Panasonic DMR-EH60 vs Pioneer DVR630H

[mjyoungman]

I'm looking to but a DVD recorder. I have a widescreen CRT TV and a SD Digital Set Top Box - I've been tossing up between the Panasonic DMR-EH60 and Pioneer DVR630H...does anyone have any recommendations?

The Panasonic has more memory (200Gb vs 160Gb) - but I have a Pioneer standard DVD player currently that's worked well for the past 3 years...

Any suggestions?

[jokiin]

From what I understand the Panasonic has issues with widescreen recording, users that have reported this problem suggest the Pioneer is ok in this respect, given your setup it would seem that the Pioneer would be preferable.

[mjyoungman]

Thanks for that - I've also seen comments on new DVD Recorders coming out next year that will have in built Digital Receivers..do you know much about that?

[jokiin]

Digital tuners are coming, none of the manufacturers have got the bugs sorted out yet though, so no ETA at this stage.

[mjyoungman]

thanks again... I just had a suggestion from someone to ditch the idea of a DVD recorder and go straight for a digital receiver with a hard drive (like the Topfield TF5000PVRt) - any thoughts on that? I assume that through the USB connection I can load files to PC and burn DVD that way?

[jokiin]

You can, but nowhere near as simple as that, there is a lot of conversion etc required before they can be put on a DVD

I use a cheap 80gb SD PVR (Digicrystal $248) and a 160gb DVD HDD recorder (LiteOn $499) and it works out well, can record, edit and archive just about anything with relative ease. Any other similar models will give very similar functionality.

[mjyoungman]

Thanks for that...the other hard decision is do I upgrade the TV to HD..and wait for HD receiver... but that's a whole other log...

[snapper]

The pioneer does dual layer DVD recording as well as having more inputs and outputs (USB included)

If you the spare cash I would upgrade to HD TV but honestly there isnt alot of good HD content these days. The movies are HD and some TV shows but I dont think they are broadcast in the best resolution as I cant really tell the diff in pic quality when watching HD and SD at the moment.
I would upgrade mainly for a larger widescreen TV rather than to view current HD content. Besides dont we all have all those great movies on DVD anyway? If so whats the point of watching it on HD TV when you can pop in your DVD and get a better quality pic (IMO) and no ads.

I have the topfield model you mentioned above and for my perposes its great all I need ATM is SD TV and the ability to record good quality TV just to watch the TV series I enjoy and the movies I wouldnt buy on DVD. You can do more advanced recording on a PVR as well as being able to watch (and record) up to two channels at once and watch a previous recording.

If you need the stuff on DVD and want a simple solution I would suggest getting the topfield (SD tuner built in not HD) and a standalone DVD recorder (without a HDD). With this combo you get all the required functionality.

If you get just a HDD DVD recorder you cant record a decent TV signal and watch another channel at the same time (well you can if you buy two STBs).
I would suggest the pioneer model DVR330 mainly for dual layer burning.

Down the track if you do intend on getting a HD TV you can buy a HD STB or upgrade your topfield box to the new HD ver coming out (but delayed indefinatly now)

There is also a HD twin tuner PVR made by Toshiba but they retail for $1599 and are a bit hard to find. If you live in melb you can get them at Klapp electronics but they wont budge on the price much I could get maybe $100 off it but I decided to go with topfield because of all the user support it has there are lots of programs written for it. I got my topfield masterpiece from the good guys in brighton for $950 which I thought was a good price. You can get the standard ver cheaper only real diff is it has 40GB less space than the masterpiece.

[mjyoungman]

Thanks again - more food for thought...will keep pondering it for a while...

thanks again.