[SA Chris]

Well, our 8 year old cheapo DVD player has finally given up the ghost (I suspect not toddler resistant enough), and slighlty bewildered by new technology out there.

We have an "HD ready" Toshiba telly still working well and a Freeview HD recorder of similar age to the DVD player which is getting a bit unreliable so....

Thinking about a DVD-R with Freeview and a hard drive capabilties so that if there is ever anything worth watching again you can copy it to a DVD and keep it without filling the hard drive space.

Has anyone got anthing like this and is it worth getting? Also is "HD upscaling" worthwhile? Does it make a big difference to picture quality?

Looking around, I'm not sure I'm bothered by Blu Ray, I don't think i will ever spend the cash on the DVDs, and the players are pretty expensive.

Thanks

[Paul B]

Just don't buy Sony.

I have a Sony RDR HXD 870 (which is hardly new), and Sony implement every copyright protection procedure in the book. This includes encrypting discs you burn from your hard drive to only work with that specific machine (or guess what, you can pay them and they'll "code" a newer model for you).

Also, I used this to dub some old VHS videos to the hard drive as we no longer have the capacity to play them. Once again, this didn't work for a lot of them due to copy protection.

I'd say upscaling is fairly important if you wish to watch SD content on a HD capable device, at the time of release there were several comparisons between Bluray and Upscaled Content which might be worth looking into; in short there wasn't a whole world of difference.

Personally I'd be looking towards something with "Internet Ready" capabilities so that iplayer etc. were more readily available. Also, I'd look into a device that can deal with media from a USB device (my sony will play Mp3 or display JPG but that's it, for movie files you need to burn them to discs using a bloody old DivX codec, i.e. its not worth the hassle).

I'm having the same dilemna as the Xbox has broken (used for playing back video) and the Sony device is starting to do odd things (picture breaking up, freezing) which I think point towards a dying hard drive. Ideally I'd like a box that "does it all" but something tells me it won't exist for a reasonable cost.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Went through a similar decision process earlier in the year. Here is my view;

Blu-Ray is not essential yet as it is more expensive and we have lots of DVDs and a good upscaling player does such a good job that it makes Blu-Ray pretty much redundant. That said, you may find you end up with it anyway, they are nearly as cheap as DVD players, they all play DVDs.

We only ever use the DVD drive for playing Lovefilm discs, their streaming service is only available on Sony/Samsung at the mo but it is still lower than SD quality. Not sure how Netflix etc compares, we have stream the odd film from Acetrax, worked well and was HD, but more expensive than Lovefilm.

We never get around to burning stuff to DVD, it's a bit of a flaff and most of it is online anyway. As Paul says some discs aren't compatible with other players once they are burnt so it's not much of an archive. You'll probably end up with a 500gig or 1Tb drive which will take some filling, unless you record a lot at full HD. We record less than we used to as iPlayer is higher quality than our Panasonic recorder (which isn't HD), and we virtually record nothing for the kids as everything is on iPlayer.

If your TV isn't internet connected, assuming you have reasonable broadband then the most important feature of a new player is the online offering. Samsung is probably the best for its online stuff with Panasonic a close second. Be aware some of these players don't have all the apps available that the TVs do, some for example don't have an iPlayer app which would be annoying so worth checking. Twin freeview HD tuners may be useful if your TV doesn't have one built in, also an all in one box with twin tuners will mean you can do most things from one remote.

Our breakdown is probably something like this:
Online (iplayer) 40%
Offline from hard disc 30%
DVDs 20%
Live freeview 10%

Lastly, buy it from Richer Sounds (price matching if necessary) and pay the extra 10% for a 5 year warranty, anything with a hard drive will probably fail before then and you'll get a free upgrade to the current version if they can't repair it. 

Couple of other points we started with a Sony that we didn't get on with. We had a hideous LG on loan from Richer Sounds whilst our first Panasonic was in for repair (worst than useless, but it probably was an older model). You couldn't watch one thing whilst recording another. 

[Mike Tyson]

Me and the mrs picked up a Phillips Blu-ray player from Sainsbury's the other day for £50. Seemed like good value and you could whack a USB stick in it as well as having a Wi-fi capability of some description.

[slackline]

My tuppence...

Hard drive space is cheap, DVDs are dated and if you have to deal with degredation over long term (if thats why you want to burn them rather than record something to PVR, watch it then delete it).

Got a Humax HDR-Fox T2 ourselves, quite happy with it, although mildly annoying that there hasn't been any firmware updates to include 4OD/ITV player/etc. but not actually looked (although as its Linux based there are alternative firmwares available).

http://humaxdirect.co.uk/product.asp?ProdRef=10095

[tommytwotone]

The missus gets her TV / internet through Virgin and she's just renewed and been bumped up to a new package including a TiVo box.

Had a quick go with it last night, looks cool - it does all the standard record-y, series link-y stuff you'd expect and also has a direct link to iPlaya, YouTube, 4OD and stuff.

[SA Chris]

DVDs are dated and if you have to deal with degredation over long term (if thats why you want to burn them rather than record something to PVR, watch it then delete it).

True, but they are a cheap easy way to keep a 2.5 year old happy, and we have a hundred or so, plus a love film account. We thought recording to DVD would be a useful option if there were things on telly you wanted to keep "permanently".

[slackline]

2.5 year old + DVDs == bad idea in my mind (sticky fingers, getting scratched etc. etc.)

But that is a mind that has no experience of children at all, I guess with a PVR they could always delete things from a hard-drive anyway.

[SA Chris]

We play the DVDs for him. He's not quite there with inserting them and using the remote (yet).

[tomtom]

MrsTT has a combined HDD, DVD-R and whatever thingy recorder.

Bolting a DVD onto an HDD box seems to attract a hefty premium.. twice in three years have we burned something to DVD - it always ends up on the HDD instead (two of the times were when I wanted to nab something to play in a lecture so had to transfer to DVD). MrsTT likes it as there is only one box under the TV - though personally I dont give a monkeys, and its miles cheaper to buy a HDD recorder/PVR thing AND have a cheapo (£20) DVD player as well...

Upscaling works OK - but not as good as freeview HD though..

Thats my tuppence...

PS,. its a sony and its ace... though I had a Sony PVR (on its own) that was utter dogshit.. I think sony stuck their label on a couple of someone elses PVR products - so some are good some are bad etc..