Page 1 of How DVD Recorders Work

I was going to put this onto the other DVD Recorders thread, but it`s degenerated into a discussion about whether DVD has `caught on` and whether it is `growing` in the public market... I have my views on that, but I also thought people might want to hear a couple of words about what it`s like to use the Pioneer DVDR-1000 recordable DVD:

Some readers may recall my Recordable DVD article from my previous life on DVD-2000. During my research, I was at Pioneer and given the opportunity to use the Japanese retail machine.

Even though it was Japanese titled, and working thorugh an NTSC video camera, it was very easy to use. It was also excellent quality. The quality is set on a slider so you can choose between anything from low VCD quality (to get masses of footage per disc) to full-on DVD quality where disc capacity is more like 2 hours.

Editing was joy itself, because it was merely a question of putting in A and B markers, and then the machine does the job of skipping between seamlessly - no more advert breaks with this baby ! The player was also very good at creating chapter menu screens to help you navigate around your own discs.

The machine looks very much like an overgrown DV717, and has an ordinary tray to hold the discs (rather than a nasty caddy). Discs were completed and ejected in a matter of seconds.

I`m not going to comment on the operating system, the disc cataloguing or anything else like that, because you can guarrantee with nearly a year`s development work having gone into the UK model, it will have been changed beyond recognition.

Players will be reaching the UK by the end of the year, and of course they`ll be expensive to begin with, but demand and growing popularity will of course bring them crashing down.

All I can say in summary is that what I saw was effectively a Japanese home market beta release machine. Nevertheless, it was beautifully made, the quality was superb, and it was easy to record, navigate, defrag and organise material. The DVD recorder is not just the gadget-geek`s dream, but it is the true future step for home entertainment and the natural progression for a format which is making a massive impression on millions of homes already. I feel pretty strongly that once DVDR becomes affordable, then VHS is guarranteed to start bleeding to death. It`ll take a long time due to the huge back catalogue and people`s collections, but with DVDR offering everything VHS does and SO much more, with higher quality, VHS will certainly be on borrowed time.

Hmmmm.... That`s a very long post... I think it probably warrants a column !

Dan

This item was edited on Thursday, 26th October 2000, 15:42

Dan - yeah sorry about the other forum but I like the twisty way these threads work. Start off on one thing, end up on another.

I was really interested in what you said about DVD-R. I`m intrigued about the mechanics - presumably it is like a DVD-burner ? Is it rewriteable ?

Please expand on what you saw about the mechanics of the little babe. It should be interesting (or convince the guys here that they should give you a commission to write an article !!!)

Clayts :-)

I know I may be butting in, but to reiterate previous witterings, IMHO I think the basics of the unit - not having seen one, you understand - will be more or less the guts out of a digital VCR - a tuner stage (naturally) and an MPEG2 compression board. Instead of writing to a tape, it`ll write to a (say) 30Gb hard drive and have a basic interface and editing software on EPROM. The idea being that you initially record everything to hard disk and then edit down before burning to DVD-R.

ATi do boards that can go in your PC to do this kind of thing already. Even my trusty old 233MMX Pentium can do reasonable video clips that I can burn on to CDR.

The good old DVD Forum are doing their best to cock up DVDRW (note no + or - signs) with different formats, but hopefully we`ll end up with a unified format for DVD-R and DVDRW that`ll mean we can disk Coronation Street to our hearts content (unless the EU makes digital home recording illegal).

Ooo, look, ma this can`s full of worms...

Mark, the only problem with your proposed solution is that it goes through an extra layer of processing. A HDD would add to cost, user complexity, failure rates and time...

The DVR-1000 records stright to the DVD-R disc, and has the MPEG processing power to do everything on the fly at full resolution. There is certainly no HDD stage. Editing is done directly on the disc.

It`s all well and good being able to do posh things with a PC, but the way for a movie format to really take hold (and especially for recordable DVD to replace VHS) is in the living room , where it comes in a sealed box and the user`s only interaction is to press "play" or "record"... PC solutions never have the same broad market appeal.

When it comes to the formats, that IS a big can of worms. However, I can remember not so long ago when the original DVD fomat was being agreed on. We all knew that the capability and potential was there, but the whole shebang was delayed at least a year by disagreements and bickering. We in Europe we nearly stuck with the MPEG surround format !!!! I truly believe that the DVD Forum will see common (and financial) sense and eventually agree a standard before too many machines have gone to market.

Dan

sort`ve related in a roundabout way

http://twocom.net/dvdvcdmp3/vdr2000.html

it`s a VCD and SVCD recorder, it records to VCD or SVCD in realtime from any input, either to CD-R or CD-RW.

Or for your PC try a program called WinVCR from Cinax - records mpeg 1 / mpeg 2 and asf formats in real time from any windows compatable video capture card - it also have a built in timer
(I know it`s not 100% relevent in this thread but you should be used to that we my posts)

hrm, big ugly wintel under my tv, or a small standalone recorder which doesnt crash halfway thru recording..?

I know which i`d choose.. :)

Dan, the DVR-1000 sounds absolutely terrific. I`m green with envy. I`d be first in the queue to buy an affordable - less than £300 DVD recorder. Like just about anybody, I`d rather have a dedicated box than a jack-of-all-trades PC humming away in the background. I just think it`s useful that the bare bones of a DVD-R system that hasn`t been buggered up by film studio politicking is available now(ish).

I`m amazed that the machine burns direct to DVD. Having seen CD burners in action and what with charming little problems like buffer underrun, I`d have thought the HDD intermediate stage would have been a good idea. Also, it _is_ a digital signal so extra processing shouldn`t be a problem theoretically.

All I know is I have shelves of well-loved tv shows on VHS that will never ever be released on DVD, and I`d love some way of transferring them to digital media. Fingers need to be pulled out in the industry.

"I`m amazed that the machine burns direct to DVD. Having seen CD burners in action and what with charming little problems like buffer underrun, I`d have thought the HDD intermediate stage would have been a good idea."

well to burn in realtime it`d have to be equivilant to a 2x burner, i have a p200 burner box that has NEVER had a buffer underrun in 3yrs burning at 4x (SCSI btw, not evil ide.. :) ) so i`m sure doing on the fly to the disc isnt that hard..

also, we have Burnproof now, which makes it almost impossible to have a buffer underrun, and if they give it a 8meg buffer, i doubt you could EVER make a coaster.. :)

>i have a p200 burner box that has NEVER had a buffer underrun in 3yrs

Lucky ol` you!