Page 1 of Philips dvdr 70 or Panasonic dmre 55 (novice!)

Hi

I have read & re-read the postings on this site and others and I`d really appreciate some clear advice.

I get the impression Panasonic is the more reliable of the two although I would go with Philips (and take out 3 year warranty) if it suited my needs better.

- What is the difference between R+ (Philips) and R- (Panasonic) technology?

- I know the Philips can record VHS video to DVD but can the Panasonic too?

- Will the newly created dvds be viewable by my relatives in Australia?

Thanks in advance for any help on these. I`m looking to buy very soon!

For one time recordings you won`t see any difference in quality. However, the Philips machines and their clones are less flexible in tailoring recordings to the available disc space. For example sp recordings in dvd+r tend to be fixed at a maximum of 2hrs 10mins. With the Panasonic dvd-r machines you can record an exact length and the quality is automatically adjusted eg. you can choose 140 or 155 mins etc as you wish. Both formats seem to play back equally well on relatively new dvd players when the discs are finalised. Recordings seem to be region free so should play in Australia.

For repeatable recoding its another story. Dvd-r use the RAM system which goes back to computers and is wonderfully flexible for editing but won`t play on anything other than Panasonic dvd players. Philips machines use dvd+rw which has limited editing facilities but will play back on some dvd players.

As for reliability the Panasonic machines win hands down at least compared to the first generation Philips machines. Newer Philips kit (R70 and forward) may be better.

I have a Philips DVDR70 and regularly send dvd+r`s (about 20 so far) to my sisters family in Oz. They have a combined Sony dvd/vhs player and have had no problems.

Thanks for the advice so far.

Can both of these macines convert VHS to DVD? Has anyone done so and what is the quality like??

Any VHS signal fed into the dvd recorder will record whichever system you go for in the end. So long as you record at a reasonable rate they should be as good as the VHS recording. I never record VHS below the 3hr setting, but mostly on the 2hr setting as I just put the program on a single disc. At 32p a disc + p&p I prefer to do it that way. One funny thing is sometimes the recording looks better. Its not possible, but it does sometimes look like it does. Trick of dvd I Guess.

A further option are the Pioneer machines.These use -r also,but for rewritability they use -RW.This format offers the best of both worlds.You can choose to format your -RW disc in one of 2 ways.VR format allows RAM style editing and similar incompatibility,or Video format offers +RW style compatibility and no editing.I think its the best option as you can choose what type of recording you want to do.Neither DVD+ or RAM give you that choice.

If you are copying a commercial VHS tape (eg a film) you may encounter an anti copy system known as Macrovision. You will need a special scart lead to counter this. If you are trying to copy a dvd there is a further anti copy system embedded in the signal known a CGSI. This is more difficult to circumvent.

Actually,the `special` Scart leads will remove Macrovision and CGMS.Trywww.sonel.com

Actually if you can get a Dansai 1010 and the firmware upgrade disc this will deal with every anti copy protection.

Quote:
One funny thing is sometimes the recording looks better. Its not possible, but it does sometimes look like it does. Trick of dvd I Guess.


I seem to think,although can`t check at the moment,that the E55 has some kind of feature which `cleans up` recordings from VHS to DVD.
I could be mistaken,but something rings a bell.
I now have 2 Panasonic recorders.An E50 and an E55.
Both are superb,both have been 100% reliable.