Suggestions for Home recorder..?

[random]

I am looking at getting a lite-on A100x

 

There is also a Magnavox 640 that is dirt cheap but I am going to pass on as it have no firewire DV link.

 

I have read where the burner is replaced in some of the home stand alone drives, that is why I included the picture. Not sure how a pc drive would fit this unit?

 

Any recomendations for a home unit?

 

TIA

[Grain]

Can't get your pic to work. It's a bit of a trick to swap out burners/drives on stand-alone player/recorders, but not impossible. They are quite cheap now though, so I'd just go for a known name that does all the disc formats you use ie +/-. Heard good things about Panasonics, but never had one. I have a no name job (Aspire), works OK if you know what your doing. if I was buying another I'd go for a Pioneer first, then a LG.

[random]

 

 

The tray is curved, that is what causes me concern with having to possibly add another drive to it.

 

http://wapurl.co.uk/?VLNMV3G

 

From link just click on products and it is the A100x dvd recorder.

Edited November 11, 2006 by random

[Grain]

If you wanted to replace it, you'd need a drive that has a removable "face", like some Plextors and Sony's have. I would guess that there's a Liteon out there too, as I'm quite sure the drive is just a computer drive mounted in the case.

[dontasciime]

all the liteon home recorders i have, just use standard liteon drives, as pointed out though the trick is in the fitting.

[random]

I was looking at this replacement earlier. http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=165085

 

Hope the link is ok

 

I just added a 160P6S05 to my wifes pc, they used the 160P6S without the 05 afterwads, I wonder what is the difference?

 

dontasciime, how do you like your home lite-on recorders?

[dontasciime]

I have 2 liteon 5006B's

 

The first one is slightly better than 2nd both suffer from fast time clocks Eg i set time to say 21.33 and within 1-2 weeks its like 1 minute fast, at minute it is 13 minutes fast

 

Picture quality is excellent on both but then generally i am using sky to dvd and max sky bitrate is about 3500kbps. (so i ain't seeing the fully capability)

 

Tbh i have not used them much recently as i just record everything from my 250 gig topfield 5800 black panther (pvr/freeview box)

 

Have a look on some sites at what other people say about the one your thinking about getting, as i would hate to recommend you get liteon one only to find it's shite.

[JasonFriday13]

The very first DVD player I bought has a standard IDE cable. I managed to break the DVD reader in it, and now it has an old cd player from one of my old pcs. I removed the cover on the drive and the CD clamp from it, and now I just turn it on and off when I want to use it. Unforntunatly, the right front channel on it is distorting so I don't use it anymore.

I currently use a PlayStation (1 - bigger grey box) to play my CDs. Had to replace the spindle with one from a portable CD player that broke on me (it was cheap anyway). If that fails, I will just use the stock PlayStation I haven't touched to play them. (I have another broken PlayStation in the closet as well).

 

[edit] whoops, fixed typo.[/edit]

Edited November 12, 2006 by JasonFriday13

[polopony]

with all that breakage are you somehow related to DB Minter

[random]

My fingers are getting itchy, Best Buy has dropped the price on the lite-on down to $89.00.

 

I think if nothing else, it should make the transfer of mini DV tapes to DVD easier than doing it at the pc. At least it will not tie up my pc from being used.

[lfcrule1972]

$89 sounds like a good price - maybe you can do the road test for the rest of the forum ?

[random]

I think I may take it out for that test drive!

 

One of the things that makes it attractive is the firewire, I could get an extra external HD and use it on the pc as well as recording to the hard drive.

[dontasciime]

firewire is why i bought my liteons as well, also the fact it writes (well mine do and i assume the model your looking at claims to be All Write) eg -r +r etc.

 

Actually i bought it for this

 

you can make VCD, SVCD, AUDIO, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW discs and firewire, component 576P, Fibre optic 5.1 , composite RCA L/R /V(yellow) front input and a few other features i cannot remember.

 

Not sure if the model your looking at has everything i listed.

 

Pity there was no vga output on either of mine.

 

Go on buy it

[random]

Specs for the Lite-on a100x

 

 

Recording Features Digital media formats supported DVD+R DL, DVD+R / DVD+RW, DVD-R / DVD-RW

Recording quality and time HQ: 1hr / SP: 2hrs / LP: 3hrs / EP: 4hrs / SLP: 6hrs

"Just Fit" disc recording Yes

DVD disc recording format DVD+VR

Dolby Digital Recording Yes

Easy timer programming system Yes (16 sets of programming)

NICAM No

VPS / PDC No

One-touch recording Yes

DV Control Yes

Playback Features Digital media formats supported

DVD-Video, DVD+R DL, DVD+R / DVD+RW, DVD-R / DVD-RW, CD-R / CD-RW, SVCD, VCD, Audio CD

VOB / MPG / DAT Yes

MP3, WMA, WAV Yes

JPEG, BMP Yes

MPEG-4 playback Yes (avi file)

DivX? playback Yes (avi / div / divx file)

Progressive scan Yes

Editing Features Title name editing Yes

Title editing Erase / Protect / Overwrite

Chapter mark insertion Auto and manual

 

 

General Features Graphical Easy Guider menu Yes

Channel editing Yes

Slide show Yes

 

 

Tuner TV system PAL ( PAL-I / I, PAL-B / G, or SECAM-L / L)

 

 

Front connections Audio / Video input 1

DV input (IEEE 1394) 1

Rear connections Audio / Video input 1

SCART input 1 (CVBS, RGB in, Decoder)

SCART output 1 (CVBS, RGB, S-VIDEO out)

Audio / Video output 1

Component output 1 (Y, Pb, Pr)

Digital audio output 1 (coaxial)

RF input 1

RF output 1

Others Power supply AC 100~240V 50 / 60Hz

Power consumption 36W

Dimension (mm) W280 x H52 x D250

Weight Approx. 2kg

[dontasciime]

if you want to backup stuff from dvd you record (in say shrink) , remember this, do not use mixed recording mode, eg do not have say title in long play, then a HQ one of 20 Min's and say ep one of 50 minutes.

 

if you do then run it thru fixvts etc it may correct it for you.

 

you will see what i mean if you do it

 

 

http://www.ukdvdr.co.uk/shop/Lite-On-Home-...+-pr-19172.html

Edited November 13, 2006 by dontasciime

[random]

Well I got it home and I am going to have to learn a bit about it. For one I do not have a 4 pin to four pin FW cable, I have two 4-6 cables so I will have to get one of those.

 

From reading the manual, they say that it (camcorder) may not support recording thru the DV and so they recommend regular RCA video cables.

 

They also warn in the manual that the FW port is only for DV camcorders and not other FW devices like an external hard drive.

 

What is the best speed to always record at? SP I am not worried about getting extra mileage out of my DVD's. This will mainly be used for easy transfer of home video.

 

The menu system seems to be well set up, I still need to get use to it but I think I am going to like it.

 

I did record TV earlier when trying to record from the camcorder. I had it set up right first but then changed it to the front avi on the TV and recorded some bad news station. The speed was set to ep and was not the greatest quality. Anyways, I am now trying the camcorder JVC and hopefully the quality will be good, I set it to SP.

 

The unit seems to be well built, it is heavy, I have a Magnavox player, same size but it weighs like a feather.

 

Thanks for the suggestions!

[dontasciime]

direct recording from scart socket to scart socket eg sky to dvd on HQ setting will be best quality. (1hour)

 

2 hour setting is OK as well.

 

Not sure if American stuff has scart euro connectors on but whatever the equivalent is.

 

 

front av is ok quality and a mini dv [firewire]camcorder would be best set up to use

Edited November 14, 2006 by dontasciime

[random]

direct recording from scart socket to scart socket eg sky to dvd on HQ setting will be best quality. (1hour)

 

2 hour setting is OK as well.

 

Not sure if American stuff has scart euro connectors on but whatever the equivalent is.

 

 

front av is ok quality and a mini dv [firewire]camcorder would be best set up to use

 

 

I honestly think I am going to love this little toy!

 

I have to pick up q 4pin to 4pin cable but I got really good results from the camcorder via the camcorder to rca cable.

 

Back a while ago I picked up two firewire cards and stuck them in my pc along with the wife's. I have very little patience especially at the computer and since video has to be transferred in real time, it is just something I do not care to tie up my pc for.

 

The programs I used were Sonic, Vanilla Baby, Show Biz, and Windows Movie maker. All of these programs would either hang, crash etc. I also had Picture the default Sony bundled software. Both PC's have a 2.53 processor with plenty of ram but the onboard graphics card sucks but I do not do any gaming.

 

The possible reasons with WMM was I did not have service pack two back then. Whatever reason may have caused all these programs to hang/crash was enough for me to throw in the towel as I did not have the time to play around with it.

 

If for nothing else than to transfer camcorder video, this was worthwhile. Sure beats using the pc, at least I can get it to DVD and then edit in a much easier transfer method.

 

Last night in Vista, WMP 11, hard issues crashed my graphics (when trying to play a DVD from the Lite-on home recorder) but a re-boot straightened that out.

 

 

PS. I was surprised to see that Verbatim's were not on the list of recommended discs, the include list was huge including Imation but Verbatim was not there for any of the types of media.

Edited November 14, 2006 by random