time I run an analgoue feed to my pc and convert to DVD then burn using my pc's DVD recorder.

My point is, I have had more than four DVD recorders on loan from catalogues, and all of them have have been crap. I have returned them all, they're so unreliable.

Nothing beats videotape. I think it'll be around for at least another 10 years!!:)
 

PaulR

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The only experience I have is that my brother bought one from Aldi a few months ago. I set it up for him, tuned in he channels and left him to it.

A few days later he hadn't used it yet and I had a go. It was fearsomely complicated to use. On my VCR I frequently record from both off-air signals and from the Scart input. This was practically impossible to do. Also, compared to a VCR, you have to remove previous recordings form the disc whereas on a tape you just record over. This can take several minutes extra.

Finally, the buttons on the remote were far too small and complicated.

PaulR
 

jimbo

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I use a HDD DVD recorder. Switch on tune to whatever channel and press record. That's it. If I want to start watching it from the beginning while it's recording then I just press play. When it's finished I still press play and off it goes. If I want to keep a programme I just dub it to DVD. The sonapanics have a 300gb HDD which can record up to about 500 hours of stuff.
 

Donzo Bonzo

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I think the harddrive dvd recorders are okay, it's just the discs. Even top quality discs like TDK can fail.

I had a Samsung dvd recorder on a two-week trial over Xmas. I put in a high quality disc to record Flight of the Phoenix, and when I tried to watch it, there was no sound!!

Stand alone Dvd recorders are easy to use, I don't have a problem figuring that part out, it's just I can never trust them.

Like I said, I do have a LG Electronics pc dvd recorder which I installed myself. That has a 90% rate when burning.

I'd recommend that to anyone wanting to get into DVD recording for the first time.

But like Paul said, video is so easy to use. My bruv works in house clearances and frequently gets bags and bags of tapes.

I have most of them stacked in my grarage. Around 600 I say.

Video is easy. You just pop in the tape and record, and you know when you play it back, the tape won't miss frames out or have no sound.
 
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