Hardware and Software & Related

[WalterHaleJnr]

Hey by virtue of Colin's flash drives question the other day, we should have a Hardware and software Section including electronic related.
Hope John, Javilu, Colin and Benski will make this a sticky.

[WalterHaleJnr]

In my country stand alone DVD recorders and DVD recordable discs are becoming very scarce these days.

This is a huge blow as one of my prime hobbies is to download classic movies , famous tennis games in particular 1970s and 1980's when tennis was a real full on variety sport, lol and obscure music clips and tv series. Mainly as MP4 files convert to mpeg 2.

I still have my 18 year old Panny recorder (DMR - EH50) with built in hard drive and still going strong.

s-l1600.jpg

So what;s taking it's place then?

Also can i still connect my DVD player/ recorder on newer TV models. My existing DVD and TV Plasma also a Panasonic uses RCA video in/out cables.

I'm sure going to miss not being able to record stuff off the tv channels.

[John]

In my country stand alone DVD recorders and DVD recordable discs are becoming very scarce these days.

This is a huge blow as one of my prime hobbies is to download classic movies , famous tennis games in particular 1970s and 1980's when tennis was a real full on variety sport, lol and obscure music clips and tv series. Mainly as MP4 files convert to mpeg 2.

I still have my 18 year old Panny recorder (DMR - EH50) with built in hard drive and still going strong.

s-l1600.jpg

So what;s taking it's place then?

Also can i still connect my DVD player/ recorder on newer TV models. My existing DVD and TV Plasma also a Panasonic uses RCA video in/out cables.

I'm sure going to miss not being able to record stuff off the tv channels.

I've always loved DVD recorders and still have 2 of them, although one is analogue, so can no longer receive a signal, so use it for copying purposes only. Most stuff is now recorded on my Sky box. I did have Virgin Tivo and could copy to the DVD recorder before. The Sky box doesn't have the same output connections so I have bought an HDMI to scart converter, although I have yet to try it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Converter-Jsdo ... 161&sr=8-3

Once either recorded on, or transferred to the DVD recorder, I then copy it to a DVDr, and then transfer to my PC. From there I can edit the programme, remove adverts, top and tail it, then I transfer to 2 hard drives. The DVDr can be wiped and re-used over again.

It's a bloody palaver, but if you want to archive interesting programmes or films, it seems it's getting really hard to do so.

[WalterHaleJnr]

In my country stand alone DVD recorders and DVD recordable discs are becoming very scarce these days.

This is a huge blow as one of my prime hobbies is to download classic movies , famous tennis games in particular 1970s and 1980's when tennis was a real full on variety sport, lol and obscure music clips and tv series. Mainly as MP4 files convert to mpeg 2.

I still have my 18 year old Panny recorder (DMR - EH50) with built in hard drive and still going strong.

s-l1600.jpg

So what;s taking it's place then?

Also can i still connect my DVD player/ recorder on newer TV models. My existing DVD and TV Plasma also a Panasonic uses RCA video in/out cables.

I'm sure going to miss not being able to record stuff off the tv channels.

I've always loved DVD recorders and still have 2 of them, although one is analogue, so can no longer receive a signal,i can by using a stand alone set-top box that has the tv channels with outputs in order to connect to analogue TV and three other sockets (ie yellow, red and white) as outputs that goes to the input of the DVD Recorder. so use it for copying purposes only. Most stuff is now recorded on my Sky box. I did have Virgin Tivo and could copy to the DVD recorder before. The Sky box doesn't have the same output connections so I have bought an HDMI to scart converter, although I have yet to try it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Converter-Jsdo ... 161&sr=8-3

Once either recorded on, or transferred to the DVD recorder, I then copy it to a DVDr, and then transfer to my PC. From there I can edit the programme, remove adverts, top and tail it, then I transfer to 2 hard drives. The DVDr can be wiped and re-used over again.

It's a bloody palaver, but if you want to archive interesting programmes or films, it seems it's getting really hard to do so.

Both set top boxes also has USB inputs so i can download stuff from youtube, transfer the mp4 file to the flash drive and then connect and paly it on the set top and dub on the panny dvd recorder hard-drive. But for some bizzare reason some videos goes out of sych. This does not happen when just playing the file on the computer.

[John]

In my country stand alone DVD recorders and DVD recordable discs are becoming very scarce these days.

This is a huge blow as one of my prime hobbies is to download classic movies , famous tennis games in particular 1970s and 1980's when tennis was a real full on variety sport, lol and obscure music clips and tv series. Mainly as MP4 files convert to mpeg 2.

I still have my 18 year old Panny recorder (DMR - EH50) with built in hard drive and still going strong.

s-l1600.jpg

So what;s taking it's place then?

Also can i still connect my DVD player/ recorder on newer TV models. My existing DVD and TV Plasma also a Panasonic uses RCA video in/out cables.

I'm sure going to miss not being able to record stuff off the tv channels.

I've always loved DVD recorders and still have 2 of them, although one is analogue, so can no longer receive a signal,i can by using a stand alone set-top box that has the tv channels with outputs in order to connect to analogue TV and three other sockets (ie yellow, red and white) as outputs that goes to the input of the DVD Recorder. so use it for copying purposes only. Most stuff is now recorded on my Sky box. I did have Virgin Tivo and could copy to the DVD recorder before. The Sky box doesn't have the same output connections so I have bought an HDMI to scart converter, although I have yet to try it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Converter-Jsdo ... 161&sr=8-3

Once either recorded on, or transferred to the DVD recorder, I then copy it to a DVDr, and then transfer to my PC. From there I can edit the programme, remove adverts, top and tail it, then I transfer to 2 hard drives. The DVDr can be wiped and re-used over again.
It's a bloody palaver, but if you want to archive interesting programmes or films, it seems it's getting really hard to do so.

Both set top boxes also has USB inputs so i can download stuff from youtube, transfer the mp4 file to the flash drive and then connect and paly it on the set top and dub on the panny dvd recorder hard-drive. But for some bizzare reason some videos goes out of sych. This does not happen when just playing the file on the computer.

I've had some videos go out of synch. I reload them into "handbrake" (https://handbrake.fr/) and there's then an option under the video tab to change the framerate. I find that resetting to 24 or 25 frame per second fixes the problem. You then encode it and save it to a folder on your PC.

[WalterHaleJnr]

I guess Bluray and Bluray recorders has taking over from the DVD recorders and players.

So the obvious question would be , can one join a dvd player to blu-ray recorder and record copies of dvd to blu ray either to the hard drive or to a BR disc? And what sort of quality can you get back?

[John]

I guess Bluray and Bluray recorders has taking over from the DVD recorders and players.

So the obvious question would be , can one join a dvd player to blu-ray recorder and record copies of dvd to blu ray either to the hard drive or to a BR disc? And what sort of quality can you get back?

I have a blu-ray DVD player, but the only blu-ray disc I have is the one that came with the player when I bought it - The Amazing Spider Man 2. I'm sure I also have a blu-ray ripping programme somewhere, but I haven't tried it.

I don't have a blu-ray recorder, so can't answer that one I'm afraid.

[WalterHaleJnr]

I guess Bluray and Bluray recorders has taking over from the DVD recorders and players.

So the obvious question would be , can one join a dvd player to blu-ray recorder and record copies of dvd to blu ray either to the hard drive or to a BR disc? And what sort of quality can you get back?

I have a blu-ray DVD player, but the only blu-ray disc I have is the one that came with the player when I bought it - The Amazing Spider Man 2. I'm sure I also have a blu-ray ripping programme somewhere, but I haven't tried it.

I don't have a blu-ray recorder, so can't answer that one I'm afraid.

Thanks, JOHN. I have to ask , does the blu ray player have RCA cables output or only a HDMI one ?

[HD_RES]

I guess Bluray and Bluray recorders has taking over from the DVD recorders and players.

So the obvious question would be , can one join a dvd player to blu-ray recorder and record copies of dvd to blu ray either to the hard drive or to a BR disc? And what sort of quality can you get back?

I dont see the point in doing what you ask here...you will only get dvd quality on a bluray disc.
I also have a Panasonic dvd-recorder but havent used it since HD became the new standard.
For me dvd format isnt good enough now so I havent used the EH-60 in the last 10 years or so but before that it was used often,either recording programmes from my cabletv or I would transfer old family home movies to its HDD and then burn them on dvdr.
Now I have two blu-ray writers that I use for burning some movies or HD tv shows that I have captured....one internal in my old laptop and one external one for my desktop that came with no drive at all,the new standard on new pc these days.
One time I had out of sync audio problem while recording tv programmes to my capture device and usb stick but that was fixed by using a memory stick with high read speed (150MB/S)
Sometimes I rip bluray movies that doesnt have the subtitles that I want,then adding subtitles to the video file and then burn it to BR-R disc without any video quality loss.
I dont know if its true or not but I once heard that new bluray recorders...like my old EH60 but bluray instead of dvd.....doesnt have HDMI input so its much harder to connect it to a satellite/cable box for recording...if true the use options would be very limited.

[John]

I guess Bluray and Bluray recorders has taking over from the DVD recorders and players.

So the obvious question would be , can one join a dvd player to blu-ray recorder and record copies of dvd to blu ray either to the hard drive or to a BR disc? And what sort of quality can you get back?

I have a blu-ray DVD player, but the only blu-ray disc I have is the one that came with the player when I bought it - The Amazing Spider Man 2. I'm sure I also have a blu-ray ripping programme somewhere, but I haven't tried it.

I don't have a blu-ray recorder, so can't answer that one I'm afraid.

Thanks, JOHN. I have to ask , does the blu ray player have RCA cables output or only a HDMI one ?

http://tv.manualsonline.com/manuals/mfg ... .html?p=22