Well, i think this is the right place for this, so here goes. I'm looking into getting a DVD recorder. I've got about 20 years worth of home movies i'd like to start putting on disc, so i can save wear and tear on the original tapes. Some editing will be needed, but i don't know how that translates over to DVD. With the old VHS i'd just hit pause when a piece came up i wanted to edit out. So what should i be looking for feature wise, etc etc? I would like decent build quality and the ability to upscale to HD when the time comes. Suggestions and advice please! Thank you!

I have been dabbling in video a little here lately so I can give you my insights as trivial as they might be. I bought a Toshiba DVD/VCR recorder. The stand alone type. It is a lot simpler to transfer than using the computer but the editiing features aren't there.

If you buy a DVD recorder for your computer or if it already has one you must buy some form of capture device and load it's software or a comparable software on the computer. The computer must have minimal video and processing power to accept the capture device. The software and capture device is not that expensive but some of the nicer editing programs like Roxio Creator 10 Plus can run $75-$100 but include it's own capture device.

I also purchased the Pinnacle studio package that included the USB capture device that the VCR hooks to and the software needed. There is a learning curve to the software but it is not too bad. With it you can add titles, transitions, music and still photos etc. and come out with a real slick production but it will take some time.

If you choose the stand alone DVD/VCR recorder it will cost less than $200 and all you do is push a button or two. However you get none of the edit features. It's simply a copy just like the original. You can pause and jump to a new section and restart but that is about it.

For the most part I think I will tranfer my old home movies with the stand alone unit But, if there is something special I will do the computer capture edit deal. For example, my wife's grandmother's 100th birthday will be on Dec. 1st. I am putting together some clips of her from old VCR tapes to show at her 100th birthday party. I am using all the production tools I can to make a DVD for that. Good Luck! Franksta

If you transfer to DVD in a standalone recorder, you can always edit the result at some future date on a PC with no extra hardware other than a DVD writer.

Note that many standalone recorders will NOT record a commercially released VHS tape (like the movie tapes you may have bought). They will recognise the copy protection & refuse to record.

No worries on commercial videos, i don't watch many movies anyway. I'd just like to be able to drop in a disk and go when something comes up on tv i want, or make nice transfers of said home movies. I've seen those DVD/VCR combs and thought about them, but that exact copy feature has left me with more to desire. Most of the tapes arn't even VHS, i just ran them onto VHS for simplicity. Most are HI8 or VHS-C. Wish i had a HI8 VCR to run those tapes off of instead of the unreliable old camcorder. But 8mm players still cost a bundle! Any other suggestions out there?

I recently bought a Panasonic DMR-EZ485V recorder.
I'm still working my way through the manual and learning
what it can or will do.

Here's a link to the manual for it:
http://service.us.panasonic.com/OPERMANPDF/DMREZ48V-MUL.PDF
Take a read through pages 43-45.

I bought my unit at Costco. Price was good. I've only had it for a few
weeks, and there are a few quirks with it, but so far so good.


Mike

the panasonic dvdrs are also good in that they're one of the few (only?) makes that will make a good recording in LP mode, ie out to 4 hours-i try to keep it to 3 hours or less.

i have the '06 es-15 which i use for tv shows or extra long (out to 3 hours) movies and then watch said shows/movies thru a panny hi def front projector and 84" screen. they look great even at that large size!
works like a charm!

the panasonic dvdrs are also good in that they're one of the few (only?) makes that will make a good recording in LP mode, ie out to 4 hours-i try to keep it to 3 hours or less.

i have the '06 es-15 which i use for tv shows or extra long (out to 3 hours) movies and then watch said shows/movies thru a panny hi def front projector and 84" screen. they look great even at that large size!
works like a charm!

Agreed. I used the computer hardware/software approach years ago to convert all my vhs home movies to dvd. Very time-consuming and labor intensive. Then I finally sprung for a Panasonic DMR-ES10 that, with a little black box that I bought maybe 24 years ago, actually copies commercial tapes. Wish it were HD, though. Copies of HD material must be zoomed to fill the screen. And it's true. The picture from the recorder through my Panny front projector onto a 90 in. screen is still impressive. Sold all my computer copying stuff.

Agreed. I used the computer hardware/software approach years ago to convert all my vhs home movies to dvd. Very time-consuming and labor intensive. Then I finally sprung for a Panasonic DMR-ES10 that, with a little black box that I bought maybe 24 years ago, actually copies commercial tapes.

Wish it were HD, though. Copies of HD material must be zoomed to fill the screen. And it's true. The picture from the recorder through my Panny front projector onto a 90 in. screen is still impressive. Sold all my computer copying stuff.
i have 2 of the 'little black boxes', in this case, SIMA ct-2s. they break the copycode on commercial dvds, vhs tapes, and copy protected cable tv, hd included. alas, said boxes are very difficult to come by nowadayz. in fact, the ct-2 has not been made in ~3 years, TTBOMK.

to properly make a widescreen dvd out of widescreen content, hd or sd, dvds, or hdtv, you need a source that puts out an anamorphic signal, ie horizontally squeezed, to be recorded onto the dvd-r.
upon playback, your widescreen tv will un-squeeze the content (movie, concert, whatever), putting the image back to normal.

and you don't have to zoom it for it to fill the screen.

most modern dvd players will send out the content in an anamorphic mode (if the dvd is anamorphic w/s to begin with) but finding an hd dvr that does it may be more difficult.

i had 2 scientific-atlanta explorer 8000hd dvrs from adelphia cable co and they could send out an anamorphic signal. worked great!
but i got rid of them 2 yrs ago, cuz comcast took over and wanted to jack the price up by $100 per month.
i don't think so.

i have 2 of the 'little black boxes', in this case, SIMA ct-2s. they break the copycode on commercial dvds, vhs tapes, and copy protected cable tv, hd included. alas, said boxes are very difficult to come by nowadayz. in fact, the ct-2 has not been made in ~3 years, TTBOMK.

to properly make a widescreen dvd out of widescreen content, hd or sd, dvds, or hdtv, you need a source that puts out an anamorphic signal, ie horizontally squeezed, to be recorded onto the dvd-r.
upon playback, your widescreen tv will un-squeeze the content (movie, concert, whatever), putting the image back to normal.

and you don't have to zoom it for it to fill the screen.

most modern dvd players will send out the content in an anamorphic mode (if the dvd is anamorphic w/s to begin with) but finding an hdSTB that does it may be more difficult.

i had 2 scientific-atlanta explorer 8000hd STBs from adelphia cable co and they could send out an anamorphic signal. worked great!
but i got rid of them 2 yrs ago, cuz comcast took over and wanted to jack the price up by $100 per month.
i don't think so.

My old little black box uses a 9v battery. I've never tried to see if it works on DVDs because they hadn't been invented when I bought it. Besides I use AnyDVD for that now. My issue with recording HD on the Panny is not from dvds, but from the Dish Network DVR. It sends a standard def WideScreen pic through its second output. If I record it I have to zoom.

And apologies to all for hijacking this noble thread. However I think all that has been posted is (or may be) pertinent to the OPs original queries. Tranferring VHS tapes to DVD is tricky and time consuming. I've spent hours upon hours doing it. So I hope any comments I make here are constructive and not considered to be irrelevant.

My issue with recording HD on the Panny is not from dvds, but from the Dish Network DVR. It sends a standard def WideScreen pic through its second output. If I record it I have to zoom.

i'd hazard a guess that your dish n'twork dvr doesn't send out an anamorphic signal. you're getting what's called a 'letterboxed' image, that's why you have to zoom.

back in '04 when i first got the 2 hd dvrs, it took me 6 months to figure all this stuff out. the manual with the dvr was useless, just described basic setup.

good luck.