DVD Recorders

I’ve been looking for a DVD recorder for some time now. Over the past year prices have come down quite a bit, even for some of the better units. The features list has grown quite a bit even for the low end units. Now’s a good time to buy one especially with all the sales coming up.

For those who might not know what a DVD recorder is: it’s the same as a VCR but uses DVD discs instead of the almost obsolete VHS tapes. It looks like any DVD player, same size but can playback as well as record DVDs on the fly.

Anyone who has a large VHS collection it might be a good idea to get a DVD recording unit to transfer them to DVD discs. The advantages of using the DVD disc instead of the tape are many.

The ability to easily copy them for much cheaper than VHS and up to 16times fast and faster seekability during play not to mention way higher video quality are just some of them. The other thing is the DVD disc itself has a very long physical life and the precautions needed to ensure it doesn’t get damaged are a few compared to VHS tapes where humidity and magnetic fields can ruin them permanently. Any magnetic media(floppy discs/cassette tapes) gets damaged over time due to oxidization in a normal home/office environment.

This is the most practical way to go. Although it’s possible to use a computer to do this, it just might be too hard for most computer users. You need a considerably powerful computer system and the time required to encode one DVD disc can span from a few hours to as long as a whole night depending on the encoding codec used. During this time the computer is tied up and doing anything else on it is impossible.

The standalone DVD recorders were made because of this; to simplify DVD recording. These units are just like the standard VCR. The recording takes place in real time. The recording quality and other options are easy to select and are actually pretty good compared to DVDs made on a PC.