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Anyone own one of these? What should I be looking for? Why are some $400 and others $1000?
Can you shed some light on this subject for me?
Thanks in advance.

The colour. It's very important you get a black one and not silver.

I think the more expensive ones have built in hard drive of some capacity, eg. 60Gb or 80Gb, which you can save TV programs to before writing to DVD.

Probably things like component input, better DAC and other processing circuitry, and features home theatre buffs crave are more likely to be supported by the more costly units too.

Phillip - I have both a home DVD recorder and a PDR.

The major difference is as per Onyx’s reply plus the format that is recordable. Panasonic will record DVD-R plus RAM whereas some of the dearer units will record both DVD+ and - and the cheaper ones just +DVD.

So if you just want to replace your old VCR with a DVD version and you just want to record daily from the TV, how important is it to have a hard disk drive?

If you want to record daily and you are with Foxtel digital the best bet is a PDR

Nope, no foxtel.
Actually it's more for the wife, you know the drill, watch opera while you record Days of our lives or something like that

Phillip for that sort of thing the PVR (hard disk thingy) would be ideal.

I have a hard disk in my set top box and it is perfect for what you describe.

Greolt

Correct me please if I am wrong but if you wish to watch one program whilst another is being recorded you will need a twin tuner PVR

Is it not possible to watch TV normally on any of its channels while thr DVD-R does its thing?

Actually the DVD recorder would normally have a built in tuner so if it is not receiving the signal from the TV you could do it with a TV antenna splitter and use the inbuilt tuner.

Phillip

I have a Topfield PVR (TF5000PVRt). Like you I looked at a DVD recorder as a replacement for my VCR. After lots of research I bought the Toppy instead. It's NOT a DVD recorder, but a hard disk based recorder. I love this beast and I recall gleff here also has one. They cost around $850 and are much more flexible than the average DVD recorder. And unlike DVD recorders it pays no attention to the broadcast "don't record" bit that can be included in a program.

Here's a quick snapshot of what it can do:

• SD digital set top box (widescreen digital free to air TV)
• TWO tuners (record two programs that are on at the same time)
• playback a previously recorded program while recording 1 or 2 others
• 120gb hard disk stores approx 50 hours of content (standard high quality hard disk - can be replaced with WD or Seagate of larger size later if you want)
• pause and resume live TV
• automatic caching of the last 1 hour of viewed content on the current channel - go back in time up to 1 hour and start recording on the currently active channel
• edit recorded content
• USB connection to download/upload between the box and your PC or mac
• MPG encoded content. when downloaded to your PC can be burnt to DVD without being reencoded
• programmable like a VCR (once only, daily, weekly etc)
• start watching what your recording while it's being recorded
• programmable API so other people can write software that works on it eg there's an excellent channel guide addin that gives it Tivo like functionality
• USER UPDATABLE firmware. Topfield regularly release updates that fix bugs and/or add features. Connect to your PC or Mac and update the frimware yourself in about 30 seconds!
• play mp3s
• playback jpg slideshows
• ad skip (press a button and jump forward 30 seconds almost instantly)

There's lots more, but I guess that's a good start.

And you can get these at places like Harvey Norman, DJs, Myer, Retravision etc as well as at online retailers

Edit: Corrected incorrect hard disk size

Thanks for that Peter, How simple is it to operate, relative to a VCR. It's taken me a few years to finally get the mrs. to operate the VCR.

phillipb wrote:Thanks for that Peter, How simple is it to operate, relative to a VCR. It's taken me a few years to finally get the mrs. to operate the VCR.

Let me put it this way. I have two different sets of friends who bought one after seeing mine. Neither couple is technologically literate. Both couples commented on how much easier it was to use than a VCR.

As an example - as well as things like play, stop, pause, rewind etc there is a red, green, blue, yellow and white button on the remote. In the menus things have names and a colour eg Yellow = add new program timer. And to choose this (you guessed it) you press the yellow button on the remote. To set a recording you specify the start time by typeing the numbers on the remote so 8:30 PM is 0830. You toggle between am and pm with the up & down arrows. You choose the channel from a list of names (like SBS, ABC, Ten, Nine etc) you then choose the recording length using the arrows (say 1hr 30 minutes). Specify one off, daily weekly etc using the arrow keys then finally you give a name to the program eg Myth Busters using an on screen typewriter you navigate with the remote. Then press OK.

When the program is recorded it shows in a list with the station, the name you gave the program and the date and time. If weekly, then the second time it records the program will be Myth Busters-2 (ie it doesn't overwrite the old one).

You can see menu screen shots here.

And one useful thing I haven't mentioned already - you can adjust the recording time WHILE something is recording - so if your favourite weekly show is a 2 hour epsiode rather than 1 hour and you find out while it's recording you just change the duration to 2 hours.

That's very interesting Peter. I have a Topfield digital settop box and the menus are similar. Would I be right in assuming that the quality doesn't deteriorate with time, the HD would work in the same way as on the computer, ie. it either works or it doesn't if a file gets corrupted. Do you know if you can reformat the disk? How many hours can you record before you need to start deleting files?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions.

phillipb wrote:That's very interesting Peter. I have a Topfield digital settop box and the menus are similar. Would I be right in assuming that the quality doesn't deteriorate with time, the HD would work in the same way as on the computer, ie. it either works or it doesn't if a file gets corrupted. Do you know if you can reformat the disk? How many hours can you record before you need to start deleting files?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions.

Phillip - not too many questions.

Files are digital dvd quality with no degradation over time (cos they're digital)
Hard disk can be formatted via the toppie menus
Can record between 45 and 50 hours on the 120 Gb hard disk that is now standard (I notice I said 32 and 100Gb above, but the figures I give here are the correct ones) - and that's a hell of a lot of TV viewing.

If you and your wife want to record and watch different programs you can set up a Phillip and a Mrs B ??? folder and move programs into the folders that match for later viewing by you or your wife.

Thanks mate, you've just about sold me, I'll go and check it out on the weekend.

phillipb wrote:Thanks mate, you've just about sold me, I'll go and check it out on the weekend.

Phillip

You won't regret it. If/when you get one I'd also suggest you get an addon called ProgressBarKeys that adds heaps of extra features.