Best DVD Recorder for videographers

P

Paul Swires

Guest
Hi

Am in the market for the best DVD Recorder for videography.
My final products (weddings etc) do get edited by my partner on PC but I did not necessarily want to go the PC drive route and all it's associated hassles. Firstly, is this the right forum for videographers as I noticed that the majority of members were Home Cinema enthusiasts.

Any advice or suggestions.

Regards

Paul Swires
 
Well,without a PC,then a Panasonic HS2 is ideal.Its built in Hard Disc Drive will hold 9 hours at peak quality(easily enough for your videos) or 52 hours max at lower quality.Once on the drive,you can edit,split into scenes,move scenes around,swap them over,do what you want,although overdubbing is not possible(I don't think).You can have your wedding video finished and then internally dub to DVD-R .If you use your PC aswell,you could make titles on DVDRAM.Transfer these to HDD and edit them into the video.
HDD will offer 9 times as much capacity as a disc of any format and without it you need a PC for editing.The HS2 is out at £599.
 
Thanks Phelings, will take a look at the E100 although prices here in South Africa are criminal when directly compared to overseas at official Xchange rate ..... more than double !

Rgds
Paul
 
Agree with you on prices Paul. Was in Jhb recently and couldn't find stockists of DVD recorders. Saw a Philips 890 at Sound and Image for R10k!!! Where do you get them in SA?

I also heard that multichoice were coming out with a DSTV decoder with a built in hard drive for recording. Do you know anything about this and whether it has firewire inputs etc? I believe it will only cost about R2500.
 
I believe you are making amistake by going in this direction. Not only is the hardware more expensive but the quality of the recorded material would be compromised unless you feed the signila in digital format directly from your partners PC.
 
Dood

There is a really good place in Pretoria called "The Camera Guy" ( speak to Jonathan or Anton - 012 3422144)who not only deals in new and second hand digital video cameras but also can get you whatever you want, and quickly. Have been quoted 12K on the Panny E-100 which is the "cheapest" anywhere in SA so far. That said, it still makes me cry when I can get it from B&H in NY for $899-00 which at our current Xchange rate is around 6K .... the price we pay for living in sunny old SA !!

Branxx - yes we will probably feed the dv signal straight from my partners PC into the recorder so the quality should be OK.
 
I still think PC drive is best for this
 
Paul

Not really a Videographer - but I have owned edit systems and if I follow correctly you are going to offline and online on the PC and then output to an external stand alone DVD Recorder; that sounds like hard work.

Its a fair chunk of cash but a fair few people I know in the video world swear by an Apple PowerBookG4 running one or other of the big two edit suites and burning on the inbuilt Pioneer derived DVD drive.

One mate has completed a fair few weddings on his system and it looked excellent with lots of pre made templates sitting ready to fill in the blanks - and you can even do a wedding day montage 'live' in the field if you have your laptop with you and play it out on a projector.

Best regards

Joe
 
I too think for Vidoegraphy work you are better off using PC/MAC than stand alone recorders.
 
Thanks all - the PC route does probably make more sense overall regarding video editing although I still like the idea of a standalone recorder for simple copying from either camera or VHS tape onto DVD. Bearing in mind that I get a LOT of business just from people wanting simple stuff recorded onto DVD, a standalone recorder DEFINATELY makes more sense.

Paul
 
I regularly archive miniDV material recorded in the miniDV SP mode to DVD+R using the HQ mode of my Philips DVDR890 machine using iLink. It was purchased over a year ago and I am still very pleased with the recordings. At the end of the day, time slip, fancy menu's and so on are all welll and good however the most important factor for me when chosing a machine was ease of use ( press record and it records!) and pciture quality which the machine delivers in spades, espcecially HQ mode (M1 on newer machines) due to the length of miniDV tapes being an hour.

Furthermore the finalised recordings I have produced have always played in old and new DVD players - even the first Panasonic and Sony machines released back in 1997/98!.
 
djnsh ..... you're right, ease of use is very important especially if you just want to copy already edited mini DV stuff direct to DVD at the push of a button. That said, the HDD machines STILL interest me and the new Pioneer 5100H in particular because of it's DVD-RW capabilities. I already have a Pioneer DVD player in the living room and I will DEFINATELY want to be able to record on a rewritable format that plays on my existing Pioneer. Not sure if my Pioneer DV366s player plays +R discs though ..... maybe someone out there can let me know. Also can someone out there also let me know if the Pioneer DV366s plays -RW or +RW discs (the machine says just (RW) without being more specific.

Many thanks

Paul Swires
 

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