DVD recorder for SKY+

[Amikom]

Hi Guys - new to the forum so apologies if this has been asked before. I have daughters in New Zealand who want me to record various UK TV programmes to send to them. I have an old Liteon recorder which works from my Sky+HD box, b ut I have to watch everything as I record. I gather by getting a DVD recorder with HDD I could do it overnight!! Is this the case and if so what would you recommend. I don't need an inbuilt tuner but can't seem to find anything without. I have a budget of around £100 - any help?

 

[Andy98765]

Record whilst you watch is a limitation of the SKY boxes not the DVD recorder.
So changing will not make any difference.

 

[Amikom]

Thanks Andy - I thought you could use the "copy" command on the sky box to download to an HDD type device - from your comment I assume this won't work - thanks for the advice

 

[MOVIECAT]

Am tagging my question on here as I'm after recommendations for something similar so didn't think starting a new thread was a good idea. Apologies if I'm wrong in that

I'm just about to upgrade from Sky+ to HD+. I'm taking out multiroom, but (in case I have issues getting them to make the new card the primary one in the HD+ box) I wanted to do a bit of housekeeping & copy a few recordings on my Sky+ 160 box to DVD beforehand. Had planned to be doing that anyway, regardless of the upgrade.

Well perfect timing as usual my Panasonic DMR-ES10EB has finally given up the ghost & refuses to read any discs at all. It always was a temperamental so & so anyway, so will be glad to see the back of it. So I'm looking for a replacement that will meet my needs. Have been reading the forum for days & haven't really come to a decision at all, so thought I better ask your good selves instead of just lurking (as I have done for years ).

I don't record that many discs at all, (new HD will be the Tera box), but there are always a few things that I want a backup of. I've also got a few video tapes that I had planned to copy to DVD at some point. I wouldn't ever be wanting to record "off air" as it were, just copy recordings that I already had saved on the planner.

The one thing that has made me unsure about jumping in and buying a recorder on the strength of customer reviews is that I'm in a part of the country where I can only get satellite reception so am a bit concerned about the possible scenario of the recorder (most seem to be PVR's with freeview built in) hunting for a non-existent signal & no way for me to point it in the right direction. Or am I just being over-cautious about the likelihood of such a thing happening?

I don't want to spend too much (just shelled out on a lot of new kit for the HD) so like the OP would love something around the £100 mark. However am willing to spend a bit more for quality if it's considered worthwhile. Don't really want to go much over £200 though.

Simply put I just want something reliable & straightforward to use (I am fairly tech savvy but as I'm disabled try to make things as easy as possible for myself). I know, reliable & straightforward never were terms that went along with DVD recorders , but I can hope!

A HDD so I'd have the ability to edit the recording before transferring it to disc would be desirable, but not essential. Likewise auto-chapter creating.

Even though I've got a new Samsung TV & blu-ray player that I'm delighted with so far, am I correct in thinking their brand of recorders haven't the best rep?

Any suggestions gratefully received, preferably for something that I'll easily be able to find in stock somewhere. Don't mind an older model, as I probably won't use all the bells & whistles of a newer one, but it would have to be able to hook up to the HD+ box easily as well as the older Sky+ one (don't know if that would be a prob). Before someone asks, yes I know I won't be able to make hi def recordings on it

Thanks in advance,
Cat

 

[Gavtech]

Am tagging my question on here as I'm after recommendations for something similar so didn't think starting a new thread was a good idea. Apologies if I'm wrong in that

I'm just about to upgrade from Sky+ to HD+. I'm taking out multiroom, but (in case I have issues getting them to make the new card the primary one in the HD+ box) I wanted to do a bit of housekeeping & copy a few recordings on my Sky+ 160 box to DVD beforehand. Had planned to be doing that anyway, regardless of the upgrade.

Well perfect timing as usual my Panasonic DMR-ES10EB has finally given up the ghost & refuses to read any discs at all. It always was a temperamental so & so anyway, so will be glad to see the back of it. So I'm looking for a replacement that will meet my needs. Have been reading the forum for days & haven't really come to a decision at all, so thought I better ask your good selves instead of just lurking (as I have done for years ).

I don't record that many discs at all, (new HD will be the Tera box), but there are always a few things that I want a backup of. I've also got a few video tapes that I had planned to copy to DVD at some point. I wouldn't ever be wanting to record "off air" as it were, just copy recordings that I already had saved on the planner.

The one thing that has made me unsure about jumping in and buying a recorder on the strength of customer reviews is that I'm in a part of the country where I can only get satellite reception so am a bit concerned about the possible scenario of the recorder (most seem to be PVR's with freeview built in) hunting for a non-existent signal & no way for me to point it in the right direction. Or am I just being over-cautious about the likelihood of such a thing happening?

I don't want to spend too much (just shelled out on a lot of new kit for the HD) so like the OP would love something around the £100 mark. However am willing to spend a bit more for quality if it's considered worthwhile. Don't really want to go much over £200 though.

Simply put I just want something reliable & straightforward to use (I am fairly tech savvy but as I'm disabled try to make things as easy as possible for myself). I know, reliable & straightforward never were terms that went along with DVD recorders , but I can hope!

A HDD so I'd have the ability to edit the recording before transferring it to disc would be desirable, but not essential. Likewise auto-chapter creating.

Even though I've got a new Samsung TV & blu-ray player that I'm delighted with so far, am I correct in thinking their brand of recorders haven't the best rep?

Any suggestions gratefully received, preferably for something that I'll easily be able to find in stock somewhere. Don't mind an older model, as I probably won't use all the bells & whistles of a newer one, but it would have to be able to hook up to the HD+ box easily as well as the older Sky+ one (don't know if that would be a prob). Before someone asks, yes I know I won't be able to make hi def recordings on it

Thanks in advance,
Cat

Welcome to the forum Cat.



From the description of all your needs I conclude that what you need is this machine.

This is a Freeview machine, but you can use it in the capacity you mention ... of sourcing from Sky+ and Sky HD and you will also be able to feed in material from a VCR.

Frankly there is little else to recommend these days.

There are units available based on satellite tuners... but they contain twin HD tuners and are quite a bit more than your planned budget.. and would require additional dish feeds, so probably not the solution for you.

It is worth having a newer model on the basis that operating systems have steadily improved, so the newer machines are easier to operate.

 

[MOVIECAT]

Thanks. Funnily enough that Pani model was one of the ones I was dithering over earlier before I decided to post, so your specific recommendation sets my mind at ease.

There are units available based on satellite tuners... but they contain twin HD tuners and are quite a bit more than your planned budget.. and would require additional dish feeds, so probably not the solution for you.

Yeah, I'd had a glance at those but they really seemed overkill for my current needs.

Thanks again, much appreciated

 

[Broadz]

Thanks Andy - I thought you could use the "copy" command on the sky box to download to an HDD type device - from your comment I assume this won't work - thanks for the advice

Use of the Copy command and a DVD recorder with hard drive will make things a little easier - in that you can set multiple planner entries from your Sky+ box up to be archived to your DVD recorder's hard drive overnight - then split this single recording on the hard drive into multiple smaller programmes, and burn them to disc at your leisure.

But the overnight transfer from Sky to DVDR will still be from scart out on Sky to scart in on DVDR in real time.

 

[Amikom]

Thanks for your post - that's what I was trying to do - just need to find areasonably priced DVD recorder with HDD - any recommendations?

 

[MOVIECAT]

From the description of all your needs I conclude that what you need is this machine.

Ordered it & it arrived today. Hooked it up, gave a cursory glance at the manual & just dived straight in. Successfully copied a recording from my sky+, edited it on the new recorder to remove ad breaks & then easily copied it to DVD. Wasn't much of a learning curve to use at all - I think I spent the most time looking at the remote trying to find particular buttons!

So just wanted to come back & say thanks again for the recommendation, Gavtech I'll easily get all my backups made before my HD+ install now & can get back to playing with the new TV instead

 

[Gavtech]

Ordered it & it arrived today. Hooked it up, gave a cursory glance at the manual & just dived straight in. Successfully copied a recording from my sky+, edited it on the new recorder to remove ad breaks & then easily copied it to DVD. Wasn't much of a learning curve to use at all - I think I spent the most time looking at the remote trying to find particular buttons!

So just wanted to come back & say thanks again for the recommendation, Gavtech I'll easily get all my backups made before my HD+ install now & can get back to playing with the new TV instead

Thanks for reporting back... and good luck with the new machine.