Getting a PVR/DVD Recorder

Post by **Turbine** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:12 pm

I am thinking of getting a DVD recorder for $129.99 CAD http://www.sanyo.com/ent...ndex.cfm?productID=1076

I want to se what sort of experiences other people have with their DVD Recorders. I am also considering getting a DVR, basically similar to a DVD recorder but it records to an onboard HDD.

Now with an onboard HDD, you can not share your recordings with friends. But with a DVD Recorder, you have limited space to save on. (up to 6 hours)

Since I can not always watch the TV shows I watch when they are on air, and sometimes I have to do something else in the middle of a movie, or i miss a movie. So this would be great stuff for me.

And I was also considering making my own DVR computer. Instead getting one from a store for $4000. It would cost me around $300, it would use an OK pc with big HDD, TV tuner and WinMedia edition.

What opinions do you have?
Any suggestions?

Post by **Foo** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:13 pm

Build your own if you're competent with hardware and linux0r

Post by **Dek** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:15 pm

poor hdtv support... afaik..

I did the whole Media PC awhile back about 8 months ago, only a few vid cards even supported HD signals and then only Local over the air HD, not HD from your satellite, etc.

I doubt you'll get anywhere exiciting for under $300 though, full screen video playback on your TV, fast forward/rewind will take some resources.

Post by **shiznit** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:18 pm

Well with the rise of bittorrent, missed tv shows are the past.

Post by **Dek** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:19 pm

shiznit wrote:Well with the rise of bittorrent, missed tv shows are the past.

You can say that about paying for videogames as well. It's not technically legal.

Post by **shiznit** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:25 pm

True, but I still pay for cable and multiplayer is probally the only reason I still buy games.

Post by **Giraffe }{unter** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:35 pm

If you are not going to build your own, I would look into getting one from your Cable/Satellite company, this way it's a DVR and Tuner in one box, usually costs less than $9.99 a month

Post by **hax103** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 1:56 am

Turbine wrote: Now with an onboard HDD, you can not share your recordings with friends. But with a DVD Recorder, you have limited space to save on. (up to 6 hours)

Any suggestions?

Actually, some DO let you share recordings.

The ReplayTV hard disk video recorders have an Ethernet port which you can setup on your LAN and directly copy the recorded MPEG-2 streams to your PC. Basically, the engineers at ReplayTV used a protocol almost the same at HTTP so it was easy for programmers to write up nice tools. PowerDVD can play them back directly or you can trivially convert them to AVI/Xvid using VirtualDubMod.

A friend of mine has one and the quality is very good.

Also with the ReplayTV series, you don't need to buy a special subscription.

Oh, and with a quick searchie, Amazon.com sells the 40GB (about 40 hours) ones for 150 US dollars.

I believe the most popular tool for the transfer to PC is DVArchive.
see http://www.dvarchive.org/

Post by **Turbine** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 2:25 pm

ReplayTV sounds like a very nice deal indeed.
I have to get one of those.

Should I try eBay?

Getting a PVR/DVD Recorder

Getting a PVR/DVD Recorder

Re: Getting a PVR/DVD Recorder