With all of the developments in digital video recording, I’m ashamed to say that I’m still a sucker for appointment TV. I guess I like having something concrete to look forward to. The Sopranos at 9 o’clock on Sunday night? I’m there. It wasn’t until my two-year-old started asking at all hours of the day to watch The Wiggles — a foursome of grown men in colorful shirts who sing songs and dance with dinosaurs — that I thought about upgrading to a DVD recorder. Fortunately, there are plenty of options (see our “Shopping Made Simple” guide).
For the roundup here, we’ve included two representatives from familiar companies — the Toshiba RD-SX32 ($600) and the Yamaha DRX-2 ($600) — and the LVW-5005 ($300) from a company you probably haven’t heard of before, LiteOn. All three models will leave your VCR in the dust, but they get the job done in distinctly different ways.
PDF: Features Checklist
PDF: Recording/Editing Options
LiteOn LVW-5005
LiteOn might seem like the new kid on the block, but the Taiwan-based manufacturer has actually been around for nearly 30 years. With a deck that records audio and video onto DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, and even CD-R/RW discs — a unique combination — it’s definitely making itself known. Even more noteworthy is the LVW-5005’s $300 price tag. I paid that much for my first VCR, and that was nearly a dozen years after the VHS format launched!
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The silver-cased LVW-5005 looks nice enough, though its build quality struck me as a bit flimsy. Aside from a power button and disc-tray slot, the only visible features on its front panel are six control buttons for playing, pausing, scanning, and recording discs. A flip-up door conceals an A/V input with a composite-video connection, but no S-video jack, and — a pleasant surprise — a FireWire port for dumping footage from a MiniDV or Digital 8 camera, an unexpected perk at this price.
The LiteOn’s back panel has a standard suite of recorder connections (Click to view “Features Checklist”). Its remote control is nothing special, but the tiny buttons are logically laid out. The only real complaint I had was the player’s slow response to the commands I punched in on the handset.
The straightforward menu system really simplified setup. After I connected my cable feed and told the recorder to scan for active channels, an onscreen menu let me delete any scrambled or unwatched channels from its memory, which let me surf more quickly through the ones I’d want to see. There’s no VCR Plus+ function for automatic programming, but I could use the deck’s timer menu to manually program a list of recordings and assign variables like picture quality and source (TV, satellite, or whatever) for each entry.
DVD recorders can be intimidating to operate, which is why I liked the EasyGuider feature on the LiteOn. Pressing a button on the remote calls up the EasyGuider menu, from which you select the function you want to perform: play, record, format, or finalize. Additional submenus for each category basically hold your hand and lead you through the selected process.
The LiteOn’s HQ, SP, EP, and SLP recording modes offer 1-, 2-, 4-, and 6-hour recording times, respectively. Recordings made in the HQ and SP modes looked equally sharp, although shots from ESPN’s Speedworld containing fast motion or billowing smoke were more solid when recorded in HQ. The same program was all but unwatchable when recorded in EP or SLP. To squeeze out extra recording time, both of these modes cut picture resolution in half and lower the video bit rate to 2.5 megabits per second (Mbps) or less, a recipe that yields images so soft and blocky-looking, they’ll almost make you miss your VCR.
With all the bells and whistles found on DVD recorders, it’s easy to forget that they’re also meant for playing DVD movies. Although the LiteOn’s picture sharpness was a notch below that of the other two decks tested, its performance was pretty good, with most discs I played showing a decent amount of detail and clean, natural-looking color. But when I switched over to progressive-scan mode, I saw that it lacked 2:3 pulldown detection — a video processing feature that reconciles frame-rate differences between film and video. (We had stopped commenting on the presence of 2:3 pulldown detection in DVD-player reviews because it seemed to be universal now, so it was a surprise to find this lacking in the LiteOn.) The effects could be seen, for instance, as a jagged pattern on the grille of the Speak-and-Spell in Toy Story as it stumbled forward to offer up its microphone.
At $300, LiteOn’s LVW-5005 DVD recorder is a great bargain, and it handles an impressive range of optical media. If you’re looking for a DVD deck that also serves as a CD recorder, this is the only one out there that fills the bill. I wouldn’t use it as my main DVD player, but as a straight-out recorder, its simplicity and versatility are highly appealing.
Toshiba RD-SX32
For all the advantages there are to recording on DVD rather than tape, it makes even more sense to use a hard-disk recorder to harvest and store TV programs you want to watch at a later date. So why not combine both in one box? Toshiba has done just that with its RD-SX32, a combination 80-gigabyte (GB) hard-disk/DVD recorder with a not-too-scary $600 price tag.
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The silvery Toshiba’s rugged build is exactly what I expect to see in a machine capable of doing lots of cool stuff. The top surface slopes down slightly near the front panel and is packed with a generous number of buttons. Along with the basic record/playback controls, these include buttons for switching inputs, changing channels, and selecting either the DVD drive or hard disk. Underneath a flip-up door on the front panel is an A/V input with composite- and S-video connections plus a FireWire port for hooking up a camcorder.
Along with the standard A/V inputs on the back panel (Click to view “Features Checklist”), the Toshiba has an output for an infrared (IR) blaster that you can aim at your cable or satellite receiver for VCR Plus+ automatic program recording. The supplied remote control is large — and needs to be to hold all the buttons spread over its surface. Happily, the main buttons for basic DVD playback are in the center where they can be easily found. The many other controls for recording, editing, and hard-drive functions are located above and below them, with additional buttons stashed below a flip-up latch at the bottom of the handset. This remote definitely takes some getting used to.
The deep onscreen menus were similarly daunting until I found the Easy Navi button. Pressing it calls up a screen that clearly lists the recorder’s many features. The screen’s top half contains a window displaying the currently selected program, an icon indicating if it’s located on the hard drive or on disc, and additional information like date recorded, program length, and playback time. The lower half of the screen has a list of functions including TV Viewing, Timer Recording, Play Contents, and DV Recording (to dub footage from a camcorder). Other options let you delete programs, format DVD-RAM or DVD-RW discs, dub programs from hard drive to disc, or vice versa, and access the recorder’s setup menu.
With both hard-disk and DVD-R/RW recording onboard, the Toshiba offers many editing features that the other two decks lack. For example, its playlist editing function lets you cut out and compile a bunch of scenes from programs stored on the hard disk. Using this feature, you could easily create, say, a DVD of scenes from early Star Trek episodes where Captain Kirk gets busy with the alien babes. The same method can also be used to edit camcorder footage, but the process of dividing your shots up into discrete chapters for editing on the Toshiba is ultimately clumsy and slow. If you’re comfortable editing video on a computer, that’s a much better way to do it.
The Toshiba lacks an onscreen electronic program guide, which made scheduling recordings something of a chore compared with the Dish Network satellite hard-disk recorder I normally use. I had to look up codes on the TV Guide Web site and manually punch them in via the remote to activate the deck’s VCR Plus+ function. Otherwise, things worked smoothly, and besides the two standard presets, audio and video picture quality (encoding bit rate) could be adjusted in fine increments. The only glitch I encountered was when I tried to transfer MiniDV tapes to the hard disk using the FireWire connection. The Toshiba easily took control of my JVC camcorder’s playback, but it couldn’t capture any video — the only recorder here with this problem. MiniDV dubbing worked fine with a Sony camcorder, however.
Otherwise, the Toshiba’s video performance was outstanding. An episode of The Wiggles I recorded for my daughter looked noise-free and crisp, and recordings of Buffy the Vampire Slayer made at the SP preset’s 5-Mbps bit rate looked about as clean as the live cable-TV image onscreen. Progressive-scan DVD playback was also very good — definitely up to the high standard of other Toshiba players I’ve tested.
If you’ve got the extra money, a hard-disk/DVD recorder like this Toshiba is definitely the way to go. There’s a lot to be said for a machine that lets you record programs to a spacious hard drive, edit out the commercials, and then dump everything to DVD on an as-needed basis. And I’ve really only just scratched the surface of the vast feature set. When you consider all the things this deck can do, its $600 price is more than reasonable.
Yamaha DRX-2
Yamaha is known to A/V buffs mostly for its receivers, but the company seems to have its hand in every product category, including plasma TVs, DLP and LCD front projectors, and now DVD recorders. Its $600 DRX-2 is a well-built machine boasting DVD+R/RW recording and a FireWire port for a camcorder connection.
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The DRX-2’s black case and overall design closely adheres to the traditional Yamaha look — without knowing it’s a recorder, you might mistake it for one of the company’s CD or DVD players. Only the most basic control buttons — like play, stop, fast forward/rewind, and record — are on its sparse front panel. Annoyingly, that record button lights up like Rudolph the Reindeer’s nose when the DRX-2 is recording. A flip-up door on the front hides the FireWire port and an A/V input with composite- and S-video jacks.
Yamaha’s remote control has a nice, compact design and fit comfortably in my hand. Its clean keypad layout also allowed me to quickly find any button I was looking for. The DRX-2’s rear panel, meanwhile, holds all the ins and outs you’d expect on a recorder. I was surprised to see that it had a component-video input. If you’re getting any funny ideas about copying DVDs with this, think again — the Yamaha won’t accept signals from copy-protected discs (neither will any other DVD recorders, for that matter).
Setting up and using the Yamaha wasn’t difficult once I blundered my way through its cryptic icon-based menu system. Unlike the Toshiba and LiteOn models, it offers no introductory screen to help you find your way around. The deck’s six recording-quality presets provide between 1 and 6 hours of recording time per disc, with the M1, M2, and M2x modes (1, 2, and 2 1/2 hours, respectively) each delivering very good picture quality. The recordings I made of Buffy the Vampire Slayer using these modes were all clean and crisp. But recordings made at the M3, M4, and M6 modes looked soft and broke up into “macroblocks” on some scenes.
I did have one recording issue with the Yamaha. While the deck could record signals from my JVC MiniDV camcorder via its FireWire port, a lack of audio/video control (AV/C) functionality meant that I couldn’t control camera playback with Yamaha’s remote, which made camcorder transfers more awkward than I’m used to. But simply as a DVD player for watching movies, the Yamaha delivered clean, detailed images. I did notice a slight amount of edge enhancement, which was visible as a faint halo on the edges of objects. Otherwise, there’s no reason this deck couldn’t be the main DVD player in your system.
It might be on the pricey side for a deck without a built-in hard disk, but Yamaha’s DRX-2 is a solid DVD recorder that combines very good video performance with the DVD+R/RW format’s ease of use. (Unlike DVD-R/RW discs, DVD+RW discs don’t need to be “finalized” to make them playable on standard DVD players.) If you’re leaning toward the DVD+R/RW format and are interested in a basic recorder, make a point of checking it out.
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| Could these recorders make dubs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as clean as a fresh stake through the heart? |
With prices starting at $300, there’s plenty of reason to pick up a DVD recorder to satisfy your TV time-shifting needs. If you want to avoid format wars by getting a machine that records on all disc types except DVD-RAM, then the LiteOn LVW-5005 may be the best choice. But if you’re inclined to take a partisan position toward DVD+R/RW because of its recording flexibility, then investigate Yamaha’s DRX-2. Finally, if a hard-disk drive for storing tons of programming, with the option to burn keepers to DVD, sounds appealing, then you’ll be well served by the Toshiba RD-SX32. No matter which choice you make, I can say for sure that you won’t miss your old VCR.
In the Lab
As with all the other DVD recorders we’ve tested, the horizontal resolution of these three decks gets cut in half, from full 540-line DVD quality to a decent-looking but distinctly less sharp 270 lines, at some point as you change recording mode to increase maximum disc recording time. With the Yamaha DRX-2, this happens with its 3-hour mode, and it occurs with the 4-hour modes of the LiteOn LVW-5005 and Toshiba RD-SX32, though the Toshiba allows you to fine-tune the tradeoff between recording time and image quality. While the recorders can produce excellent results in their 1- or 2-hour modes, all three machines produced images riddled with artifacts, including mosquito noise and blocking, at their highest-capacity (lowest-bit-rate) settings. The artifacts from each machine looked slightly different due to differences in their MPEG encoding, but the overall deleterious effect on the image was about the same. Movements looked somewhat jerky in the LiteOn’s 6-hour mode because of its switching to MPEG-1 encoding, with half the horizontal and vertical resolution. The other recorders maintain MPEG-2 encoding throughout but with increasing levels of visible glitches.
The Yamaha and Toshiba had generally fine progressive-scan performance, but the LiteOn produced jagged diagonal edges in many images. The LiteOn’s playback of movie DVDs was slightly hampered by a rolled-off luminance response (down 2.5 dB at 4 MHz, reaching –4.4 dB at 6.75 MHz), which gave it a slightly softer image than the others. Of course, this also affects playback of the DVDs it makes. Discs made on the LiteOn actually looked better when played on the Toshiba and Yamaha! Finally, the LiteOn’s CD-recording performance suffers from its not having a digital audio input, which puts any CDs created on it at the mercy of its higher-than desirable analog-input noise level (–68 dB). Still, it’s useful to be able to record DVDs and CDs on the same deck.
— David Ranada