anyone got one of dem Hard Disk DVD recorder things?

[Dave the OAP]

I have a DVD player ( portable) and its a pain buying DVD's that you only watch once.

If we had a DVD then we could record something from the telly and rerecord something else over it.

Anyway..any recommendations

 

[Cian]

DVD-RAM are most reliable but 95% of players can't play the discs. I've got a DVD-RAM/HDD unit and a DVD-RW/HDD unit, both work well enough. JVC for the DVD-RAM and Tevion for DVD-RW

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Dave, you talking about a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) ?

I've been using a Humax one with twin digital tuners - top piece of kit - works a bit like sky+ except I have two tuners so can record 2 progs at the same time whilst watching something I already recorded

Very easy to use too ....

 

[Deleted User X18H]

yep an LG RH7500 £280 ish

 

[Parson Henry]

Good thread.
Can you get a DVD recorder that records your camcorder tapes if you are playing them through the TV/Video?

 

[BensGrandad]

I have a DVD recorder but it records on DVD-R or RW and can not been watched on any other machine either a DVD Player, DVD TV Combi or on my PC.

Also you cannot record Sky from it direct you have to put the program on Sky plus and then play and record it later.

 

[Cian]

Good thread.
Can you get a DVD recorder that records your camcorder tapes if you are playing them through the TV/Video?

If its a digital camcorder, most will take the firewire input and let you record direct to DVD.

 

[Wozza]

Get a Humax 9200. Fantastic PVR. Great reviews everywhere.

 

[clippedgull]

Dave, you talking about a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) ?

I've been using a Humax one with twin digital tuners - top piece of kit - works a bit like sky+ except I have two tuners so can record 2 progs at the same time whilst watching something I already recorded

Very easy to use too ....

You can do that with SKY + too

 

[El Presidente]

I've got a Sony with a 250gb hard drive and DVD recorder, so you have the best of both worlds. Can tape programs, and then if you like them, copy to DVD, or copy direct to DVD. Also has a Freeview tuner built in.

 

[Hannibal smith]

Can someone tell me, If you have a PVR can you record Sky (I have a Sky box but not Sky plus) or only those channels which you can get via the Freeview Tuner which is built into the PVR?

 

[Cian]

If you attach the Sky box you can record from it, except Macrovision'ed programmes - some sports, most Sky Movies. You can only record or watch one thing, not two like the + allows.

 

[Wozza]

Which hard disk PVR allows you to records from an external source?

 

[REDLAND]

MythTV is what you need people, its free and brilliant

MythTV is a GPL licensed suite of programs that allow you to build the mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source software and operating systems. MythTV is known to work on Linux and Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel). It does not run on Windows.

MythTV has a number of capabilities. The television portion allows you to do the following:

* You may pause, fast-forward and rewind live Television.
* You may install multiple video capture cards to record more than one program at a time.
* You can have multiple servers, each with multiple capture cards in them. All servers are centrally managed and all programs are scheduled by the Master backend.
* You can have multiple clients (called "frontends" in MythTV parlance), each with a common view of all available programs. Any client can watch any program that was recorded by any of the servers, assuming that they have the hardware capabilities to view the content; a low-powered frontend will not be able to watch HDTV, for example. Clients can be diskless and controlled entirely by a remote control.
* You may use any combination of standard analog capture card, MPEG-2, MJPEG, DVB, HDTV, USB and firewire capture devices. With appropriate hardware, MythTV can control set top boxes, often found in digital cable and satellite TV systems.
* Program Guide Data in North America is downloaded from Zap2It.com, a subsidiary of Tribune Media Services. This free service is called DataDirect, and provides MythTV almost two weeks of scheduling information. Program Guide Data in other countries is obtained using XMLTV. MythTV uses this information to create a schedule that maximizes the number of programs that can be recorded if you don't have enough tuners.
* MythTV implements a UPNP server, so a UPNP client should automatically see content from your MythTV system.

Other modules in MythTV include:

* MythArchive, a tool to create DVDs
* MythBrowser, a web browser
* MythControls, an application to configure your remote control
* MythDVD, a DVD viewer / ripper
* MythFlix, a Netflix module
* MythGallery, a picture-viewing application
* MythGame
* MythMusic, a music playing / ripping application which supports MP3 and FLAC
* MythNews, a RSS news grabber
* MythPhone, phone and videophone using SIP.
* MythVideo, a media-viewer for content not created within MythTV
* MythWeather
* MythWeb, which allows you to control your MythTV system using a web browser. With MythWeb, you can schedule and delete recordings, change keybindings and more. With proper security, you may even schedule a program over the Internet and have it immediately acted on by the scheduler.


http://www.mythtv.org/

 

[Cian]

You need a dedicated fast PC for MythTV, they're ugly, noisy, spew out heat, and unless you use one very specific Hauppuage TV card, the image quality is arse.

 

[Wozza]

MythTV is what you need people, its free and brilliant

MythTV is a GPL licensed suite of programs that allow you to build the mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source software and operating systems. MythTV is known to work on Linux and Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel). It does not run on Windows.

MythTV has a number of capabilities. The television portion allows you to do the following:

* You may pause, fast-forward and rewind live Television.
* You may install multiple video capture cards to record more than one program at a time.
* You can have multiple servers, each with multiple capture cards in them. All servers are centrally managed and all programs are scheduled by the Master backend.
* You can have multiple clients (called "frontends" in MythTV parlance), each with a common view of all available programs. Any client can watch any program that was recorded by any of the servers, assuming that they have the hardware capabilities to view the content; a low-powered frontend will not be able to watch HDTV, for example. Clients can be diskless and controlled entirely by a remote control.
* You may use any combination of standard analog capture card, MPEG-2, MJPEG, DVB, HDTV, USB and firewire capture devices. With appropriate hardware, MythTV can control set top boxes, often found in digital cable and satellite TV systems.
* Program Guide Data in North America is downloaded from Zap2It.com, a subsidiary of Tribune Media Services. This free service is called DataDirect, and provides MythTV almost two weeks of scheduling information. Program Guide Data in other countries is obtained using XMLTV. MythTV uses this information to create a schedule that maximizes the number of programs that can be recorded if you don't have enough tuners.
* MythTV implements a UPNP server, so a UPNP client should automatically see content from your MythTV system.

Other modules in MythTV include:

* MythArchive, a tool to create DVDs
* MythBrowser, a web browser
* MythControls, an application to configure your remote control
* MythDVD, a DVD viewer / ripper
* MythFlix, a Netflix module
* MythGallery, a picture-viewing application
* MythGame
* MythMusic, a music playing / ripping application which supports MP3 and FLAC
* MythNews, a RSS news grabber
* MythPhone, phone and videophone using SIP.
* MythVideo, a media-viewer for content not created within MythTV
* MythWeather
* MythWeb, which allows you to control your MythTV system using a web browser. With MythWeb, you can schedule and delete recordings, change keybindings and more. With proper security, you may even schedule a program over the Internet and have it immediately acted on by the scheduler.


http://www.mythtv.org/

Christ, and some people call me a geek.

Seriously, what most people want to do with a PVR is record/watch up to three programmes at once, and to have those programmes readily available to watch at a later date. And preferably in a small, quiet box.

They don't want a hot, noisey geekstation in the middle of the lounge.

 

[Hannibal smith]

Which hard disk PVR allows you to records from an external source?

I don't get it. Is that a No then?

 

[REDLAND]

You need a dedicated fast PC for MythTV, they're ugly, noisy, spew out heat, and unless you use one very specific Hauppuage TV card, the image quality is arse.

doesn't need to be that fast, or ugly or noisy. The digital tv card will cost ya £40, which still works out pretty cheep for a PVR system..

The PC you use DOESN'T have to sit in the middle of the living room it can go in any space you want it to really ..

 

[Wozza]

I don't get it. Is that a No then?

I'm asking MYOB, because I didn't think it was possible.

And even it is, you'd have to have your Sky box left on the correct channel.

The big plus point of a standard PVR (whether it's a Sky+, Humax or whatever) is that it's flexible and user-friendly. They'll change your viewing habits forever.

 

[REDLAND]

I'm asking MYOB, because I didn't think it was possible.

And even it is, you'd have to have your Sky box left on the correct channel.

The big plus point of a standard PVR (whether it's a Sky+, Humax or whatever) is that it's flexible and user-friendly. They'll change your viewing habits forever.

Check out Myth TV the IR unit changes the channel on your sky box or ntl or freeview box...

So it can be done with Myth TV then ...