cant make my mind up, do i go for a separate hd and standalone recrder or a all in 1

[stolt]

as per title, one of the other threads mentioned that the have 40gig hardrive recorder for archiving etc plus a standalone recorder, this set up interests me, however is it better to go this route or buy and all in one, the prices for the all in one seem to be dearer.
I could use the hardrive to record form my sky box and then use the dvd recorder for transferring my dv tapes (the only reason i need a dvd recorder).
Someone at work mentioned Sky+ is exactly the same as one of these hardrive boxes and prob much better, but I believe it will be dearer for SKy+ than a standalone hardrive box.

anyone confirm if the above is the best way to go.

thanks for taking the time to reply (in advance)

 

[Rasczak]

mentioned that the have 40gig hardrive recorder for archiving etc plus a standalone recorder, this set up interests me, however is it better to go this route or buy and all in one, the prices for the all in one seem to be dearer.

The prices for all in ones are higher because they are a better solution! With the method proposed in that thread you don't get a Flexible Record option, you don't get digital dubbing to DVD-R, you don't get accurate editting (unless you go for a non-DVD+RW system - and then you don't get the compatibility of recording to DVD-R). If you know you want this functionality then for goodness sake get an all-in-one - it's one of the few technologies that benefits being a combo (until HDMI becomes standard anyway).

Sky+ is great - thoughly recommended - but if you want to make accurately editted recordings on compatible media you need a HDD/DVDR which pair Sky+ very well.

 

[stolt]

thanks for the reply rasczak, with me I just can't afford the all in one hdd/dvdr combo, I thought by having a separate hdd and recorder I could do want I want, record my dv tapes using a philips dvdr75 (which is nearly £100 cheaper than the panny e60 that I originally wanted) and buy the standalone hdd to record sky programmes etc... I dont think i will be editing any programes, it's probably one of those items you buy really wish you have always owned and end up upgrading after a year or so, still unsure of what to get though and I'm normally pretty decisive, I guess it's because I really know very little about the recorders and hddr as such!