Archive for April, 2009
HDMI DVD Recorder
Posted by padusi in dvd recorder on April 3rd, 2009
HDMI DVD Recorder – Philips HDMI 1080i DVD Recorder
By Padusi
phillips hdmi dvd recorder
What’s great about the Philips HDMI 1080i DVD Recorder is that, first of all, it has an HDMI output. And when many brands switched to the cheaper LED outside display, the Philips HDMI 1080i DVD Recorder uses a vacuum fluorescent display.
With the Philips HDMI 1080i DVD Recorder, you can switch between analog or digital with a button unlike others where changing channels involves going through both analog and digital together.
There are two types of captioning with this model, the internal one and one that gets displayed via the TV. It won’t capture the digital captions but will the analog. In other words, you will see two sets of captions if you set both the recorder and TV on captions. Be sure to turn one of them off. The recorder won’t record internal captions via digital recording. However, if you set the TV on cc, you can still see the “normal” closed captioning after making a digital TV recording.
As opposed to other cheaper brands, the Philips HDMI 1080i DVD Recorder plays any homemade recordings without hiccups.
What’s not so great is that it doesn’t record widescreen. If you set the settings to widescreen, it records with the sides mashed together in 4×3. If you set it to 4×3, you will record with the black bands top and bottom. If you record pan&scan, it will record pan&scan and you will lose the right and left sides.
Toshiba DR560 1080p Up-Converting DVD Recorder with Built-In Tuner
toshiba hdmi dvd recorder
The Toshiba’s DR560 is the answer to those looking for an affordable and dependable DVD up-converter and recorder. It’s a quality machine as well as affordable. With only an HDMI cable hook-up, the unit will automatically select the correct mode, saving you any trouble trying to decipher the manual or find the proper buttons on the remote. The problem is, these simple cables can be quite expensive at most national electronics stores. So, your best choice should be in the discount retailers.
The downside of this unit is that the remote doesn’t have the ability to control the TV nor does it come with backlit buttons, which is a nice feature when you’re watching a movie with all the lights out. The setup is quite simple and, as stated earlier, if you use the HDMI input, which is recommended, it is automatic.
The quality and ability of the Toshiba DR560 to up-convert DVDs is fair. For instance, to render a 1080p image from 720p or lower images, though if you expect 1080p quality from these older formats, you’ll be a bit disappointed. Technically, these up-converters take the recorded image and make calculations in order to fill gaps in the image on your screen. (1080p TVs have more pixels to fill, thus the calculations and conversions). But for the money, the Toshiba DR560 does an excellent job.
Now that many TV stations begin to switch off their analog signals, the Toshiba DR560 can be used as a high definition tuner for older TVs. This unit’s best feature, though, is the ability to take analog home video and transfer it to digital, high-quality images on DVD with no editing. The Toshiba DR560 will serve your up-converting and recording needs as well as any DVD recorder on the market.
DVD Recorder HDMI
Posted by padusi in dvd recorder on April 2nd, 2009
Panasonic DMR-EZ27 DVD Recorder with HDMI
By Padusi
dvd recorder hdmi
Just as its predecessors, Panasonic DMR-EZ27 can record on DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and even dual-layer DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL. The recorder also plays all formats. You get the most flexibility if you use DVD-RAM discs, which work faster and let you use more of the recorder’s features.
In addition to all recordable DVD formats, the recorder can play store-bought movies on DVD-Video as well as Video CD, Audio CD, Audio CD-R, Audio CD-RW, MP3 CD-R and MP3 CD-RW as well as CDs with JPEG pictures and DivX compressed videos. Just as most VCRs, this recorder has a built-in NTSC TV analog/digital ATSC tuner, timer recording and manual recording.
The recorder has more speeds/modes than the VCR however, and much better picture quality in top quality modes. The available modes are: XP, SP, LP, EP-6H, EP-8H and flexible recording mode. The digital FireWire (DV Video) input is available on the front panel.
The HDMI out with up-conversion, with EZ Sync HDAVI Control up-converts 480i DVD discs to 720p, 1080i or 1080p. The recorder has an optical digital audio out, which can be used for DVD playback. The recorder has several recording modes/speeds. The recorder also has EP modes: EP-6H and EP-8H that fit 6 and 8 hours respectively and feature reduced resolution of 260×240 (as they do in other DVD recorders). The audio is recorded in 2-channel (stereo) Dolby Digital AC-3.
The recorder also has flexible recording more that adjusts the recording parameters (bit rate) so that the program fits on the disc at the best possible quality. Both the remote and the recorder look well assembled.
To stop playback just press [Stop] and to stop recording, press [Stop] again, 2 or more seconds after pressing the [Stop] button the first time to stop the playback. DVD-RAM discs do not have to be finalized but can only be played in DVD players that support them: mostly relatively recent Panasonic DVD players. But the power DVD-RAM format is its flexibility when used for re-recording.
They work faster and Panasonic claims high durability in re-recording. The manual recording is easy. Select the recording mode (XP, SP, LP or EP) and hit [Rec]. Stop the recording by hitting [Stop]. With DVD-RAM, there is no waiting after the recording is stopped.
Different recording modes/speeds can be specified for different titles by pressing the [Rec Mode] button. If you change the recording mode while in Rec/Pause state, a new title will be created automatically. The [Rec Mode] button cycles through XP, SP, LP and EP mode. EP mode can be selected between 6-hour and 8-hour mode in the setup menu ([Function] button). You can combine several programs recorded in LP and SP mode on once disc with no problems.
At any time (while not recording) you can hit [Direct Navigator] button to get to the screen which lists thumbnails (video) and descriptions of the titles recorded.
Non-erasable formats can have commercials removed if you watch the program while recording and use the [Pause] button to stop and restart the recording.
Non-DVD-RAM discs have to be finalized before you can play them in a standard DVD player.
The disc finalization takes less than 3 minutes and discs played fine in my DVD players. Overall, the recorder is pretty easy to use.
The ACCUTUNE digital/analog tuner works well, provided the antenna and signal strength are adequate. The best source for recording is, obviously, digital off-the-air programming. Since only 1 hour fits on the disc in the XP mode, use SP mode for high-quality recordings. In the SP mode, the picture quality is almost as good as in the XP mode. The EP modes are mostly suitable for either video programs with mostly static content or programs where sound matters more than the video (concerts, etc.)
Pioneer DVD Recorder
Posted by padusi in dvd recorder on April 1st, 2009
Pioneer DVR-533H-S DVD Recorder/Hard Drive Combination – Product Review
Ececutive Summary about Pioneer DVD Recorder by Robert Silva
pioneer dvd recorder
The DVR-533H, Pioneer’s stylish entry-level DVD Recorder/Hard Drive combo, carries on this tradition as a reasonably priced unit that provides performance and flexibility for those entering the world of DVD recording
All DVD recorders can record from any analog video source (most can also record video from digital camcorders via firewire). Like a VCR, DVD recorders all have AV inputs as well as an onboard TV tuner for recording TV shows. DVD Recorders come in several configurations: Standalone, DVD Recorder/VCR Combo, or DVD Recorder/Hard Drive combo units.
A DVD recorder can be used to copy any homemade videos, such as camcorder videos and videos made from TV shows, and can also copy Laserdiscs, and other non-copygaurded video material.
However, just as you can’t copy commercially made video tapes to another VCR due to Macrovision anti-copy encoding, the same applies to making copies to DVD. DVD recorders cannot bypass the anti-copy signal on commercial VHS tapes or DVDs. If a DVD recorder detects the anti-copy encoding on a commercial DVD it will not start the recording and display some sort of message either on screen or on its LED front panel display that it detects the anti-copy code or that it is detecting an unusable signal.
The Pioneer DVD recorder (DVR7000) Reviewed
pioneer dvr 7000
This sleek, feature packed Pioneer DVD recorder (DVR7000) has elite written all over it. There are extra sets of A/V inputs and a FireWire port on the front of the Pioneer DVD recorder (DVR7000). There’s also jog dial (for trick play) and a large record button. These all add up to give the Pioneer DVD recorder (DVR7000) the appearance of a high end DVD player.
The jog dial allows three-speed picture scan, four speed slow motion, still, frame advance/reverse, resume and repeat functionality. The Pioneer DVD recorder (DVR7000) features user-selectable bit rate recording that will allow you to put one to six hours of video on a standard 4.7GB disc. There are 32 recording settings that allow you to fine tune the trade off between picture quality and recording time. In video mode where you copy DVDs to DVD-R, you are limited to two settings. The Pioneer DVD recorder (DVR7000) has a progressive scan output (3:2 pull down) and Dolby Digital (not Surround Sound 5.1) only stereo. The Pioneer DVR7000 burns DVDs on DVD-R or DVD-RW.
Major Quirks: The DVR7000 has component Output but no component Input. The machine cannot burn DVDs on DVD+RW or DVD-RAM discs. The editing features can only be used with DVD-RW discs. Additionally, the video mode (DVD-R recording) settings are limited to two hours maximum recording time.
