Looking for Several DVD and VCR Combined Players

VJVJ

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Hello Everyone,

My mother wanted to buy another VCR player, yes dark ages I know :laugh:, but I've convinced her to look into something with DVD and VCR player.
First of all she wants the cheapest possible but I'm looking for two types of players at low cost but decent quality models:

1) A simple VCR and DVD Player combined (with or without DVD recording capabilities)

2) A simple VCR and DVD player combined with possibly a hard drive, not a large one, and DVD recording so she can record some programs should she want to

If anyone could help I would be very grateful.

VJVJ
 
Hello Everyone,

My mother wanted to buy another VCR player, yes dark ages I know :laugh:, but I've convinced her to look into something with DVD and VCR player.
First of all she wants the cheapest possible but I'm looking for two types of players at low cost but decent quality models:

1) A simple VCR and DVD Player combined (with or without DVD recording capabilities)

2) A simple VCR and DVD player combined with possibly a hard drive, not a large one, and DVD recording so she can record some programs should she want to

If anyone could help I would be very grateful.



VJVJ


Check out Toshiba DVR20 [ DVDR and VCR] or RDXV60 [ DVDR with HDD and VCR]

Details here.


or better:

Panasonic DMR-EZ49V [ DVDR and VCR]
Panasonic DMR-EX99V [ DVDR with HDD and VCR]

Details here.
 
I'm probably going to sink my hard earned funds into a Tosh DMR-EX99V but I would very much appreciate a small bit of help before I do!

I've had a Sony RDR-HXD710 HDD DVD recorder for several years, one that I transferred over 90 family VHS tapes via the HDD onto about 20 DVDs for each of my 3 daughers plus a set for me. HOWEVER they almost all freeze and pixelate when being played back on all our PCs and DVD players! They are a little better on the small TV DVDs.

I've spoken to Sony Customer Services who told me to change to different DVD_Rs (+ to -) and also sent me round and round the houses with other suggestions. I've reburnt the complete set (x4) AGAIN and the problem still exists....hours and hours and hours! The copies on the Sony HDD play and look perfect.

Exasperated, I wrote to the Sony CEO in the UK and received a phone call from one of his sidekicks informing me that it was most likely the fact that I was copying low grade VHS tapes that were being viewed on relatively HD screens (on the PC) and that was the main cause for the freezing; that ongoing transfer of quality. Of course there was nothing wrong with the Recorder!

ALL it meant was I had to recopy ALL the original VHS tapes again in a lesser quality 'format' (from the original cam, which I don't have of course) onto the HDD and that would likely solve the problem. Incidentally Sony's customer services were absolutely appalling over this matter. I used a Panasonic NV-HV61 VHS player from which to copy the original 90 tapes.

Firstly, does anyone have any ideas as to why the burnt DVDs freeze and pixelate? I'd LOVE to be able to simply flick a setting and re-burn from the Sony HDD although I have to confess I've lost heart with the Sony Recorder.

Secondly, will the Tosh do what I want without too much grief? It seems to have had good reviews, withstood the test of time in that it's still being produced, and presumably fully compatibility from VHS through HDD to DVD, and that the end products will playback on all DVD players! Not too much to ask of a dedicated bit of equipment

Many thanks in advance!
 
I'm probably going to sink my hard earned funds into a Tosh DMR-EX99V but I would very much appreciate a small bit of help before I do!

Welcome to the forum.

Firstly though, the EX99 is a Panasonic product not a Toshiba unit.
I've had a Sony RDR-HXD710 HDD DVD recorder for several years, one that I transferred over 90 family VHS tapes via the HDD onto about 20 DVDs for each of my 3 daughers plus a set for me. HOWEVER they almost all freeze and pixelate when being played back on all our PCs and DVD players! They are a little better on the small TV DVDs.

I've spoken to Sony Customer Services who told me to change to different DVD_Rs (+ to -) and also sent me round and round the houses with other suggestions. I've reburnt the complete set (x4) AGAIN and the problem still exists....hours and hours and hours! The copies on the Sony HDD play and look perfect.

Exasperated, I wrote to the Sony CEO in the UK and received a phone call from one of his sidekicks informing me that it was most likely the fact that I was copying low grade VHS tapes that were being viewed on relatively HD screens (on the PC) and that was the main cause for the freezing; that ongoing transfer of quality. Of course there was nothing wrong with the Recorder!

ALL it meant was I had to recopy ALL the original VHS tapes again in a lesser quality 'format' (from the original cam, which I don't have of course) onto the HDD and that would likely solve the problem. Incidentally Sony's customer services were absolutely appalling over this matter. I used a Panasonic NV-HV61 VHS player from which to copy the original 90 tapes.

Firstly, does anyone have any ideas as to why the burnt DVDs freeze and pixelate? I'd LOVE to be able to simply flick a setting and re-burn from the Sony HDD although I have to confess I've lost heart with the Sony Recorder.

Secondly, will the Tosh do what I want without too much grief? It seems to have had good reviews, withstood the test of time in that it's still being produced, and presumably fully compatibility from VHS through HDD to DVD, and that the end products will playback on all DVD players! Not too much to ask of a dedicated bit of equipment

Many thanks in advance!

Can you remember what recording settings you used at the first transfer?

Unless you were using some exceptionally high quality rate which would make subsequent players struggle with the delivered off-disc bit rate I would regard it as general nonsense that the transfer characteristics have anything to do with this.

VHS video can be odd to transfer because of the typical tape noise inherent in tape systems can cause problems for the digitising process ... A tape source is normally recognised and this noise is normally filtered out.

However - I think this is all a red herring.

This is characteristic of an extremely widespread and [once used to be] very common problem.

When disc freeze and pixellate - in many different players... it means one thing - Inadequately burned discs.
There can be a few reasons for this... of which one is a weak or poorly calibrated laser.
But the most common reason, by a huge margin, is poor quality discs / poor batch of discs / or poor compatibility of discs with the recorder.

The DVD blank market has been swamped for years with discs of appalling quality.
This is a problem encountered countless number of times on this forum - and in the majority of cases, when decent quality disc blanks are used, reliability of burning and playback returns to 100% reliability.

So what discs were you using on both occasions?



Another point to make is that if you have a working VHS machine it is better just to get a straight DVD recorder rather than one that has an integrated VHS deck.
But that point aside, the Panasonic machine will be as good as you can get. and one I am happy to recommend.. whereas I am not prepared to recommend Toshiba DVDR's
 
gavtech,

thank you SO much for your extraordinarily swift and very helpful reply. I thought maybe a few days or a week or two - but minutes, never!

Thank you also for the manufacturer correction.

Right! Firstly the original tapes were recorded onto the HDD in 'HQ' mode. I wanted to lay down onto the HDD the best quality I could extract from the tapes. The instructions asked what priority was being placed on the output, recording time v quality. There is, I note, a 'HQ+' option but I don't think I opted for that, but can't be 100% sure.

The first batch of DVDs I used was Sony DVD+R originals, thereafter I used Verbatim DVD+R then Verbatim DVD-R. I burnt the first 50 Sony DVDs without problem from one supplier, but had endless problems with Sony originals from another supplier with several 'dirty disk' formatting rejections. After a huge 'row' with them in obtaining a refund I went to Staples for simplicity and bought what they supplied off the shelf (in 50s) as I needed. I stayed with Verbatim as I don't think they did Sony originals, if I recall correctly. There were intermittent 'dirty disc' formatting rejections throughout that I took as being par for the course.

The odd thing was that when I played back the burnt DVDs off the Sony Recorder they seemed to work fine. I wouldn't have otherwise progressed the whole 4 x 36 DVDs (I've just checked the numbers) - 144 in total in each of the 2 batches! Hence my enthusiasm to get it right this time.

Your point with respect to using a separate VCR is well taken and one that I considered carefully at the beginning. It's largely why I went for the separate Sony HDD DVD Recorder at the time. That model seemed the best available.

I very much appreciate your assistance.
 
Right! Firstly the original tapes were recorded onto the HDD in 'HQ' mode. I wanted to lay down onto the HDD the best quality I could extract from the tapes. The instructions asked what priority was being placed on the output, recording time v quality. There is, I note, a 'HQ+' option but I don't think I opted for that, but can't be 100% sure.
I could well imagine HQ+ causing such problems, perhaps even HQ when playing back on some cheap and cheerful DVD players.

The first batch of DVDs I used was Sony DVD+R originals, thereafter I used Verbatim DVD+R then Verbatim DVD-R. I burnt the first 50 Sony DVDs without problem from one supplier, but had endless problems with Sony originals from another supplier with several 'dirty disk' formatting rejections. After a huge 'row' with them in obtaining a refund I went to Staples for simplicity and bought what they supplied off the shelf (in 50s) as I needed. I stayed with Verbatim as I don't think they did Sony originals, if I recall correctly. There were intermittent 'dirty disc' formatting rejections throughout that I took as being par for the course.

The odd thing was that when I played back the burnt DVDs off the Sony Recorder they seemed to work fine. I wouldn't have otherwise progressed the whole 4 x 36 DVDs (I've just checked the numbers) - 144 in total in each of the 2 batches! Hence my enthusiasm to get it right this time.

That additional information does seem to point to inadequate buffering on the other DVD players - not being able to cope with such a high data rate off the disc... so you may be slightly unfairly blaming the Sony unit here.

However, disc quality can impact on this too. Discs can still be read with quite high error rates... but perhaps if they are having to cope with super-high data rates and errors at the same time it may be responsible for the effects you are seeing.

Regarding disc blanks... it is almost impossible to go by brand alone because brands , even using identical packaging and labelling can be sourced from different parts of the world, made by different factories and using different dyes.

It has fairly long been accepted that the most reliable factory in the world, producing the best discs, are those produced by the Taiyo Yuden factory in Japan... using the TYG03 dye.
Indeed some Verbatim discs were made by them. TY have been sold under various guises including their own name.

A year or two back JVC took over the TY factory, and the last I heard that factory produces exclusively JVC branded discs - so it is those you should try to obtain. JVC have a good Media site to provide details of the media.

It may be worth experimenting with different media and recording modes before condemning the system you have.
 
gavtech, thank you for your reply.

I'll do as you suggest and obtain some JVC DVDs in the first instance.

However, from what you say, I have a sinking feeling that I'm going to have to transfer all those VHS tapes again.

I'll report back and post how I get on in due course.

My appreciation to those in charge of such a well run, tidy forum.
 
Just to say I returned today to the daunting prospect of transferring all my VHS tapes onto my Sony hard drive in SP mode in order to resolve the problems I experienced as detailed in an earlier post.

I did 2 initially then dubbed a single JVC DVD from the Taiyo Yuden factory in Japan, as recommended by Gavtech. I tested the DVD on my PC DVD player as well as a couple of TV/DVD combs. All went well with no stalling or pixellating.

I happened to notice a ver small window that confirmed that the tape was copied to hard drive in SP mode, as was the case this time. I decided it would be prudent to quickly check some old copies and as luck would have it they were all (bar 2 that were copied direct from a Sony XL1 digital camcorder) not HQ or HQ+ they had unwittingly been set at but in SP mode!

I dubbed a couple of these onto another JVC DVD and that worked as well.

Thanks to Gavtech's advice with respect to the JVCV DVDs I have a considerably easier solution to what may have been in not having to re-copy many, many old VHS tapes a second time.

Why we, as 'punters', have to be faced with the seemingly unnecessary consequence of manufacturers supplying inferior quality DVDs in the name of something they are not is beyond me, unless it's done in the name of cost saving, which it surely is.

I' will ALWAYS use JVC DVDs from the Taiyo Yuden factory from now on - all the other brands can whistle for my business.

Many thanks to Gavtech for his very helpful advice without which I would be hard pressed to pass on 20 years worth of old VHS tapes on DVDs to my now grown up children.

My only remaining question to Gavtech is to ask how best to preserve the good copies I have on my Sony DVD recorder in advance of it 'retiring' without warning. Is there a way of backing up these copies as one would with a PC? Should I be considering re-copying these tapes onto a PC, editing and backing up from there in any case?

Regards
 
The reason behind my asking the question in the last paragraph is my assumption that there will be degradation in copying from the newly created DVDs into further copies. I just want to preserve the best quality 'masters' that I can.
 
My only remaining question to Gavtech is to ask how best to preserve the good copies I have on my Sony DVD recorder in advance of it 'retiring' without warning. Is there a way of backing up these copies as one would with a PC? Should I be considering re-copying these tapes onto a PC, editing and backing up from there in any case?

Regards

The simplest way of all is to simply direct copy the discs.
Provided the copying is at high speed, the process is lossless.

Later Sony's had this facility so I imagine the '710 will.

I'll look into it if you cannot locate such a facility.


Discs can be straight copied on a computer also if you have suitable software installed.
 
Gavtech

So much appreciated.

I'll burn a master set of DVDs and keep those unused and safe somewhere.

Regards
 
I've spent the last 6 days burning onto 153 (to include masters) JVC DVDs from the Taiyo Yuden factory in Japan for reasons previously described.

NOT ONCE has there been a 'dirty disc' rejection!

NOT ONCE has any one of these JVC DVDs failed to play perfectly on all the players that I have in the house! NO pixellation! NO freezing!

I've also focussed on one DVD in my attempt to 'do it to death' by fast forwarding, fast reversing, chapter hopping, all situations in which every one of the previously used DVDs would have pixellated or frozen, and it has NOT HAPPENED ONCE!

I can only thoroughly recommend JVC DVDs from the Taiyo Yuden factory in Japan as the best I've ever used, and absolutely faultless.

Happy New Year to Gavtech, particularly.

Regards
 
Could you provide the link or details where you managed to source your JVC DVDs from. Many thanks.
 
Could you provide the link or details where you managed to source your JVC DVDs from. Many thanks.

Here is a decent supplier at decent prices.

Third fourth and fifth items down the page are the commonly used type... in different spindle quantities.

Below them are variants such as archive and print grades.
( Archive = hard coated disk. )
 

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