please recommend a dvd recorder for analog sources

[Rob Katz]

please recommend a dvd recorder for analog sources.

in putting together this doc, my clients has various analog sources: minidv/hi8/vhs.

can someone recommend a dvd stand-alone recorder?

i didn't want to tie up my mac pro inputting hours of this footage.

anyone care to share?

thanks in advance

be well

rob
smalltalk productions

[R Geoff Baker]

I can't recommend a DVD recorder as I don't use one ...

... but neither would I if faced with the project you are doing. Dub everything to miniDV, as it seems to be the highest quality format in the mix, and it will have timecode which will aid you in building the project. Any DV camcorder with analog inputs will do the job, and you will end up with 'better' source material than mpeg2 encoded 4:2:0 DVD.

JMO

Cheers,
GB

[William Hohauser]

However if DVD is the way to go then....

For $500 or so, the JVC SR-MV40 is a dual SVHS/DVD Recorder with a FireWire input and analog S-Video inputs. S-Video really helps Hi8 and to a lesser degree VHS. The unit makes excellent DVD recordings. It also recognizes 16:9 video and programs the DVD to playback accordingly.

For $180 or so. Panasonic makes a good basic DVD recorder. It also has FireWire and S-Video inputs. The quality is also excellent although 16:9 video inputs are not recognized as 16:9.

Around the same price is a small Sony DVD burner with FW, analog composite inputs, USB and memory card slots. It has a small LCD to monitor the recording. It's good but is really designed for Sony cameras.

As a work flow, I would recommend if there is lots of footage; transfer everything to DVD and use the DVDs as a screeners to figure out which shots you want. Although you can pull the footage off the DVD, doing this with miniDV footage is counter productive. The Hi-8 and VHS footage might not take a discernible hit but going to miniDV is better. If you must use the DVDs to import the footage into the computer, make sure to record the DVDs at the 1 hour speed. That will give you the least amount of MPEG artifacts.