What is a 'DVD Recorder' as listed in catalogues of electrical goods along with VCR's, Televisions and whatever? (available for a mere $AU399) Do they record DVD's? So can you use two of them to copy a DVD? If they don't, what do they do? If they do, why do we need to fuss with computers and software in an attempt to copy our DVD's? What is the easiest way to COPY a DVD? What is the easiest way to CREATE a DVD? What is the easiest way to EDIT (and reburn) a DVD? From all these questions, the main, underlying one: Are these 'dvd recorders' really the simplest, easiest, cheapest way of copying DVD's and make it that you don't need any computer at all? It sometimes gets like that, you know. Technology overtakes us. The geek, the guru sometimes finds himself marooned on a branch still doing incredibly difficult esoteric things with ancient machinery/software while the world has moved on and little kids are doing better than him with some new modern thing. DVD recording, burning, et al, can't be so difficult/expensive when it's thrown in with digital movie cameras. Can anyone just put me straight? regards, ab
Go to google and search- dvd recorder+copy, found this http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,120534,00.asp I guess the easy answer would be, if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.
Oh boy! a whole bunch of questions! Let's see...A DVD recorder records DVDs from unencrypted sources, like your TV and your camcorder. the easiest way (well one of the easiest ways) to COPY a DVD is with two free programs, DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter. The easiest way to CREATE a DVD is to take your camcorder footage and use a program like WinAVI or DivXtoDVD to convert the .avi files into DVD-Video compliant files and then burn them using one of the many good burning programs. EDITing a DVD is harder because you generally have to turn the thing back into .avi file format to do serious editing. Some programs like NeroVision Express will let you use the DVD-Video files and will actually complete the job by burning the edited DVD. I guess that would be the easiest but probably not the best way. As far as using non-PC methods, a recorder is fine unless you want to copy movies. I have heard there are ways around it so you can use a recorder to recorder method but it is not going to be very useful if you want good quality or if you run into a problem movie. Copying movies is actually really simple. Some movies can have problems but for the most part just burning a copy only takes a few mouse clicks. Getting set up to burn is sometimes an issue and the biggest problem we see here is poor blank media. It Does Make a Difference. Having a fairly new PC with an internal burner and an internal DVD ROM set up correctly makes it easy.
Thanks guys. I went to the 'howdo' page and read it and saved it. I think I've absorbed the gist of the message. Like this: If you don't want any fancywork the set-top box (the dvd recorders I was asking about) are just the thing. Given that you get one with enough hard drive space to store a whole movie to avoid the 'swap disks mid movie' problem. And given that at this time they don't have the capacity to write to 2hr disks. But PC burners are cheaper, upgradeable easier, currently capable of burning 2hr disks and the pc offers full editing ability (if the pc is good enough). BUT: need appropriate inputs. And they said nothing about copying DVD's - except as an aside about copying the ones you just burned. Is that about it? Now fasfrank offered more input and I think the gist of what he was saying was the same as the above. But he says '...unless you want to copy movies..' and I feel he's talking about copying DVD's. He says the results won't be good. With a set top box, that is. Why not? What's the problem? Why won't recorder to recorder turn out a good result? It should be perfect, surely?01 What about playing a DVD through the TV and recording it with a set-top box? That'd be perfect wouldn't it? What about playing VCR tapes and recording them as the 'howto' page mentioned? That's analogue to digital. Surely it would catch all the current perfection of the analogue? It couldn't be worse than the original, surely? ----------------------------------------------------------- I don't think I'd bother with a set-top box. I'm a pc man, really and currently the set-top boxes aren't sufficiently cheap, anyway, cheap though they are. But for my non-pc friends (and myself) I want to know what's going on. It seems to me that recorders are the way to go for everyone. Every ordinary 'one', that used to use, for instance - here in Australia where it was and still is bigtime - VCR tapes and do much recording and copying. It's the way to record your favourite tv shows, the way to save your vcr tapes to a better format, the way to archive your digicam stuff... and so on. BUT I still don't have an answer to copying DVD's. I like to copy MY DVD's. I've got friends who like to copy theirs. Well, actually they've never copied any. But they've lost heaps to their children and friends, etc., dirtied, scratched, broken. And they'd like to be able to. What's the easiest way ? Surely it's DVD recorder (set-top)? Recorder-recorder or player-recorder, same difference. Surely? What's the lack of quality that fasfrank is referring to?
A DVD Recorder records to a DVD just the way a VCR does. You record from your source, television, camcorder, VCR or another DVD player. You cannot record protected material i.e. you cannot record a DVD movie or VHS movie. You can do that with your PC and the right software. You can then record this PC backup with your DVD Recorder. The hardrive in the recorder is used for storage so you can have numerous programs stored and record and edit them at your leisure. You can record pay per view movies. The quality of your recordings is not as good as those done on your PC, it is television,VCR quality. Some are just like VCR's in the effect they will record 8hrs of shows on one disk, while you cannot do this with PC, however as I stated the quality does suffer. If you want to backup a movie use a PC. I own a Panasonic DVD Recorder it is nice to have because I use it for storage of programs when the 30hrs on my TiVo receiver runs out, but for movie backup I use PC.
Thanks again, guys. Looks like there's two problems: 1. DVD copy protection stops DVD Recorders functioning as well and completely as they otherwise would. i.e. they can't copy. 2. Recording from t.v. is lower quality than the source material. Otherwise DVD recorders are exactly what they seem to be, do exactly the same job as computer dvd burners and do it much easier. I can tell my non-geeky friends to archive their VCR tapes and copy t.v. shows etc., with a DVD Recorder but for DVD backups and real editing one needs a pc. That's it. I've finally got it? I wonder what difference digital tv will make? What about with digital t.v.?
