Would anyone care to recommend a good one? I've had a Panasonic for 3 years, which doesn't have a hard drive. It's been very reliable, and I use it quite a lot, and I'm thinking of getting one with a hard drive now. Do all models allow you to record something and cut out the adverts & leading/trailing material from stuff you record from TV, before you put it on a blank DVD?
Alan could answer this, but he's imposed a ban on himself 'cos he spent too much time here!
Erm. So, at a guess, not all. The more expensive models I would expect to have that functionality. I'd advise to have a look around, find a model you like the look of, then Google for reviews of it.
Get a hard drive recorder. They are brilliant. I have 80gb one, which isn't that much these days I suppose, but I rarely fill it with recorded programmes, mainly DivX, but I delete them when watched anyway.
You can pick up ones for less than £100, mine was £120 last year, I'm guessing it would've dropped to about £80 now?
If it doesn't have freeview built in, you still have to do that old timer recording thing, if it does have it, you probably wont be able to record off Sky or Cable though.
Do all models allow you to record something and cut out the adverts & leading/trailing material from stuff you record from TV, before you put it on a blank DVD?
I'm not sure, but it should state it in the spec list anyway.
If you can afford it, go for a Humax, as they are like the top brand. But they are about £200+ if you're wanting a DVD as well.
Mine is a Lite-On, it's pretty compatible with most discs and anythingelse you throw at it. But it has a weird picture conversion that bugs the hell out of me and took many hours of fine tuning to get a smooth picture.
Anyone who buys a piece of recording hardware like that without Freeview is an idiot! A DVD recorder with built-in HDD is probably the best option.
Bad dog, are you intending to record/watch/erase, record and archive, or what? I assume the latter, as you're talking about chopping adverts?
Quote: Aaron @ June 5 2008, 3:12 PM BSTAnyone who buys a piece of recording hardware like that without Freeview is an idiot! A DVD recorder with built-in HDD is probably the best option.
I had to buy one without Freeview as I wanted to record off Sky and at the time I didn't want to pay for Sky+.
Well, I meant now onwards really, but fair enough. Pretty sure that the majority will record from analogue too though.
(Thinking of getting a new one myself actually...)
Seeing as they're phasing out analogue, I'm pretty sure it only acts as a pass-through on most models anyway.
Yes, a Humax is a PVR, isn't it. One of my friends has one with an 80GB drive which does all he needs. That would do the job of recording for me, but then I'd have to plug it into the dvd recorder and record onto dvd-r and manually trim the programmes. I don't have sky or cable, but I do have freeview.
I'm thinking of the archiving side, mainly, I record a fair bit off the tv, and also transfer my tv-recorded vhs tapes, so probably a dvd recorder with hdd is the way to go. You'd have thought that most recorders would have software to allow you to edit before you put the programme onto dvd, but possibly not, it may be that only the costlier models do that.
This is Alan here 
You can get some pretty cheap hard drive DVD recorders these days but I would highly reccommend Pioneer. I have 2 Pioneer HD recorders and the menu creation system, disc compatibility and overall ease of use is far superior to my other machine - a Sony, which also seems to find 1 in 3 blank disks impossible to write to. The only company I would steer well clear of is Philips, totally unreliable from my experience. Hope that helps and back to exile, the sun and copious amounts of becks lager 
You could hook it up to your PC to do archiving. But I'm sure if you look around you will find a cheap, reliable DVD/HDD recorder that suits your needs.
Cheers, Alan, quite a few people recommend Pioneer. I usually use JVC or Panasonic, myself, but JVC equipment seems hard to get around here, so I'd have to get it off the net. My Panasonic has served me well, so maybe I should stick with them, though I'm told that their picture quality isn't as good as others, which I possibly may agree with if you're recording 3 hrs per dvd, i.e the equivalent of an old E-180 videotape.
Leevil, I spent a while investigating video editing on the pc (in fact so long that dvd recorder prices went from £1000 to £250, so I bought one!), but I decided to myself that it was so labour intensive that it would be a lot easier to get a dvd recorder instead. These days you can get them dirt cheap as well.
Quote: Bad dog @ June 5 2008, 3:32 PM BSTCheers, Alan, quite a few people recommend Pioneer. I usually use JVC or Panasonic, myself, but JVC equipment seems hard to get around here, so I'd have to get it off the net. My Panasonic has served me well, so maybe I should stick with them, though I'm told that their picture quality isn't as good as others, which I possibly may agree with if you're recording 3 hrs per dvd, i.e the equivalent of an old E-180 videotape.
Another feature of Pioneer is the ability to finely adjust the bitrate for each DVD you are about to create. My machines are over 3 yrs old but I have used them soooo many times they have repaid the investment many times over. The Sony recorders do a good job at automatically creating a chapter mark when an ad break has occurred so that editing them out is easier but it is not always accurate. Pioneer may well have caught up with technology by now .
I have transferred over 1500 VHS tapes to the Pioneers and editing on them is a dream.
I'd quite like a machine with a pre-set 3 hr mode, the Panasonic has 1,2,4 and 6/8 hour settings, plus FR (flexible record). I'm not worried about chapters. Wow, 1500 tapes! I've got 900, all off-air stuff. Sounds like you've got just what I need. I must have a look at the Pioneers.
Any idea which model is the current equivalent of your machine(s), Alan?
Quote: Aaron @ June 5 2008, 3:39 PM BSTAny idea which model is the current equivalent of your machine(s), Alan?
This is far superior to mine but if you go and get it then I will have to kill you 
My next purchase will be a Blu-Ray recorder - so it could be a while 
Quote: Bad dog @ June 5 2008, 3:38 PM BSTI've got 900, all off-air stuff. Sounds like you've got just what I need. I must have a look at the Pioneers.
Sounds like we should talk, lol, I have over 5000 dvds in my collection and I am always up for trading on rare british sitcoms and dramas