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HARDWARE
$1,999; $1,500
DVD recorders worth the wait
The VCR has always been the dust-covered stepchild of my home theater system. I've been jonesing for a DVD recorder since I got my first player in 1997. Now, a year after Panasonic's costly debut, the rest of the electronics industry is offering units for half as much. But which to get? My two faves, for different reasons, are Philips' DVDR1000 and Panasonic's new model, the DMR-E20.
Both recorders use MPEG-2 data compression (the same as prerecorded DVDs) to get the job done. The machines differ, however, in what type of disc they write on and where the discs can be played back. The Panasonic records onto write-once DVD-R and DVD-RAM discs, which can be played back on most DVD players and in PC DVD-RAM drives. The Philips writes onto DVD+RW discs. DVD+RW is re-recordable and will play back on nearly any late-model player. It also doesn't need to go through the 10 minutes of finalization DVD-Rs require.
To determine the ultimate VCR killer, I performed two everyday tasks: dubbing from a digital camcorder and recording cable TV programs. Task one began after my kids wrapped production on a home video featuring Fred the mouse. MiniDV and Digital 8 camcorder owners will appreciate the Philips machine's i.LINK input, which enables all-digital dubs. Panasonic offers only analog S-video and RCA audio inputs. Needless to say, the Panasonic didn't look or sound as good as the Philips, but still was noticeably better than the best VHS copy. If you want to perform nonlinear editing (move scenes around), your only choice is the Panasonic and its DVD-RAM. The simple menu of user-defined scenes and thumbnail images makes for quick and easy moviemaking.
Task two, recording TV shows, also produced a mixed bag of results. Both machines feature a built-in TV tuner and multiple recording modes. But the Philips' 4.7-Gbyte DVD+RW disc only holds from 1 hour of top-quality video to 4 hours of just-better-than-VHS-quality footage. With a double-sided 9.4-Gbyte DVD-RAM disc, Panasonic's maximum recording length jumps to 12 hours.
When quality matters more than quantity, it's a toss-up. While recording, Philips' variable bit-rate technology assigns more bits to fast-moving images, making sports and action programs noticeably sharper. Yet Panasonic's flexible recording mode automatically selects the best picture quality for the time and space remaining on your disk.
In the end, Philips wins if you want the cleanest dubs from digital camcorders, as well as rewritable DVDs. Panasonic comes out ahead in editing and daily TV recording. Either way, Fred the mouse has never looked better.
Panasonic: www.panasonic.com; Philips: www.philips.com.
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