Reader Mail: DVD Recorder Advice?

Read Mark S writes: I am looking for a new DVD recorder for my entertainment center. I am really disappointed in my current player, which can only handle hard-to-find 4x (or lower) discs. What are the different recorders out there? Should I go with a DVD-R recorder or even a hard-drive recorder? What can I do to make sure my setup is not immediately obsolete? Please advise.

Hey Mark, here's a question for you: are you mainly interested in just time-shifting your shows (that is, recording for later viewing, and then deleting) or do you want to keep an archive of your favorite shows and movies? If you only want to time-shift, then by all means, just get yourself a hard drive-based DVR or even a TiVo (they're going for about $100 these days, with service). If, on the other hand, you want to keep a copy of your recorded videos, a DVD burner is still your best bet.

My biggest piece of advice is to sidestep the whole DVD+R-versus-DVD-R business by getting a multi-format burner—in other words, a recorder that'll burn +RW, +R, -RW, and -R discs. Most of the brand-name manufactures make these multi-format drives, and you'll save yourself some headaches by spending a little extra cash to get one (expect to pay about $250 or so).

Another option is to open your wallet a little wider for a hard drive/DVD recorder combo deck. These recorders combine the best of two worlds: you can record your shows on the hard drive for time-shifting, then perform some editing (you can snip out the commercials from your recordings, for instance) and burn your videos to DVD. Hard drive/DVD recorder decks can be pricey, however, ranging anywhere from $350 to $700 and up (depending on the size of the hard drive). Yet another option is a VHS/DVD recorder combination, a nice choice if you've got a pile of old video tapes collecting dust (try to get one that offers high-speed dubbing, which lets you record a two-hour VHS tape in an hour or less).

Also, whether you've got a straight-up DVD recorder, an HDD/DVD combo deck or a VHS/DVD recorder, remember to burn only to DVD+R or DVD-R discs if you're making discs for the archives. While you can record on rewritable DVD+RW and DVD-RW multiple times (and perform some nifty editing tricks as well), there's no guarantee that they'll play on a standard DVD player. Write-once DVD+R and DVD-R discs (either one will do, although there's some debate on that issue), on the other hand, should play correctly on just about any standard DVD deck out there.

Of course, I'm only scratching the surface here. Have any more advice for Mark? Fire away.